"fifteenth year, Mr. Rogers had made a formal proposition "for her hand and-fortune. She answered the proposition "by a portrait worthy of H. B., and was tapped on the "check for her espiéglerie by the old dramatist Arthur "Murphy, with the observation that she was a saucy girl :—

'The heart that has truly loved never forgives,
But as truly hates on at the close.""

As Lady Morgan's style is studiously modelled on that of the Minerva-press novels, it is sometimes no easy matter to understand her; but the latter part of what I have just quoted seems to admit of no other interpretation than that Mr. Rogers, having conceived a hatred at Mrs. Piozzi's daughters because one of them had rejected his addresses, falsely accused them of being unforgiving towards their mother! Unable to resist the temptation of treating her readers to a second "love-passage," Lady Morgan continues: "Some fifty or "sixty years afterwards the venerable poet pleaded the same "cause to a young nymph who was not an heiress, and was "answered through the same pencilled medium from whose "protographic (photographic) truth there was no appeal." What! all this brought before the world by that Lady Morgan who only a few sentences above has "taken the "opportunity to enter her protest against derogatory gossip “about distinguished characters living or dead!"—the “young

nymph," too, being a near relation of her ladyship! She ends her excursive epistle thus: "Considering the intimacy "of Rogers at the mansion of Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi, it is "extraordinary that no allusion is made to it (i.e. his "proposal to one of Mrs. P.'s daughters) in the Table-Talk." By no means extraordinary; I can assure Lady Morgan that Mr. Rogers said much concerning various persons, and on various subjects, which I have thought proper to suppress; for instance, among the unpublished portions of his TableTalk is a sketch of herself, nothing inferior, I believe, in "photographic truth" to the "pencilled medium" of the "young nymph."

Nor is Mr. Hamilton Gray the only person who has charged me with misreporting the conversation of Mr. Rogers. In the same No. of The Athenæum which contains Lady Morgan's letter, a correspondent, under the signature Y.L.Y., is pleased to assert that-"The correction of (p. 101) Beau "Nash to the lady at Bath, who was so pertinacious in the "long minuet, should run:

6 Mrs. Stone, Mrs. Stone,

Will you never have done?'

"the drawl on the false rhyme being the reproof. In the "well-known East Indian 'Joe' (p. 134) the Englishman was "not dining with a Hindoo, but smoking with him, when a "coup de soleil struck the lady, who made a third in the

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"party, and reduced her to ashes; and the host's order to "the servant was, 'Sweep away your mistress and bring "clean pipes!"" Really, the confidence with which Y.L.Y. (whether lady or gentleman) accuses me of inaccuracy is almost ludicrous. The question is not what may be the preferable versions of these trifling stories (which I was fully aware are related "with a difference "), but whether or not I have given them in the words of Mr. Rogers:—and in a short note to The Athenæum for March 8th 1856, I have proved, on the testimony of a member of Mr. Rogers's family, -of one who had even more frequent opportunities than myself of hearing his various anecdotes,-that the story of Beau Nash and the Indian Joe were aiways told by my venerable friend exactly as they are told by me.

I cannot conclude without noticing the insinuations which (in spite of what I said in the preface to this book have) been thrown out from more than one quarter, that my memoranda of Mr. Rogers's conversation were hastily made towards the close of his life, when his memory was greatly impaired. Nothing can be farther from the truth:-they were every one of them written down at various times during a period which terminated at least five years before the death of Mr. Rogers.

A. DICE.

"To the Editor of 'The Table-Talk of the late Samuel

Rogers.'

"Sir,-With another member of my family, I was in the "service of the late Mr. Payne Knight at the period of his "decease (April 29th, 1824); and I beg most unequivocally to "contradict the statement of the late Mr. Samuel Rogers, "that Mr. Payne Knight committed suicide by prussic acid.* "No such suspicion existed at the time; no such traces were "found in his room; and no coroner's inquest was held on "his body. Respect for the family of Mr. Payne Knight, and "interest in his surviving relatives (to one of the nearest of "whom I commit this statement), induce me to take the "liberty of addressing you, and intreating you to give "publicity to the fact that Mr. Payne Knight's death was "caused by apoplexy, according to the predictions and "reports of his medical attendants.

"I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

"JOHN JACKSON.

"The Royal Oak Hotel, Leominster, Herefordshire, "March 15th, 1856."

See p. 205.-Besides the above declaration, I have received from a near relative of Mr. P. Knight such a detailed account of his last hours as ought to remove all doubt that he died of apoplexy. I think myself bound, however, in justice to Mr. Rogers, to observe that he was not singular in attributing Mr. Knight's death to poison; it is in the remembrance of persons now living, that the late Mr. Roger Wilbraham, who had been very intimate with Mr. Knight, used to speak of his suicide as a fact not to be questioned.-ED.