quired that sort of popularity which is, perhaps, more decisive than any other single test of merit. It has been generally admired, and, what is not always a certain consequence of being admired, it has been generally read. The circulation of it has not been confined to the highly-educated and critical part of the public, but it has received the applause which to works of the imagination is quite as flattering, of that far more numerous class, who, without attempting to judge by accurate and philosophical rules, read poetry only for the pleasure it affords them, and praise because they are delighted. It is to be found in all libraries, and in most parlor windows." In another part of the review, the critic says, "Endowed with an ear naturally correct, and attuned by practice to the measures of his favorite masters, nice to the very verge of fastidiousness, accurate almost to minuteness, habitually attentive to the finer turns of expression and the more delicate shades of thought, Mr. Rogers was always harmonious, always graceful, and often pathetic. But his beauties are all beauties of execution and detail, arising from the charm of skilful versification, the curiosa felicitas' of expression, culled with infinite care and selection, and applied with no vulgar judgment, and with the refined tenderness of a polished and feeling mind."

We must now cite a few sentences in a different vein, to show how far the Quarterly was right in its estimate of this critique, and to what extent it might well have annoyed the poet. "We have always been desirous," says the reviewer, after alluding to the poet's early productions, "to see something more from the hand of an author whose first appearance was so auspicious. But year after year rolled on, and we began to fear that indolence, the occupations of a busy life, or the dread of detracting from a reputation already so high, would forever prevent our wishes from being gratified. We were, therefore, both pleased and surprised when, upon accidentally taking up the last edition of Mr. Rogers' poem, we found that it was enriched, not only with several very elegant wooden cuts, but with an entirely new performance in eleven cantos, called Fragments of a Poem on the Voyage of Columbus.'"

After a minute analysis of the poem, the critic thus sums up its merits and faults: "Still, however, and with all its defects both of subject and of execution, the poem is by no means undeserving

manner,

attention. Mr. Rogers has not been able to depart from his former that which use had made natural to him, so much as he, perhaps, intended. He is often himself, in spite of himself. Habit, good taste and an exquisite ear, are constantly bringing him back to the right path, even when he had set out with a resolution to wander from it. Hence, though the poem will not bear to be looked at as a whole, and though there runs through it an affectation of beauties which it is not in the author's power to produce, yet it contains passages of such merit as would amply repay the trouble of reading a much larger and more faulty work. It will be the more pleasing part of our task to select a few of them, with an assurance to our readers that they are not the only ones, and with a strong recommendation to read the whole, - a recommendation with which they will very easily comply, as the poem does not exceed seven or eight hundred lines."

In this connection the following contemporaneous memoranda of Lord Byron's, touching the poet and his critic, will be read with interest:

"Nov. 22, 1813.- Rogers is silent; and, it is said, severe. When he does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house, his drawing-room, his library, you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. But this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. O, the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through life!

"Nov. 23.-Ward. I like Ward. By Mahomet! I begin to think I like everybody,—a disposition not to be encouraged; a sort of social gluttony that swallows everything set before it. But I like Ward. He is piquant; and, in my opinion, will stand very high in the house, and everywhere else, if he applies regularly. By the by, I dine with him to-morrow, which may have some influence on my opinion. It is as well not to trust one's gratitude after dinner. I have heard many a host libelled by his guests, with his Burgundy yet reeking on their rascally lips."

In 1814 the poem of Jacqueline appeared, in the same volume with the Lara of Lord Byron.

"Rogers and I," wrote his lordship to Moore, in July, 1814, "have almost coalesced into a joint invasion of the public. Whether it will take place or not, I do not yet know; and I am afraid Jacqueline (which is very beautiful) will be in bad company. But in this case the lady will not be the sufferer." To the author he had written a few days previously: "You could not have made me a more acceptable present than Jacqueline; she is all grace, and softness, and poetry; there is so much of the last that we do not feel the want of story, which is simple, yet enough. I wonder that you do not oftener unbend to more of the same kind. I have some sympathy with the softer affections, though very little in my way; and no one can depict them so truly and successfully as yourself. I have half a mind to pay you in kind, or rather un-kind, for I have just 'supped full of horror' in two cantos of darkness and dismay." In August he wrote to Moore, "Rogers I have not seen, but Larry and Jacky came out a few days ago. Of their effect I know nothing." He adds in the same letter, "Murray talks of divorcing Larry and Jacky, a bad sign for the authors, who, I suppose, will be divorced too, and throw the blame upon one another.

Seriously, I don't

care a cigar about it, and I don't see why Sam should.” "I believe I told you of Larry and Jacky," he again wrote to Moore. "A friend of mine was reading—at least a friend of his was reading-said Larry and Jacky, in a Brighton coach. A passenger took up the book, and queried as to the author. The proprietor said there were two,' to which the answer of the unknown was Ay, ay, a joint concern, I suppose; summat like Sternhold and Hopkins.' Is not this excellent? I would not have missed the 'vile comparison' to have 'scaped being one of the arcades ambo, et cantare pares.

Byron seems to have lived on terms of the most cordial intimacy with Rogers, who is one of the few persons of whom he always spoke with kindness and respect. The full-length portrait of his lordship, by Sanders, was presented to him. "You are one of the few persons," Byron wrote to him in March, 1816, " with whom I have lived in what is called intimacy." "It is a considerable time," Byron wrote in the year following, "since I wrote to you last, and I hardly know why I should trouble you now, except that I think you will not be sorry to hear from me now and then. You and I were never

correspondents, but always something better, which is very good friends."

His diaries and letters frequently refer to their social meetings. "On Tuesday last," he writes under date of March 6, 1814. "I dined with Rogers,— Madame de Staël, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Erskine and Payne Knight, Lady Donegal and Miss R., there. Sheridan told a very good story of himself and Madame de Recamier's handkerchief; Erskine a few stories of himself only. The party went off very well, and the fish was very much to my gusto. But we got up too soon after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so long after dinner, that we wish her in

the drawing"On Tuesday

room." The next week he makes another entry. dined with Rogers, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Sharpe, — much talk and good, all except my own little prattlement. Much of old times, Horne Tooke, the Trials, evidence of Sheridan, and anecdotes of those times, when I, alas! was an infant."

Of the nature of the relations between his lordship, Rogers, and their common friend Moore, the last mentioned gives us a vivid impression in his account of an evening in St. James'-street. We quote from Moore's Life of Byron :

"Among the many gay hours we passed together this spring (1813), I remember particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, when we had accompanied Mr. Rogers home from some early assembly, and when Lord Byron, who, according to his frequent custom, had not dined for the last two days, found his hunger no longer governable, and called aloud for 'something to eat.' Our repast, of his own choosing, was simple bread and cheese; and seldom have I partaken of so joyous a supper. It happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic and absurd. In our mood at the moment, it was only with these latter qualities that either Lord Byron or I felt disposed to indulge ourselves; and, in turning over the pages, we found, it must be owned, abundant matter for mirth. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in justice to the author, endeavor to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work. It suited better our purpose (as is too often the case

MEMOIR OF SAMUEL ROGERE

33

with more deliberate critics), to pounce only on such passages as ministered to the laughing humor that possessed us. In this sort of hunt through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive of gratitude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm, and, I need not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. We were, however, too far gone in nonsense, for even this eulogy, in which we both heartily agreed, to stop us. The opening line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect, When Rogers o'er this labor bent.' And Lord Byron undertook to read it aloud; but he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words When Rogers' passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh, till even Mr. Rogers himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, found it impossible not to join us; and we were, at last, all three in such a state of inextinguishable laughter, that, had the author himself been of the party, I question much whether he could have resisted the infection."

Byron always entertained and expressed an elevated opinion of Rogers as a man of taste and genius. In one of his letters to Moore he says, "I wrote to Rogers the other day, with a message to you. I hope that he flourishes. He is the Tithonus of poetry, — immortal already. You and I must wait for it." Again he says, “Will you remember me to Rogers? - whom I presume to be flourishing, and whom I regard as our poetical papa. You are his lawful son, and I his illegitimate." So in his journal, under date of November 24, 1813, Byron writes:

"I have not answered W. Scott's last letter, but I will. I regret to hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements. He is, undoubtedly, the Monarch of Parnassus, and the most English of bards. I should place Rogers next in the living list (I value him more as the last of the best school); Moore and Campbell, both third; Southey and Wordsworth and Coleridge; the rest, oi oiio-thus: