The king had surrendered his unlimited power after the massacre of his Swiss guards at Versailles, and had been brought to Paris almost a prisoner. Hereditary titles had been abolished, and a new constitution had been proclaimed. The English Tories were frightened, lest the revolutionary spirit should spread to England; while the friends of reform gained courage, and thought that it was then the time to get many abuses and corruptions removed from our constitution. The Dissenters took the side of hope; and Dr. Price, in his Discourse on the Love of our Country, congratulated his hearers on the prospect of an improvement in human affairs, when the dominion of kings and priests would give way to the dominion of laws and conscience. Burke, on the side of the king, had published his Reflections on the French Revolution, and Paine, on the side of the people, his Rights of Man. Mr. Rogers felt warmly with the Whigs and Dissenters; and in January, 1791, he made a short visit to Paris, led by his wish to witness a great nation's first steps in the path of freedom, after it had been enchained for so many generations. The Church property had been seized by the State; and the priests were the object alike of hatred and of ridicule. At Amiens he was not able to hear mass in the cathedral, as the chapels were sealed up till the priests had taken the civic oath. Some of the French, to whom he had letters of introduction, were already alarmed at the excesses which threatened to follow upon the removal of the old restraints. But Mr. Rogers saw more reason to hope than to fear. He was delighted, he wrote home,

'to observe so many thousands beating, as it were, 'with one pulse in the cause of liberty and their 'country, and crowding every public walk to speak 'openly those noble sentiments which before they 'hardly dared to think of."

During this short visit, and in the midst of this political excitement, he took only a hasty view of the Orleans Gallery of pictures, which a few years later were brought to England. He had not as yet had his attention much turned to works of art; though, indeed, only the month before he started for Paris, he had heard Sir Joshua Reynolds deliver his last lecture in the Royal Academy, and heard Burke compliment him, when he sat down, with the words of Milton:

'The angel ended, and in Adam's ear

'So charming left his voice, that he a while

'Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear.'

In the beginning of the next year, 1792, Mr. Rogers published his 'Pleasures of Memory.' He had been busy upon this poem for six years; but he thought it safest not to put his name to it, and he described it as by the author of the 'Ode to Superstition.' It was at once most favourably received and universally admired. The Monthly Review, which was still the chief organ of literary praise and blame, praised it highly, saying, that correctness of thought, delicacy 'of sentiment, variety of imagery, and harmony of ' versification are the characters which distinguish this 'beautiful poem in a degree that cannot fail to ensure 'its success.' The poem indeed was at once most

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successful, and has ever since continued most popular. No secret was made of who was the author. He was acknowledged to be a true poet, and he held his rank unquestioned when, in the next half century, men arose better than any that bore the name of poet when he began to publish. It was a favourable moment for a young candidate for public notice. Poetry was then at a very low ebb; Mason, Joseph Wharton, Wm. Whitehead, Cambridge, Beattie, Cowper, and Hayley, were the then living poets; Crabbe indeed had begun to write, but his poems had not yet made him known. Of these no one but Cowper could bear any comparison with the author of Pleasures of Memory.' The sale of this new poem was most rapid. A second, third, and fourth edition, in various-sized volumes were published before the end of the next year, 1793. To the principal poem in the volume were added two shorter poems, the beautiful lines ‘On a Tear,' and 'An Italian Song.' He also added to this volume the Ode to Superstition,' and the other contents of the former volume; except indeed that he omitted the lines 'To a Lady on the death of her Lover,' which he thought not good enough to be joined with his later and better works.

In 1793 his father died; and it was during the anxiety of his last illness that Mr. Rogers wrote the lines 'In a Sick Chamber,' beginning,

'There, in that bed so closely curtained round,
'Worn to a shade, and wan with slow decay,
'A father sleeps !'

After the death of his father Mr. Rogers took chambers in Paper Buildings, in the Temple, and in part left the house at Newington Green to his younger brother Henry and his sisters. He was then thirty years of age, and master of a large fortune; and by introducing his brother Henry two years afterwards into the banking-house to manage it for him, he soon became master also of ample leisure for literature and society. He continued in the same business till his death, sixty years later; but he always left the management of it to his several partners who one after the other joined him in the firm during that long period.

In 1795, having become acquainted with Mrs. Siddons, he wrote for her an Epilogue to be spoken on her benefit-night after a tragedy. It playfully describes the life of a fashionable lady, in the style of Shakespear's Seven Ages of Man. Mrs. Siddons was much pleased with it, but took the liberty, when she spoke it, of curtailing it and a little altering it, as she said for stage effect.

The marriage of his sister Maria in 1795 was not without some influence on Mr. Rogers's tastes. Sutton Sharpe, his new brother-in-law, though brought up to trade and always engaged in business, was particularly fond of the fine arts. He had when young drawn from the antique and from the life in the Royal Academy, and was intimate with Stothard, Flaxman, Shee, Opie, Fuseli, Bewick, Holloway, and other artists. To these artists and in a great measure to these tastes he introduced Mr. Rogers; and Mr. Rogers then ornamented his rooms with a number of

casts and drawings from the best ancient statues and with engravings from Raphael's pictures in the Vatican. His love of art also now showed itself in his works; and the volume of his poems was ornamented with engravings after drawings by Westall and Stothard, to both of which artists his patronage was most kind and useful.

A few years before this time he had become acquainted with Richard Sharp to whom he was introduced by his friend William Maltby. Richard Sharp was a man of industry and ambition, fond of reading, of great memory and sound judgment, a good critic, and a valuable friend to a young author. In later life he became a wealthy West India merchant, and a Member of Parliament. His society was much courted, and he often went by the name of Conversation Sharp. While Samuel Rogers was living at Newington Green, his friend Conversation Sharp was mixing in literary and fashionable circles at the West End of London, and recommending him to follow in the same path. This circumstance gave rise to the 'Epistle to a Friend.' In the same spirit Horace had before addressed a poem to his city friend Fuscus, and Petrarch a sonnet to Colonna. His friend Dr. Aikin had also just translated the Epistle of Frascatorius to Turrianus, in praise of a country life for a man of letters. To this latter Mr. Rogers's 'Epistle' is most allied. He published it in 1798. It is one of the most pleasing of his poems. In it he explains the principles of true taste, as being founded on simplicity, and as bringing about great effects by small means. It is a picture of his mind