the publication was so successful that Murray, the publisher, who is said to have paid the poets at the rate of half-a-guinea a line for the first edition, found the bargain very profitable.

The year after this, 1814, is memorable for the transitory restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France, and the enforced retirement of Buonaparte to Elba. The continent was again open to travellers, and Rogers took advantage of the peace to visit Italy with his sister Sarah. He went with a mind well prepared by reading and artistic taste, and fully awake to the historical and classical associations of his road as he passed through Switzerland across the Simplon to Milan and Venice. He did not compose much during this journey, but kept a carefully written diary for future reference. He passed through Bologna to Rome, and visited Naples, where Murat was then reigning. Rogers was kindly received by both him and his queen. He then turned his face homewards, and had reached Florence, in the spring of 1815, when he was startled by the intelligence that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and that Europe was again in arms. He hurried home through the Tyrol and Germany, passed through Brussels, which was occupied by Wellington's army, and Ghent, where Louis XVIII. had found a refuge, and arrived in England at the end of April.

The result of this tour was a poem called "Italy," but the first part was not published till seven years afterwards. Rogers had first to complete a poem which had probably been commenced as soon as "Columbus" was out of his hands. This was "Human Life," which appeared in 1819. He represents various scenes from the cradle to the grave in the career of an Englishman of gentle birth

and liberal training, so described as to show all the good which might be found in what the poet believed to be the ideal of man in the present age. The life which he depicts is that at which he himself aimed, and which in the given circumstances he would not have been far from attaining. In the opinion of the writer himself this was his best poem, and in respect to the moral and liberal tendency of thought, combined with harmonious versification and carefully chosen expression, it affords the best example of his distinctive talent. Belonging to the same class of poems as the "Pleasures of Memory," it is more mature in thought, and at the same time freer in versification. It represents the same mind enlarged both in depth and breadth.

In the same volume appeared the "Boy of Egremond," which is of little importance, and "Lines written at Pæstum," which were almost his first attempt in blank verse. These lines evince the feelings with which he had visited the scenes of classic and medieval greatness; they were the firstfruits of his late tour in Italy, and the forerunners of the volume which he published in 1822 under the title of "Italy: a Poem; part the first."

This work was sent forth anonymously, and with such regard to secrecy that the author's intimate friends and even his publisher were kept in ignorance, and Rogers himself went out of England at the time of its publication.1 The object of this secrecy was probably to enable him to test the real value of his literary position. He had long held a high place in public estimation, and the very large circle which he included amongst his personal friends necessitated that everything

1 Rogers also disguised facts a little by taking the reader across the Great St. Bernard instead of the Simplon Rass, which was the route he actually pursued.

that came avowedly from his pen should to some extent be prejudged or partially estimated. In this poem he had taken a new direction, great care had been expended on it, and much time during the eight years that had elapsed since his visit to Italy had been devoted to its composition. It is easy to appreciate the motive which prompted a man never too self-confident, to submit his work to an unbiassed judgment.

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The result was not very definite. One review attributed it to Southey, but neither the "Edinburgh" nor Quarterly" noticed it. It is strange that the secret of its authorship was not solved till Rogers himself owned it, for the already published "Lines written at Pæstum" might have easily indicated the author. Like these the pieces are in blank verse; and in this respect, as well as in greater freedom of metre, they certainly at first sight differ widely from his other longer compositions. Rogers's taste was gradually diverging from the ordinary restrictions of versification. He had never used any but the simplest arrangements of rhyme, and was altogether opposed to the complicated construction of the sonnet. In the second part of "Italy" we find him occasionally forsaking rhyme altogether, and relating one or two episodes in prose.

During its composition he paid a second visit to Italy, again crossing the Simplon, travelling as far as Naples, and returning through Pisa, Genoa, Turin, and Paris. The new volume appeared in 1828, and this time he acknowledged himself in the title-page as its author. The sale of neither part was large. Fifty years ago continental travel was much less frequent than now; such a subject as Italy appealed only to a few, who were either rich enough to travel, or sufficiently cultivated to

have derived an interest in its historical associations or manifold riches of art. The result was therefore, on the whole, disappointing to Rogers; but instead of leaving the volumes to their fate as they stood, he kept back the unsold copies, and immediately prepared to re-issue them in what he rightly judged would be a more popular, though a more expensive form. By the year 1830 he had brought out a magnificent edition of the two parts of "Italy" in one volume, illustrated chiefly by Turner and Stothard. Four years later he pub. lished a similar edition of his other poems. The care he bestowed on these volumes was extreme. He personally superintended the work of the artists, suggesting subjects and proposing alterations, and spared no expense to secure a result that should be in all respects satisfactory to himself. He spent about £7,000 on each volume, but the sale was so large, that the whole outlay was returned to him in time.

After the publication of "Italy" he wrote very little. A short piece addressed to Lord Grey on the passing of his Reform Bill, another on the abolition of slavery, a few still shorter fragments in blank verse, added to from time to time, and published under the title of "Reflections," comprise the whole. He was at no time a ready writer, as may be judged from the long periods which elapsed between the publication of his successive productions, and he was moreover an exceedingly fastidious critic of his own performances, often altering and improving them even after they had gained the full approbation of such friends as were consulted during their composition. As he grew old he read his own works more constantly than anything else, and took pleasure in continually trying to improve them. The number of

different editions of his poems is marvellous, and almost each edition presented some variation, though sometimes it is very trifling, from that which preceded it. All are printed with the greatest care, and the mere mechanical work of revising the proof-sheets must have engrossed considerable time.

But though the last twenty-five years of his life were almost unproductive in a literary sense they were far from being ill-occupied. The enlargement of his collection of works of art and archæological treasures gave him constant and active employment in attending sales; and the cultivation of the society of his friends, of whom no one ever had a larger number, became to him a pleasant occupation. The list of men distinguished in art, letters, or politics who had at various times assembled round his table would comprise many of the most eminent in history; but Rogers kept no record of these occasions, save those on which he had been the means of healing quarrels or settling the differences of friends at variance.1 The most eminent of his friends in later life was the Duke of Wellington, whom he visited at Strathfieldsaye in 1834. In his "Recollections" Rogers has preserved some interesting anecdotes taken from the conversation of the great commander. In the same interesting volume 2 are reminiscences of the conversation of Fox, Burke, Grattan, Porson, Tooke, Talleyrand, Erskine, Lord Grenville, and an anecdote referring to his last interview with Sir Walter Scott but two days before he set out for Naples.

' Memoir by S. Sharpe, p. lxiii.

* "Recollections by Samuel Rogers" (edited by William Sharpe), 2nd ed. 1859.