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the guest of Rogers, in order to attend court at the bidding of the Queen, and to make his acknowledgments for the post of laureate, which had been bestowed on him. On that occasion he wore the court suit of Mr. Rogers, whose guest he was.

"In conversation Mr. Rogers was one of the most agreeable and interesting of men; he was remarkable for a certain graceful laconism, a neatness and power of selection in telling a story or expressing a thought with its accessories, which were the envy of the best talkers of his time. His articulation was distinct, just deliberate enough to be listened to with pleasure, and during the last ten or twelve years of his life slightly, and but very slightly, marked with the tremulousness of old age.

"His ordinary manner was kind and paternal; he delighted to relate anecdotes illustrative of the power of the affections, which he did with great feeling. On occasion, however, he could say caustic things; and a few examples of this kind, which were so epigrammatic as to be entertaining in their repetition, have given rise to the mistake that they were frequent in his conversation. His behavior to the other sex was uncommonly engaging. He was on friendly terms with his eminent literary brethren, though they were enemies to each other; and, notwithstanding that his political opinions were those of the liberal school, his intimacies knew no party distinctions, and included men of the opposite political sect."

Mr. Willis tells us, in the Home Journal, that he first breakfasted with Rogers in 1835, and that he then looked like a very old man. "He had been brought to table," says the reminiscent," in his chair; and we found him already seated there when we arrived, his back to the light, and the only window of his exquisite breakfastroom and library looking out upon the bright sward and foliage of Green Park. The fine picture of intellectual old age which he then presented is exactly copied in the portrait of him by Lawrence. It is a masterpiece of art. The venerable poet sits with his head low down between his shoulders, but his eyes bright with conversational keenness of attention, the prominent nose, high cheek-bones, and strong line of brow, looking like the portico of some fine temple, from which the more perishable portion has fallen away, while the fire still burns within, on the sacred altar.

"Mr. Rogers was probably a wonderful instance of what may be

done, with the aid of medical skill and attention, to preserve life and make it susceptible to the pleasures of society up to its latest days. His physician, Dr. Beattie, was, doubtless, as much a doctor of the mind as of the body, himself a poet and man of genius, and affectionately devoted in his attentions both as friend and physician."

The leading journal of the world, the London Times, in an article published the day after his decease, thus epitomizes the biography of "Samuel Rogers, the poet." It is a curious fact that the subject of it is said to have outlived the author of this impressive obituary, the space of some three years.

“The death of a man who had attained to such length of days as Samuel Rogers would in itself be a somewhat remarkable occurrence; but when it is considered that the case is not one of insignificant longevity, that the man of whom we are speaking was, for the greater portion of a century, the companion and intimate friend of all the most remarkable men in Europe, — such an event as his disappearance from the scene cannot be passed over entirely without comment. It would be unfair, however, to his memory, to consider him merely as the friend of men distinguished in every branch of human achievement and human attainment; he had in his own person attained considerable distinction in various ways. As a poet his name will continue to occupy an eminent place upon the catalogue of classical English writers; as a literary critic, as a judicious connoisseur in art, and more especially in painting, few men have been his equals. For half a century, too, his house was the centre of literary society; and the chief pride of Mr. Rogers lay not so much in gathering round his table men who had already achieved eminence. as in stretching forth a helping hand to friendless merit. Wherever he discerned ability and power in a youth new to the turmoils and struggles of London life, it was his delight to introduce his young client to those whom he might one day hope to equal. The courtesy and consideration of the host soon drew forth the same qualities in his guests. Many a man now living can remember that on a Saturday night he went to bed an unknown lad, thinking of the celebrated men of his time as a person thinks who has only read about them, and on Sunday walked home from the hospitable house of Mr. Rogers, encouraged to persevere in his task by the hearty good wishes

and friendly sympathy of those who had heretofore appeared to him almost as inhabitants of another world. Great injustice, indeed, should we do to the memory of Samuel Rogers, if, in the few remarks we venture to offer upon his character, we did not give the first place to his boundless and unassuming charity, of which his unvarying kindness to literary men at the outset of their career was but a single form. Were this the proper place to recount histories of this kind, we could tell many a tale of forlorn and well-nigh hopeless wretchedness relieved by his hand. It was not necessary with him, as with costive philanthropists, that misery should have what is called a 'claim' upon him, in order to bring him to the garret where it lay pining. He had seen mention of it in the police reports, or in the public journals; he had heard it spoken of at the dinner-table of a friend. No remark issued from his lips at the time; he heard it as though he heard it not; but the next day, betimes, he might have been seen in person examining into the truth of the representation, and, if need were, affording relief with no sparing hand. this was done without ostentation, and without boast. No living man can pretend to say that this was his practice throughout his whole life, for he has worn out three or four generations of men; but it would be strange indeed if the youth and manhood of Rogers had in this respect been materially different from his protracted old age.

All

"The biography of Samuel Rogers would involve the history of Europe since Geo. III., then in the bloom of youth, declared to his subjects that he' gloried in the name of Briton.' It is now more than a quarter of a century since that monarch was carried to his grave in extreme age, worn out with mental and bodily disease. Let us take the most notable historic drama of the century, 1793— 1815; the rise, decline, and fall, of Napoleon Bonaparte. This was but an episode in the life of Samuel Rogers. He was a young man of some standing in the world, fully of an age to appreciate the meaning and importance of the event, when the States-General were assembled in France. If we remember right, he actually was present in Paris at or about the time, and may have heard with his own ears Mirabeau hurling defiance at the Court, and seen Danton and Robespierre whispering to each other that their time was not yet come. Let us go back to other events as standards of admeasurement.

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the war of the French Revolution and that against Napoleon Bonaparte were episodes in the ripe manhood, so was the American war an episode in the boyhood of Rogers. He was of an age to appreciate the grandeur, if not the political meaning of events, when Rodney won his naval victories, and when General Elliot successfully defended Gibraltar. He could remember our differences with our American colonies, and the battles of Bunker's Hill, Brandywine, and Germantown, as well as a man now in manhood can remember the three glorious days of July, and the Polish insurrection. To have lived in the days of General Washington, and to have heard discussions as to the propriety of admitting the independence of the North American Provinces, and to have been alive but yesterday, seems well-nigh an impossibility; but such was the case of Samuel Rogers. When he opened his eyes upon the world, that great and powerful country which is now known as the United States of North America was but an insignificant dependence of the mother country, a something not so important as the Antilles, even in their forlorn condition, are at the present moment. They were just rising to be somewhat of a little more significance than the plantations 6 to which Defoe smuggled off the troublesome characters in his fictitious tales. They now constitute one of the most powerful states in the comity of nations. Let us take another test, that of our Indian empire. But three or four years before the birth of the subject of these remarks, Col. Clive fought the battle of Plassy, and laid the foundation of it. He lived through the government of India by Warren Hastings, and, being in London at the time, could well understand the discussions which took place upon the subject of the India bill. The battle of Assaye found him a man forty years of age. He was in full possession of his faculties when Lords Hardinge and Gough won their victories in North-western India, but the other day. It would be superfluous to lay before our readers any contrast between the dates of other political events at which this remarkable man must have assisted, at least as an intelligent spectator. Let them carry back their minds to the days of Wilkes and the Duke of Grafton, and remember but the mere names of the statesmen who have administered the affairs of the country from that time to the present, and they will have present to their recollection a list of the associates and friends of the late Mr.

Rogers. As might be expected, his more intimate associations were naturally with the leading men of the liberal party; but such was his courtesy of temper and of manner that he was received upon a friendly footing even by those with whom he was known to differ on points of political principle. A mere politician he never was, at

any period of his career.

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--

“It is, however, to the literary history of the century we must mainly look for a correct appreciation of Rogers' career. only outlived two or three generations of men, but two or three literary styles. The Poet of Memory, as he has been called, must not be rashly judged by the modern student, whose taste has been partly exalted, partly vulgarized, by the performances of later writers, we are speaking of a contemporary of Dr. Johnson. Rogers must have been a young man, some twenty years old, when the great lexicographer died; and therefore a great portion of Johnson's writings must have been to him contemporary literature. Let those who are inclined to cavil at the gentler inspirations of Rogers think, for a moment, upon what English poetry was between the deaths of Goldsmith and Johnson and the appearance of Walter Scott's first great poem. Cowper redeems the solitary waste from absolute condemnation, as the most unfortunate epoch in our literature. Rogers no doubt formed his style upon earlier models, but he was no servile copyist; he could feel, without any tendency to apish imitation, the beauties of such authors as Dryden and Pope. The poem by which his name is principally known to the public will always remain as among the classical pieces of English literature; while some of his smaller poems will never cease to hang in the memory of men, while the English language is understood. This, however, is not the proper place for entering upon any critical disquisition as to the literary merits of the remarkable man who has just terminated his long career. Our intention reaches no further than to call attention to the remarkable duration of his life, and to pay a tribute of respect to the memory of a man who richly deserved it. Among the many remarkable points which may be mentioned in his career, considered as that of a literary man, the fact should be particularized that during the greater portion of his life he was a wealthy banker in the city of London. It must have been by an extraordinary combination of position, of intellectual and social qualities, of prudence and of wis.

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