HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS

after carried on the business under the style of Welch & Rogers. Meanwhile a family was fast growing up around him. His eldest son, Daniel, named after his father-inlaw, was born on the 3rd of January, 1761; about Christmas in the same year a second son, Thomas, was born; and a year and a half later, on the 30th of July, 1763, the third son, who was to outlive every member of the family, was born, and called Samuel after his maternal grandfather, Samuel Harris. Other children followed with nearly equal rapidity; Martha, afterwards Mrs. John Towgood, in 1765; Mary in 1766, Paul in 1768; another daughter, who lived but a day, and was never named, in 1770; Maria (afterwards Mrs. Sutton Sharpe) in 1771; Sarah-the Miss Rogers who lived to within a year of Samuel, and was all through her life closely associated with him—in 1772; Henry-the kind and thoughtful friend of his nephews and nieces-in 1774, and Mary Radford in 1776. Of these children three-Mary, Paul, and Mary Radford-died in infancy, and Thomas died in 1788, in his twenty-seventh year. Six saw the nineteenth century: Maria dying in 1806; Daniel, on whose death Charles Lamb wrote a Sonnet, in 1829; Henry in 1832, Martha in 1837, while Sarah lived on till January 1855, and Samuel till December in the same year. These two were thus the only long-lived members of a family, the father and mother of which died comparatively young, and of which only one other member reached the age of threescore and ten.

The charm of Dr. Price's character exerted a considerable influence on Thomas Rogers and his family. Dr. Price lived close by, and a great friendship sprang

up between him and the Rogerses. A weekly supping club was established which met at the houses of Dr. Price, Thomas Rogers, and Mr. Burgh in turns. These three, with Mr. Thoresby, the liberal and learned rector of Stoke Newington, were the chief members of the club, and at one of its suppers Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley were afterwards introduced to each other by Dr. Benson. Mr. Burgh was a schoolmaster, who kept a boarding school at Newington Green, and for a time acted as tutor to Samuel Rogers and his brothers. He was a man of acute mind, who wrote a work entitled Political Disquisitions,' but was best known as the author of a book On the Dignity of Human Nature.' Dr. Price was as great a favourite with the boys as he was with their parents. They not only listened to his sermons on Sunday afternoons but enjoyed his sympathy during the week, in their lessons and even in their games. Samuel Rogers spoke of him in after-years with the most sincere affection. He would go in from his study in his dressing-gown to spend the evening with the family, and the children never forgot the impression his conversation made upon them. He would talk and read the Bible to us,' said Rogers in after-years, till he sent us to bed in a frame of mind as heavenly as his own.' At other times he would take the boys and girls to his house and show them scientific experiments. The Equitable Assurance Society, in recognition of his services in the publication of his Treatise on Reversionary Payments,' his Northampton Mortality Tables,' and other writings, by which he had laid the scientific foundation of Life Assurance, had presented him with some scientific

apparatus-a telescope, a microscope, and an electrical machine. It is easy to imagine the charm which these instruments, then novel and unusual, had for a group of lively and intelligent children. Dr. Price's delight in the company of children, and his desire to contribute to their amusement and instruction, found in these toys of science an unfailing source of interest and profit to his young friends. But he had other and more personal charms. He was a most delightful companion for boys. He seems to have possessed not only a love for children, but much of that boyishness and love of frolic which have often characterised men of genius. In some juvenile recollections of him which Samuel Rogers has left, he tells several amusing stories which illustrate this unexpected side of a great man's nature. He once challenged Mr. Hulton, a commissary in the German war, and commissioner of customs at Boston, a much taller and more robust person than himself, to hop the length of the first field between the meeting-house and Stoke Newington, and won the race. On another occasion he attempted to leap over a honeysuckle bush in the grassplat in the Rogerses' garden, but to use Rogers's words,

he entangled the tree between his legs, and away went the honeysuckle and the doctor together.' The boys said to one another that he had once leaped over the New River; and it was his custom every day at two o'clock to run off for a swim in Peerless Pool. He had frequent falls from his horse, and in Covent Garden was once thrown into a basket of beans. His conscientiousness and benevolence were exemplified in other favourite stories. In a field near his house he once saw

some larks struggling in the nets in which they had just been caught. He cut the nets and set them free, but, reflecting on the loss he had thereby caused to some unknown person, returned and deposited some money on the spot. In one of his strolls he suddenly remembered that he had seen a beetle on its back, and he returned through several fields, found it, and set it on its legs. Assailed in a country walk by a footpad he mildly expostulated with the man and lectured him on the crime of robbery. His absence of mind was another source of continual amusement. It was said that he had gone down to his study to supper an hour after he had eaten the meal. In conversation he turned his wig round on his temples, twisted one leg round the other, and folded his cocked hat into a thousand shapes. all these things endeared him to the boys as much as his intellectual distinction, his tender religious feelings, and his lively interest in all the questions of the day, attached the elders to him. Rogers describes him as 'slim in person, and rather below the common size, but possessed of great muscular strength and remarkable activity. With strong features, and a very intelligent eye, his countenance was the mirror of his mind; and when lighted up by conversation his features were peculiarly pleasing.' Everybody admired and loved him, and this love and admiration exerted a powerful influence on the family at Newington Green.

But

Thomas Rogers and his wife were quite worthy of the society of which Dr. Price was the most distinguished member. He was a man of much vigour and decision, and she is described as a tall and handsome woman, with

dark hair and eyes and a face of great intelligence. Their children were not very strong. It was the time of queues and cocked hats; and Samuel Rogers says that the children wore cocked hats, and he remembered chasing butterflies in the fields with the quaint threecornered head-covering in his hand. The boys went to day-school at Mr. Burgh's and Mr. Cockburn's; and afterwards, when Mr. Burgh removed to Colebrook Row, Islington (where Charles Lamb lived at a later day), they went over to him for lessons. There was plenty of active outdoor amusement and exercise for the boys-bathing in Peerless Pool, riding on the nag, sporting in the paddock behind the house, and rambling over the open fields. London was two miles away, across the fields and gardens. now covered by De Beauvoir Town. Perhaps the best account which can be given of the father and mother is in the self-revelations of their letters, many of which have happily been preserved. In these letters are the only remaining records of Samuel Rogers's boyhood; and some of them are worth reproducing for the glimpses they give us of various interesting people, some of whom are famous and some forgotten, as well as for the picture they make of the pleasant life a prosperous middle-class family was living more than a century ago. The earliest in date are. from Mrs. Rogers, and were addressed to her husband during a summer journey he took with Dr. Price, in 1772, to visit the doctor's native district in South Wales; and a short stay Thomas Rogers made at his father's house on the way home. The letters, from which some purely business and domestic details have been omitted, show what kind of woman Rogers's mother was; how careful