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Gray. But like Dante, who studied from Virgil, and Reynolds, who studied from Michael Angelo, while he wished to profit by their inspiration, he certainly did not imitate them. He blamed their choice of words, as not being those used in every day life. He thought that the feelings of the heart could be best uttered in the language of the nursery; and as an example of lofty thoughts made yet more striking because clothed in simple language, he would quote Mrs. Barbauld's lines beginning―

'Life we've been long together.'

He compared the passage in which Gibbon describes his feelings on bringing his great historical work to a close, with that in which Cowper describes the same feelings when he had finished his translation of Homer; and he placed the simple narrative of the Poet above the more measured sentences of the Historian. "The 'Poets,' he said, 'are the best prose writers.'

For his use of a word, when he had a doubt about it, he was chiefly guided by Dryden, Milton, and King James's Bible, and more particularly by the last. 'How fortunate for us,' he remarked, 'that the Bible was translated when the English language was in such 'a state of purity.' He made the same use of Cruden's Concordance as of Johnson's dictionary. When an old and new word, or an old and new arrangement of words were before him for his choice, he chose the older if still in use. By so doing we check the too rapid change in the language.

He never spared his labour when composing. While writing the 'Epistle to a Friend,' he used from time to time to show it to Richard Sharp, who highly approved of it, and who would say, 'Let it alone, it can't be better.' But Mr. Rogers was not so easily satisfied, and continued to re-cast the thoughts, and to mend the rugged lines; and when he again showed it to his critic, Sharp would say, with yet warmer praise, It is quite another thing.'

He spoke of himself as an author with the boast of true humility, 'I always did my best.' 'What is 'written with ease,' he would say, 'is often read with 'difficulty. Moreover, what is written in a short time, 'will live only for a short time. If you neglect time, 'time will be revenged upon you.' He used to read with approval Ben Jonson's remarks upon Shakespear, and his wish that the great dramatist had taken more pains. He thought that even this greatest of our writers would sometimes have done better if he had corrected his first thoughts.

He took great pleasure in the circulation of his poems, and owned that he was not too proud to help the sale by the lowness of the price, and by the beauty of the illustrations. He gave away copies of them most freely to those who came to visit him. When they were once pirated in a cheap edition and sold for sixpence, he was rather pleased than otherwise, saying that he thereby gained the more readers; and instead of stopping the piracy he himself bought many of the pirated copies to give away. The number of editions. which he printed was very large. His poems were

also printed in France and in America, and translations of them in Italy and Germany.

Though many of the poets of his generation had been successful in gaining admirers by immoral writing, by writing, some openly and some covertly, in behalf of vice rather than virtue, he never, in a single line or word made such an unworthy use of his powers, or so aimed at gaining popularity. He held no praise or admiration worth having if it was to be accompanied with the thought that he had used his gift of poetry for anything but good. He thought Gibbon the greatest of our English historians; but said that he would not, if he could, accept the honour of being the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, stained as that great work is with the blot of so many attacks upon religion and morality.

His own volumes were always in his hands; and he found a never failing source of pleasure in the attempt to make his poems better; a pleasure which is unknown to those who think that the first thoughts written down on the spur of the moment, are better than those which have been clothed with words more carefully. Wordsworth one day remarked to him that Southey, as he got old, had very much left off reading, and that he probably read his own works more than any others. 'Why, it is very natural that he should do so,' said Mr. Rogers; 'I read my works oftener than any 'others, and I dare say that you do the same.' 'Yes, 'that he does,' said Mrs. Wordsworth; 'You know you do, William.’

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When Mr. Wordsworth died in 1850, Mr. Rogers, at

the age of eighty-seven, remained the last survivor of that bright cluster of poets that had ornamented the first half of this century. He had lived in friendship with most of them, Crabbe, Scott, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Byron, Moore, and Wordsworth. And he

now mourned the last of them. Upon this Prince Albert wrote to him by the Queen's command to offer him the post of Poet Laureate. But he refused it, making his age his excuse, saying that he was only the shadow of his former self. A second reason which also moved him to refuse it, he did not think proper to give; namely, that an honour accompanied by a salary was a very doubtful honour to a man in independent circumstances; and that as he had no need of the money, he did not wish for the character of withholding the one hundred pounds a year from some poet to whom it might be more useful. Prince Albert had before offered him an honorary degree in the University of Cambridge; but this he had also refused. He held, however, three unpaid and untitled offices under the Crown, given to him because of his knowledge of works of Art; he was one of the trustees of the National Gallery, one of the Commissioners for the encouragement of the Fine Arts in building the new Houses of Parliament, and one of the Commissioners for inquiring into the management of the British Museum.

During these years, for almost half a century, from when he built his house in St. James's Place till the day that he met with an accident and broke his leg, Mr. Rogers's rooms formed one of the centres of

literary society. They were hung around with a collection of pictures which received the approval of all the best judges. Almost every author and artist, on coming before the world, was there invited by him and welcomed as a friend. Perhaps no man not in some public profession, not in a political office, not in Parliament, was ever so much before the eyes of the public. His circle of acquaintance was boundless. Scarcely a biography of author or artist has been published during the latter end of his life, without frequent mention of Mr. Rogers; few foreigners have written their travels in England without describing his house, his pictures, and his conversation.

But he welcomed to St. James's Place those who had achieved eminence by their talents, hardly more than those who were endeavouring to achieve eminence. It was his delight to hold forth the helping hand to merit. Many a young man, striving in the path of letters or art, feeling as yet unable to make his works known, has breakfasted with Mr. Rogers, and been by him introduced to men of eminence in the same path, whom he had perhaps heard of or read of, and has walked home after breakfast an altered man, with stronger resolves to take pains, with renewed trust in his own powers, and encouraged with the thought that he was no longer quite unknown. In this way, while cultivating his own tastes, he enjoyed the pleasure of being useful and of guiding the tastes of others; and at the same time the pleasure of the celebrity which he gained therefrom.

Moreover, authors and artists are sometimes in want

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