poetry have been stricken. Few men of letters have been more personally known in their day, or more generally courted. A vein of agreeable conversation, sometimes amene, and more often caustic; a polished manner, a sense quickly alive to all that passes around; and, above all, perhaps, a taste in the arts, a knowledge of painting and of sculpture, — very rare in this country, have contributed to make the author of Italy scarce less distinguished in society than in letters." - Moore's diary is full of allusions to his social intercourse with Rogers and his friends. One day the fashionable poet was invited to dine in St. James' Place, to meet Barnes, the editor of the Times, in company with Lords Landsdowne and Holland, Luttrell and Tierney: and Moore, on Rogers' advising that he was well worth cultivating, broke off an engagement for the next Sunday with Miss White, and refused Lord Landsdowne, to accept an invitation from Barnes. Another day he would breakfast at Rogers' with Sydney Smith, Sharpe, Luttrell and Lord John; or amuse himself with reading the notes from Sheridan, or passages from the unpublished works of his friend. On 10th April, 1823, he writes, "Dined at Rogers'. A distinguished party: S. Smith, Ward, Luttrell, Payne Knight, Lord Aberdeen, Abercrombie, Lord Clifden, &c. Smith particularly amusing. Have rather held out against him hitherto; but this day he conquered me; and I am now his victim, in the laughing way, for life. * What Rogers says of Smith, very true, that whenever the conversation is getting dull he throws in some touch which makes it rebound, and rise again as light as ever. Ward's artificial efforts, which to me are always painful, made still more so by their contrast to Smith's natural and overflowing exuberance. Luttrell, too, considerably extinguished to-day; but there is this difference between Luttrell and Smith,—that after the former you remember what good things he said, and after the latter you merely remember how much you laughed. June 10th.— Breakfasted at Rogers', to meet Luttrell, Lady Davy, Miss Rogers and William Bankes. * Rogers 6 showed us Gray's Poems' in his original hand-writing, with a letter to the printer; also the original MS. of one of Sterne's sermons." Again, he dined with Rogers at the Athenæum, the first time the latter ever dined at a club. He dined with him at Roberts', in Paris, tête-à-tête, at a splendid dinner "at fifteen francs a head, exclusive of wine. Poets did not feed so in the olden time." But the dinners in the poet's own modest but elegant mansion will be remembered as models of refined and intellectual hospitality, as long as the names live of the great men who have delighted to gather round his table. We have alluded to Rogers' talent for epigram; a talent which he has very discreetly employed. His conversation seems to have been dry and sarcastic, though he is not to be held responsible for most of the bon-mots and repartees that have been attributed to him. It was at one time the habit of some of the London newspapers to manufacture these things, and ascribe them to Rogers. Of this manufacture, no doubt, is a mot that has found its way into a book so respectable as Mr. E. H. Barker's Literary Anecdotes. "Rogers, speaking to Wilberforce of the naked Achilles in the park, said it was strange that one who had made so many breaches in Troy should not have a single pair for himself." Moore records some of his observation, which are pithy and pertinent. On one occasion, speaking of the sort of conscription of persons of all kinds that was put in force for the dinner of the Hollands, Rogers said, "There are two parties before whom everybody must appear them and the police." Again, speaking of their friend Miss White, Rogers said, "How wonderfully she does hold out! They may say what they will, but Miss White and Miss-olonghi are the most remarkable things going." In talking of the game-laws at a party at Holland House, Rogers said, "If a partridge, on arriving in this country, were to ask what are the game-laws, and somebody would tell him they are laws for the protection of game, 'What an excellent country to live in,' the partridge would say, where there are so many laws for our protection!" On somebody remarking that Payne Knight had got very deaf-""T is from want of practice," said Rogers; Knight being a notoriously bad listener Rogers thus described Lord Holland's feeling for the arts: "Painting gives him no pleasure, and music absolute pain." From the reports of his conversation, we are inclined to believe that it is entitled to a good deal of the praise which the Quarterly Review bestows upon the Notes to his poems. In referring to the venerable poet, the reviewer says, "This most elegant and correct of writers, with a taste matured by the constant study of the classics of our tongue, has amused his leisure hours by trying into how small a compass wit, wisdom and elegance, may be packed. The notes to the last edition of his poems are not merely treasure-houses of anecdote and illustration, but admirable studies in composition for those who will be at the pains of ascertaining the precise language in which the same thoughts or incidents have been expressed in verse or related by others." Of an essay on assassination, written for insertion among the poems on Italy, Mackintosh wrote him that "Hume could not improve the thoughts, nor Addison the language." And Moore says, in his diary, that he feels it would do one good to study such writing, if not as a model, yet as a chastener and simplifier of style, it being the very reverse of ambition or ornament. It is well said, by a writer in the Quarterly Review, that there are few precepts of taste which are not practised in Mr. Rogers' establishment, as well as recommended in his works. In illustration of the remark, he alludes to a novel and ingenious mode of lighting a dining-room, which might be well imitated wherever there are fine pictures. Lamps above or candles on the table there are none, but all the light is reflected by Titians, Reynolds', &c., from lamps projecting out of the frame of the pictures, and screened from the company. His house in St. James' Place is small, but overflowing with the choicest specimens of the fine arts, pictures, antique bronzes, sculptures and literary curiosities of uncounted value. The following detailed description of the works of art which adorn this hospitable mansion is from the pen of Professor Waagen, of Berlin : "By the kindness of Mr. Solly, who continues to embrace every opportunity of doing me service, I have been introduced to Mr. Rogers the poet, a very distinguished and amiable man. He is one of the few happy mortals to whom it has been granted to be able to gratify, in a worthy manner, the most lively sensibility to everything noble and beautiful. He has accordingly found means, in the course of his long life, to impress this sentiment on everything about him. In his house you are everywhere surrounded and excited with the higher productions of art. In truth, one knows not whether more to admire the diversity or the purity of his taste. Pictures of the most different schools, ancient and modern sculptures, Greek vases, alternately attract the eye; and are so arranged, with a judicious regard to their size, in proportion to the place assigned them, that every room is richly and picturesquely ornamented, without having the appearance of a magazine from being overfilled, as we frequently find. Among all these objects, none is insignificant; several cabinets and portfolios contain, beside the choicest collections of antique ornaments in gold that I have hitherto seen, valuable miniatures of the middle ages, fine drawings by the old masters, and the most agreeable prints of the greatest of the old engravers, Marcantonio, Durer, etc., in the finest impressions. The enjoyment of all these treasures was heightened to the owner by the confidential intercourse with the most eminent, now deceased, English artists, Flaxman and Stothard; both have left him a memorial of their friendship. In two little marble statues of Cupid and Psyche, and a mantel-piece, with a bas-relief representing a muse with a lyre and Mnemosyne by Flaxman, there is the same noble and graceful feeling which has so greatly attracted me, from my childhood, in his celebrated compositions after Homer and Æschylus. The hair and draperies are treated with great, almost too picturesque softness. Among all the English painters, none, perhaps, has so much power of invention as Stothard. His versatile talent has successfully made essays in the domains of history, or fancy and poetry, of humor, and, lastly, even in domestic scenes, in the style of Watteau. To this may be added much feeling for graceful movements, and cheerful, bright coloring. In his pictures, which adorn a chimney-piece, principal characters from Shakspeare's plays are represented with great spirit and humor; among them, Falstaff makes a very distinguished and comical figure. There is also a merry company, in the style of Watteau; the least attractive is an allegorical representation of Peace returning to the earth, for the brilliant coloring, approaching to Rubens, cannot make up for the poorness of the heads and the weakness of the drawing. "As there are among the pictures some of the best works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, fine specimens of the works of three of the most eminent British artists of an earlier date are here united. “Beside portraits, properly so called, Sir Joshua Reynolds was the happiest in the representation of children, where he was able, in the main, to remain faithful to nature, and in general an indifferent but naïve action or occupation alone was necessary. In such pictures, he admirably succeeded in representing the youthful bloom and artless manners of the fine English children. This it is which makes his celebrated strawberry-girl, which is in this collection, so attractive. With her hands simply folded, a basket under her arm, she stands in a white frock, and looks full at the spectator, with her fine, large eyes. The admirable impasto, the bright, golden tone, clear as Rembrandt, and the dark landscape back-ground, have a striking effect. Sir Joshua himself looked upon this as one of his best pictures. A sleeping girl is also uncommonly charming, the coloring very glowing; many cracks in the painting, both in the background and the drapery, show the uncertainty of the artist in the mechanical processes of the art. Another girl with a bird does not give me so much pleasure. The rather affected laugh is, in this instance, not stolen from nature, but from the not happy invention of the painter; in the glowing color there is something specky and false. Puck, the merry elf in Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, called by the English Robin Goodfellow, represented as a child, with an arch look, sitting on a mushroom, and full of wantonness, stretching out arms and legs, is another much admired work of Sir Joshua. But, though this picture is painted with much warmth and clearness, the conception does not at all please me. I find it too childish, and not fantastic enough. In the back-ground. Titania is seen with the ass-headed weaver. Psyche with the lamp, looking at Cupid, figures as large as life, is of the most brilliant effect, and, in the tender, greenish half-tints, also of great delicacy. In the regard for beautiful leading lines, there is an affinity to the rather exaggerated grace of Parmeggiano. In such pictures by Sir Joshua, the incorrect drawing always injures the effect. I was much interested at meeting with a landscape by this master. It is in the style of Rembrandt, and of very strong effect. "Of older English painters, there are here two pretty pictures by Gainsborough, one by Wilson; of the more recent, I found only one by the rare and spirited Bonington, of a Turk fallen asleep over his pipe, admirably executed in a deep, harmonious chiaro-oscuro. Mr. Rogers' taste and knowledge of the art are too general for him not to feel the profound intellectual value of works of art in which the management of the materials was in some degree restricted. He has, therefore, not disdained to place in his collection the half-figures of St. Paul and St. John, and fragments of a fresco painting from the Carmelite Church at Florence, by Giotto; Salome dancing before |