the bookseller;1 and though Hayley was overrated as a poet he was an accomplished man, and his opinion was necessarily thought highly of.

The sale of the volume was consequently most rapid. Second, third, and fourth editions were successively published before the end of the next year; and to the last he added two new short pieces, "On a Tear" and "An Italian Song," as well as all previously published with the “ Ode to Superstition," excepting only the lines "To a Lady on the Death of her Lover," which he thus withdrew from circulation.

Up to this time Rogers had continued to live at his father's house in Newington Green; but in 1793 Thomas Rogers died; and by this event Samuel's circumstances were altered. A partial dispersion of the family had already taken place. Daniel, the barrister, had married and retired to an estate in Worcestershire, which he had inherited. Martha, the eldest, was also married to a gentleman named Towgood; and Maria was soon to become the wife of Sutton Sharpe. Sarah and Henry remained unmarried, and continued to live at Newington. Samuel was now thirty years of age, and found himself the possessor of a large fortune and the principal interest in the banking house. This was the time, if ever, at which he also would have married; but it does not appear that he was ever so inclined. Greater men than he have looked askance at matrimony as an impediment to success in life, and it is easily credible that the fair start in literature which he had just made, the social advancement which it promised, and the designs which he cherished for self

see

"Table Talk,” p. 57. Mason also praised the poem, "Table Talk," p. 17.

с

culture by travel and by the indulgence of his growing taste for art, were sufficient to deter him from accepting the less ambitious lot of married life, in the quiet community amongst which his relatives mostly lived.

Through his friend William Maltby he had become acquainted with Richard Sharp, a man of much natural ability, of an acute and critical mind, and with social qualities which gained him welcome admittance into literary and fashionable circles. Rogers soon became intimate with him, and it was perhaps at his instigation that, on Thomas Rogers's death, he took chambers in the Temple, and, while partly living at Newington Green, used the chambers for the purpose of meeting his friends. For during his father's lifetime the men whose friendship he had been glad to gain were mostly such as a similarity of religious and political opinions had brought into contact with the family at Newington Green. Amongst these were Dr. Priestley, who paid a visit to Thomas Rogers before setting off for America; Gilbert Wakefield, who after renouncing the orders of the Church of England was for a short time one of the lecturers at the Hackney College; Horne Tooke, and William Smith, the advocate of the interests of Dissenters in Parliament; under such influences Samuel probably took an active interest in the politics of the day.

"In the year 1792," says Mr. S. Sharpe," when a society was formed for obtaining a reform in Parliament under the name of Friends of the People, Mr. Rogers and his father both belonged to it, together with his brother-in-law Mr. John Towgood, and they signed the address to the nation which was then put forth by Charles Grey, James Mackintosh, Samuel Whitbread, Philip Francis,

Thomas Erskine, R. B. Sheridan, and others, who all thought that the way to save our constitution was to reform its abuses, and that a violent revolution like that in France was more likely to be brought on than avoided by the obstinacy of the Tories."

But after his father's death he found opportunities of mixing with a larger circle, and obtained introductions to people of rank and of all shades of political opinion; and his active political sym. pathies gave way more and more to impulses towards general mental culture, and the social distinction which could hardly fail to follow. At this time he began first to show a practical appreciation of the pleasure to be derived from art, an advance in cultivation partly due to his sister's marriage with Sutton Sharpe, who, while engaged in commercial pursuits, was at the same time an educated admirer of the fine arts. Through him he was introduced to Flaxman, Shee, Opie, Fuseli, Bewick, and other artists: he began to decorate his chambers with casts from the antique and engravings after Raphael, and published an edition of his poems illustrated by Westall and Stothard. The poem called "An Epistle to a Friend" (published 1798), on which he was now engaged, affords evidence of the progress his mind was then making. It is a poetical address, in imitation of a classical model, to his friend R. Sharp, setting forth the advantages of simple tastes and a country life over the pleasures of town; but it is noticeable that while the "Pleasures of Memory" does not contain a single allusion to painting or sculpture, the "Epistle to a Friend" manifests a keen perception of the innocent pleasure which may be derived through both. In other respects the "Epistle" may be regarded rather as an apology

to his friend for a country life than an expression of his own actual tastes, for he began to reside more continuously in town. In the year 1798 he sold the house at Newington, and for the future lived alone in London. He had before this made the acquaintance of Mrs. Siddons, as appears from an epilogue written in 1795 to be spoken by her at one of her benefit-nights, and this friendship lasted till her death. After his settlement in London his circle of acquaintance gradually grew very extensive indeed. At the house of W. Smith he first met Charles James Fox. A friendship was speedily formed between the poet and the highly gifted statesman, which lasted till the death of the latter in 1806. He had other friends who were distinguished members of the same political party-Grattan, the orator, Macintosh, the lawyer, and Erskine, of whose powerful defence of Horne Tooke, when the latter was tried for treason, Rogers was a deeply interested hearer. Tooke's imprisonment was in the year 1794. After his release he resided at Wimbledon, and thither Rogers would go to visit him on Sundays, and listen to the delightful conversation of him

"Who best interprets to mankind

The 'winged messengers' from mind to mind."

But his circle of friends was in no way restricted by politics or party. It is to his credit that he neither modified the liberal opinions nor disavowed the religious tenets in which he had been educated; but his reputation and position as a philosophic poet, and his real liberality of mind, procured him admittance into social circles in which the claims of either political or religious party-feeling cease to be paramount as the bond of association. And Rogers was not out of place in the society of people

of rank. In this respect his tastes differed from those of his father, who had constantly shunned the aristocratic acquaintance which the elder Thomas Rogers of Worcestershire, by virtue of his Tory principles, and the important position he held in his neighbourhood, had been able to cultivate. In any case it would have been difficult for the poet to hold himself aloof when ladies of rank sought his friendship. At Lady Jersey's he became a frequent visitor and intimate friend, and there met the most distinguished men and women of the day. Lady Crewe, one of the most prominent characters in society at the commencement of this century, was also among his friends. But the most important friendship of his life was that with Lord and Lady Holland. The goodness of heart, the unprejudiced mind, the liberal opinions and talent of the one; the hospitality, frankness, and high spirit of the other, have often enough been told, and it need scarcely be repeated that these qualifications, combined with the high social rank of the owners, made Holland House at once the pleasantest and most distinguished centre in London literary society. Rogers was fortunate when he gained admittance to it, but Lady Holland was not amongst his earliest acquaintances in the great world. According to the editor of the “Table Talk,” Mr. Richard Sharp once said to him, “When do you mean to give up the society of Lady Jersey?" Mr. Rogers replied, "When you give up that of Lady Holland "—little thinking then that she was eventually to be one of his own most intimate friends. In the year 1796 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, an honour which though reserved less exclusively than now for men of intellectual eminence, was, as it has always been, a considerable social distinction. Nine years later,