or would he have me leave the tale for him to tell? But the best is that I happen to know he himself keeps -and has kept for many years a regular diary and disquisition upon all his own personal as well as public transactions-and has he done this with no view to posthumous publication? I will not believe it. I shall not quote his expressions because really some of them to me could only be noticed in one way -and that way neither present distance-nor past intimacy, were I nearer-would induce me to takewithout some overt action accompanied the harshness of his language. I have even written him as temperate an answer as I believe ever human being did in the like circumstances. Is there anything in the MSS. that could be personally obnoxious to himself? I am sure I do not remember, nor intended it. M Kinnaird and others had read them at Paris and noticed none such.

If there were any-I can only say-that even that would not sanction the tone of his letter, which I showed to one or two English and Irish friends of mine here - who were perfectly astonished at the whole of it. I do not allude to the opinions (which may or may not be founded) but to the languagewhich seems studiously insulting. You see, Murray, what a scene you have superinduced - because the original sin seems to have been about this foolish bust, or I am convinced that he would have expressed his opinions less in the Election style. However I am more hurt than angry-for I cannot afford to lose an old friend for a fit of ill-humour.

(1821, November 24. Letter 962, to John
Murray, Vol. V.,
p. 483.)

THE UNREFORMED REFORMER

351

By extracts in the English papers,-in your holy Ally, Galignani's Messenger,-I perceive that "the two greatest examples of human vanity in the present age are, firstly, "the ex-Emperor Napoleon," and secondly, "his Lordship, etc., the noble poet," meaning your humble servant, "poor guiltless I."

Poor Napoleon! he little dreamed to what "vile comparisons" the turn of the Wheel would reduce him I cannot help thinking, however, that had our learned brother of the newspaper office seen my very moderate answer to the very scurrile epistle of my radical patron, John Hobhouse, M.P., he would have thought the thermometer of my "Vanity" reduced to a very decent temperature. By the way you do not happen to know whether Mrs Fry had commenced her reform of the prisoners at the time when Mr Hobhouse was in Newgate? there are some of his phrases, and much of his style (in that same letter), which led me to suspect that either she had not, or that he had profited less than the others by her instructions.

(1821, December 4. Letter 963, to John Murray, Vol. V., p. 486.)

A drunken man ran against Hobhouse in the Street. A companion of the Drunkard, not much less so, cried out to Hobhouse, "An't you ashamed to run against a drunken man? couldn't you see that he was drunk?" "Damn him" (answered Hobhouse) "isn't he ashamed to run against me? couldn't he see that I was sober ?"

("Detached Thoughts," 1821-22. "Thought" 27, Vol. V., p. 422.)

Samuel Rogers

You never told me of the forthcoming critique on Columbus [written by Ward in the Quarterly for March 1813], which is not too fair; and I do not think justice quite done to the Pleasures, which surely entitles the author to a higher rank than that assigned to him in the Quarterly. But I must not cavil at the decisions of the invisible infallibles; and the article is very well written.

(1813, June 13. Letter 301, to John

Murray, Vol. II., p. 218.)

I

Can't you be satisfied with the pangs of my jealousy of Rogers, without actually making me the pander of your epistolary intrigue? This is the second letter you have enclosed to my address, notwithstanding a miraculous long answer, and a subsequent short one or two of your own. If you do so again, I can't tell to what pitch my fury may soar. shall send you verse or arsenic, as likely as any thing,four thousand couplets on sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege, sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too susceptible senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every one but himself. I won't frank from you, or for you, or to you-may I be curst if I do, unless you mend your manners. disown you-I disclaim you-and by all the powers of Eulogy, I will write a panegyric upon you—or dedicate a quarto-if you don't make me ample amends.

I

(1813, July 28. Letter 316, to Thomas Moore, Vol. II., p. 239.)

ROGERS'S ELEGANCE

353

Rogers has returned to town, but not yet recovered of the Quarterly. What fellows these reviewers are! "these bugs do fear us all." They made you fight, and me (the milkiest of men) a satirist, and will end by making Rogers madder than Ajax. I have been reading Memory again, the other day, and Hope together, and retain all my preference of the former. His elegance is really wonderful-there is no such thing as a vulgar line in his book.

Rogers wants me to go with him on a crusade to the Lakes, and to besiege you on our way. This last is a great temptation, but I fear it will not be in my power, unless you would go on with one of us somewhere-no matter where.

(1813, September 5.

Letter 327, to Thomas

Moore, Vol. II., p. 260.)

Lord Holland desired me repeatedly to bring you; he wants to know you much, and begged me to say so you will like him. I had an invitation for you to dinner there this last Sunday, and Rogers is perpetually screaming because you don't call, and wanted you also to dine with him on Wednesday last.

I will be a judge between you and the attorneo. So B[utler] may mention me to Lucien if he still adheres to his opinion. Pray let Rogers be one; he has the best taste extant.

[Reference is here made to a dispute concerning an English version of an epic poem, written by Lucien Buonaparte, Prince of Canino, and entitled Charlemagne, ou L'Église délivreé. At one time rival renderings of the epic were projected; but eventually an

Ꮓ

arrangement was come to, whereby the business of translation was entrusted to the Rev. Francis Hodg son and to Dr Butler, Headmaster of Shrewsbury and afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. The issue of this collaboration was published in 1815.]

(1813, October 1. Letter 338, to Francis Hodgson, Vol. II., p. 270.)

When

Rogers is silent,-and, it is said, severe. he does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house-his drawing-room-his library-you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. But this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. Oh the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through life!

(1813, November 22. 'Journal, 1813-14," Vol. II., p. 331.)

Saw [Rogers] yesterday. I have not kept my appointment at Middleton, which has not pleased him, perhaps; and my projected voyage with [Ward] will, perhaps, please him less. But I wish to keep well with both. They are instruments that don't do in concert; but, surely, their separate tones are very musical, and I won't give up either.

It is well if I don't jar between these great dis