furiously, and parades along the cliff in a flannel robe and pantaloons. By some he is taken for the Pope, who has emigrated; by others for a Carthusian friar. Your More returns her best thanks for kind enquiries. She still excites a little notice, and is for ever scampering with the hounds or the ladies. But, adieu! my dear Sarah. I must prepare myself for Lady Clark's supper, where there is to be a general insurrection this evening. Remember me to everybody at Aspleyns and Amersham.

'Affectionately yours,

'S. R.'

CHAPTER XI.

An Epistle to a Friend '-Letters from Dr. Warton -W. Gilpin-Criticisms and changes in the poem-Mr. Hayward's criticism-Rogers and Fox, Erskine - Political warfare - The Fox banquet, 1798 - The Duke of Norfolk - Prosecution of Gilbert Wakefield - Parr and Mackintosh.

·

THE Epistle to a Friend' was already finished when, in the autumn of 1797, Richard Sharp enquired about it. It had in all probability originated in conversations with him, and it may be regarded as a poetical reply to the arguments he had used to induce Rogers to leave his suburban home and plunge into the social life of the West End of London. His nephew, Samuel Sharpe, speaks of it as a picture of his mind at the age of thirtyfive, as "The Pleasures of Memory" shows his mind at the age of twenty-nine. The "Epistle to a Friend" describes his views of life, and his feelings on Art, on Literature, and on Society, as one who valued cheap pleasures, who had lived out of town, and was separated from London's round of gaiety and glitter.' Readers of my account of Rogers's early days will have no difficulty in understanding the truth of this statement. I have previously said that there was a struggle in his own mind which he turned into poetry. This praise of country life, from the point of view of a dweller in the

town is an old theme. So Horace wrote to Fuscus and Petrarch to Colonna. Dr. Aikin, as S. Sharpe points out, had just translated the 'Epistle of Frascatorius' in praise of a country life. It is the object of An Epistle to a Friend.' Yet the life at Stoke Newington had scarcely been country life. It was life on the verge of London, with many opportunities of mingling in the whirl. Rogers had seen true country life, such, for example, as Gilpin lived it at Vicar's Hill, only as a spectator, or at the very most as a visitor, but that may only make his praise of it the more sincere. He had not failed to read Cowper, the true poet of country life, and he could not read him without feeling a profound sense of the quiet which a close and constant communion with Nature brings into the mind. He appreciated what Cowper calls. an unambitious mind, content

In the low vale of life;

yet said to his soul

Be thine to blend, nor thine a vulgar aim,
Repose with dignity; with Quiet fame,

There is a good deal in the poem to indicate what his early home had been. The partial pencil, which, as he says, must

love to dwell

On the home prospects of my hermit cell,

needed the guidance of the poet's fancy, though he probably drew the picture from recollections of Gilpin's parsonage at Vicar's Hill. But the library demanded no flight of imagination. It is the very place where on

'AN EPISTLE TO A FRIEND

353

many an evening he had sat amid the studious silence of brothers and sisters, reading ancient books and dreaming inspiring dreams.

Selected shelves shall claim thy studious hours;
There shall thy ranging mind be fed on flowers! 1
There, while the shaded lamp's mild lustre streams,
Read ancient books or dream inspiring dreams;
And, when a sage's bust arrests thee there,
Pause, and his features with his thoughts compare.
-Ah, most that art my grateful rapture calls,
Which breathes a soul into the silent walls;
Which gathers round the Wise of every Tongue,
All on whose words departed nations hung

Still prompt to charm with many a converse sweet;
Guides in the world, companions in retreat.

There are other home touches. He had spoken in The
Pleasures of Memory' of the family portraits-

Those once loved forms still breathing through their dust, Still from the frame in mould gigantic cast,

Starting to life-all whisper of the past.

In the new poem the thought is again taken up and further expanded—

But could thine erring friend so long forget
(Sweet source of pensive joy and fond regret)
That here its warmest hues the pencil flings,
Lo, here the lost restores, the absent brings;
And still the Few best loved and most revered
Rise round the board, their social smile endeared.

Rogers's note on this line is as follows

-apis Matina

More modoque

Grata carpentis thyma.-Hor.

A A

His nephew points out that whereas in the earlier poem the family portraits are the only works of art spoken of, and were almost the only works of art known in his father's house,' in the later poem we find that he 'had gained a knowledge and love of art of the highest class, and understood the beauties of Greek sculpture and Italian painting.' He had imbibed this love of art, as has been already said, from his sister's husband, Sutton Sharpe, but he had not yet dreamed of indulging it as a rich man may. The villa in the Epistle' is a small country house, plainly and economically furnished.

Here no state chambers in long line unfold,

Bright with broad mirrors, rough with fretted gold;
Yet modest ornament, with use combined

Attracts the eye, to exercise the mind!

Small change of scene, small space his home requires
Who leads a life of satisfied desires.

The very object of the Epistle,' as he says in his 'Preface,' is to show how little True Taste requires to secure not only the comforts, but even the elegancies of life.' 'True Taste,' he says, 'is an excellent Economist. She confines her choice to few objects, and delights in producing great effects by small means; while False Taste is for ever sighing for the new and rare, and reminds us, in her works, of the Scholar of Apelles, who not being able to paint his Helen beautiful, determined Hence, in the imaginary villa, where

to make her fine.'

the aim was to blend

Repose with dignity, with Quiet fame,

a severe economy reigned.