among the visitors to his house none received a more cordial welcome than the Americans. In Europe, nothing was then heard of but the glories and miseries of war. Napoleon had defeated the Austrians and Prussians, and had conquered Holland, Italy, and Spain. In Portugal our army under Wellington, was struggling with masterly skill and courage, though with yet doubtful success against the French. At home we had been increasing our militia, illuminating our windows for supposed victories on the Continent, and filling St. Paul's cathedral with statues in honour of those who had been slain in battle, whether on the ocean or in Spain and Portugal. Such was the state of the nation's mind, when Mr. Rogers, true to his principles, wrote that fine opening to Canto VI. : 'War and the great in war let others sing, 'I sing a man, amidst his sufferings here, } It was only many years later, after peace was established, after, I believe, that he had become acquainted with the Duke of Wellington, that he added the Note to these lines beginning with the words, Not but that in the profession of arms there ' are, at all times, many noble natures.' The poem of 'Columbus' begins with an introduction and ends with a postscript, both written in short lines, with rhymes returning irregularly; and this year on a third visit to the Highlands of Scotland, he wrote a short poem, which we have before quoted, which is also in lines of eight syllables, and with the same irregularity in the rhymes. He had lost his fondness for the regular couplet of the 'Pleasures of Memory,' and 'Epistle to a Friend,' in which the only irregularity allowed is an occasional triplet. In 1814, he published 'Jacqueline,' in the same volume with Lord Byron's Lara. To these poems neither author added his name, though no secret was made of the authorship. Jacqueline is a playful little piece with exquisite versification. Like the Introduction to 'Columbus,' it is in lines of eight syllables with irregular rhymes, but with all the careful accuracy of the earlier poems. Mr. Murray the publisher paid to the authors the large sum of half-a-guinea a line for leave to print the first edition of Lara and Jacqueline, and instead of complaining of the bargain, had the generosity to own afterwards, that it had been very profitable to him. This was the only occasion on which Mr. Rogers did not take upon himself the charge of his own publications. In the spring of this year, peace was made with France, on the retirement of the Emperor Napoleon to the island of Elba and the return of the Bourbons. Upon this the Continent was again open to English travellers; and Mr. Rogers, in the course of the autumn, set out for Italy with his sister Sarah. He went by Paris and Switzerland. He crossed the Alps by the Pass of the Simplon. He visited Milan, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples where Murat was reigning as king. From Naples he turned homeward, and had reached Florence in the beginning of April 1815, when news met him that Napoleon had escaped from Elba, and had returned to France, and that Europe was again plunged into war. He thereupon hurried home through the Tyrol and Germany, in the rear of the allied armies, which were then preparing for a great battle with the French. He passed through Brussels while it was occupied by Wellington's army, and through Ghent while it was the residence of Louis XVIII.; and he reached England six weeks before the battle of Waterloo. While in Italy Mr. Rogers observed everything with the eye of a painter and a poet. He noted carefully in his journal the picturesque appearances of the country, the climate, and the people; and he put on paper the thoughts which arise in a refined and educated mind on visiting spots ennobled by great deeds. This careful journal was in preparation for a future work; but it was laid aside for the present, as he had a poem already half written which was first to be attended to. This poem he published in 1819. It was entitled 'Human Life,' and is full of generous sentiments and true wisdom. He therein teaches us to look upon our fellow-creatures with respect, and so pictures our trials and our enjoyments as to encourage us to aim after excellence, by showing us that it is within our reach. By most readers this will probably be considered his best work; he considered it so himself. He was fifty-six years of age, and full of experience helped by reading and reflection. He does not task his imagination, as in 'Columbus ;' but, like a thoughtful man, points out, as to those younger than himself, the good actions that they ought to imitate. The versification is free, and, like that of 'Columbus' and 'Jacqueline,' has not the regularity of his earlier poems; the pauses do not fall upon the rhymes, nor is the sense bounded by the couplet. Its scenery is wholly English; it had been begun before the journey to Italy, and it bears very few traces of thoughts gained in that classic country. Those thoughts, as before remarked, were to be made use of in a poem by themselves. Seven and twenty years had now passed since Mr. Rogers, on the publication of the 'Pleasures of Memory,' took his place among the English poets. Since that time all who had before him been successful in their efforts to gain the ear and favour of the public by poetry, had ceased from their labours and gone to rest. A new race of poets had arisen, with new tastes and new canons of criticism. Crabbe, Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Moore, and Byron had taken their place beside him. He admired their genius, and welcomed them as friends, although they did not follow the lights which had guided him. Crabbe and Campbell alone could be called of the old school of Pope, with whom shortness and neatness of expression was a marked aim. The others had rebelled, some against the regularity and careful finish which used to be required in verse, and some against the neatness and compactness of the sentences. Byron would have belonged to the old school, if he had followed his own judgment. As the readers were delighted with Childe Harold, he wrote accordingly; but for himself he valued most his Hints from Horace. 'We are all,' he writes in 1820, 'on a wrong revolu'tionary system (or no system) from which Rogers ' and Crabbe are alone free. It is all Horace then ' and Claudian now among us.' Thus, whether for better or for worse, the poetical taste of the nation, both writers and readers, had undergone a change; and Mr. Rogers's later poems, 'Columbus' and 'Human Life,' show that his taste had in part undergone the same change. He lived, indeed, to see a yet further change come over the public taste in poetry, when clearness and order in the thoughts were no longer required by the reader. But he strongly blamed all such cloudiness and want of ease in style; and he used to say of the writer who now-a-days takes pains to make his style simple, and to set forth his thoughts in the order most plain to the reader's understanding, that he is one of the most disinterested of men. So many readers now prefer obscurity, that an author is often less valued in proportion as he has taken care to make himself understood. In the same volume with 'Human Life,' Mr. Rogers published the lines entitled 'The Boy of Egremond,' which are, perhaps, the least valuable of his poetry; and also the 'Lines written at Pæstum.' These latter |