in repetition, that it seems not improper to give them entire, in the very words in which they were left, with that truth of expression and that concise and colloquial style in which Mr. Rogers delighted to write his journals.

It may add to the interest and value of the Recollections, if, before their perusal, attention is shortly called to some of the principal events and dates in the private life of the writer of them.

Samuel Rogers was born on the 30th July 1763, the third son of a London Banker, whose immediate ancestors were of a Worcestershire family, and members of the Church of England; while through his Mother he was descended from one of the Ejected Ministers of the reign of Charles the 2nd. It is, no doubt, to his maternal

descent that he alludes in the following lines, introduced into the notes on the poem of Italy

"What though his Ancestors, early or late,
"Were not ennobled by the breath of kings;
"Yet in his veins was running at his birth
"The blood of those most eminent of old

"For wisdom, virtue-those who could renounce "The things of this world for their consciencesake."

*

From his Mother, who was taken from him in his early youth, and of whom he always spoke in terms of the greatest admiration and affection, he imbibed a love of the intrinsically good which guided him on many an after occasion. And in one of his elder Brothers, whom he lost soon after he attained to manhood, and to whose memory he addressed those beautiful lines in the first part of the Pleasures of Memory beginning,

"Oh thou! with whom my heart was wont to

share,

"From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care,"

he had an example of virtue and good sense which strengthened his character and by which he profited through life.

His Father and Mother were Dissenters, and he was brought up in their persuasion; and always through life, when occasion required an expression on the subject, he described himself as a Presbyterian; though he never obtrusively put forward his opinions on religion, and often expressed himself as desirous of forgetting any little differences of creed, and of uniting with the virtuous of all sects and parties in one religion of Christian Love.

It is well known that Mr. Rogers was in politics a Whig; but in choice of friends he did not confine himself to any party; and

from the time when he first became known as a writer, and entered much into society, associated most intimately with persons of all parties.

Although introduced when very young into his Father's business, his love of poetry was shown early. Long before he was twenty he had put upon paper many lines which afforded promise of his subsequent performances. His first published poem, the "Ode to Superstition," was begun before he was of Age; and the " Pleasures of Memory" appeared while he was still a working partner in the Bank.

Having lost his Father in 1793, whose death-bed he has touchingly alluded to in his lines" Written in a Sick Chamber," and, having united with him in business his younger Brother Henry, he soon afterwards retired from all active management of the affairs of the Banking House, and never re

sumed it. He quitted his paternal residence at Newington Green, where he was born, and had spent the whole of his early life, and, after living a short time in chambers in the Temple, he removed, about 1803, to a house in St. James's Place, looking into the Green Park. This house he had altered and nearly rebuilt according to his own taste; and in it he resided until his death, on the 18th of December, 1855.

He has been heard to describe how, on some occasion after the death of his Father, he detected himself making a calculation as to the amount he might expect to accumulate if he continued to devote his whole time to the pursuit of wealth; and he was so shocked by the idea of being influenced by such motives, that he determined to desist from active business, and to attend to it henceforth only occasionally, or when matters of importance made the assistance of his judgment desirable