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SAMUEL ROGERS
12349
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger:
But now, alas!
SAMUEL ROGERS
12349
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger:
But now, alas!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 - Rab to Rus
I passed nights wander-
ing amid crowds to evade myself; forcing myself to the illusion
that I was something to those others who were moving before my
eyes. I have fled with horror from my home, so pitilessly filled
with myself; where the smallest objects-the bibelots, books,
paper on the wall, pictures and easy-chairs-sent back to me
like multiplied mirrors my odious image. It seemed to me that
I might leave it behind me as I went in the streets
this me;
or forget it in a café, or deposit it in a theatre; and I haunted
theatres, cafés, and streets. Often I fastened myself on to
trumpery friends,- friends met by chance,- and recounted to
them my affairs, sharing with them fragments of my soul, with-
out allowing myself to be rebuffed by their indifference. How
many times has not my heart beat out to strange hearts, without
hearing aught but its own palpitations beating in a vacancy?
How many times after having forgotten myself for an hour or
a night in gay company,- in salons, casinos, or taverns; after
laughing from full lips, and talking boisterously; after having
diffused myself in confidences to others, and received with a
friendly air theirs in return,- have I not felt with tenfold bit-
terness on the morrow that I was still alone, irremediably alone;
that the noises had vanished, leaving naught behind; that the
fumes of alcohol,- all had exhaled into sadness, like the friend-
ship or love of the day before.
Well, it seems to me now that my solitude is vanquished;
certainly not because I see unceasingly near me the same known
form, but because that form is loved. Something of her passes
continually into me, like a beautiful warmth; like another, bet-
ter life; and something of me passes into her. It is no longer a
-
-
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ÉDOUARD ROD
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strange soul, which remains a stranger in spite of frequent meet-
ings, in spite of closeness of relation; it is a continuous penetra-
tion, which little by little, of two beings makes only one.
It is strange how one permits oneself to be taken and swept
on by the machinery of life. We yield one finger carelessly; it
takes the whole body. We think we can play with it; take from
it what we wish; give up to it, through laziness, through las-
situde or indifference, fragments of ourselves, and yet remain
masters and maintain our independence. Illusion! After the
revolt of first youth, one day we see that we have surrendered
ourselves, that we are bound! It is the trifling and treacherous
habits whose insinuating sweetness has insensibly conquered you;
it is the ambition for a long-disdained aim, which yet developed
itself across your disdain; it is love-your powerlessness to
feel which made you for a long time doubt it, which you even
denied because you had experienced it under none of its known
forms, and which glides into you in a guise you never expected.
It is duty.
Heavens! Yes, duty,-the sentiment unjusti-
fied among all; that convention, that absurdity, that imperative,
whose non-existence your reason has a thousand times demon-
strated; which sets itself to cry out its orders, and makes itself
obeyed. All these ties bind me; all these voices govern me; I
feel that I no longer belong to myself.
How many times before, when I suffered without cause, or
when some dolorous shock produced agonizing thoughts in me,
have I consoled myself by saying, "After all, I am master of my
existence; when the measure shall be full, nothing shall prevent
my delivering myself; a few precautions so as not to be remarked,
the least noise possible, and all these worries will be forever
away from me! " Now I can no longer thus console myself: I
have by an act of will bound myself, my destiny, to another
destiny; and this double chain which I imprudently linked, I
have not the right to break. . The right! -oh, the absurd
word which comes and imposes itself upon my mind! Whence
comes that unknown force which can weigh upon my decision?
whence the mysterious fluid which paralyzes my egoism?
know that the moment I close my eyes, the world will cease to
exist, with her of whom I think, with the affection which grows
in my heart, with the ideas I forge around myself, and with my
wranglings about the right, duty, liberty, and all the rest. I
know that I shall know nothing of the tears, sorrows, struggles,
·
—
## p. 12340 (#390) ##########################################
ÉDOUARD ROD
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which will exist after me; that in my repose I shall feel noth-
ing, absolutely nothing, of the ill caused by my act, which may
even possibly result in good. I know all this; an effort of my
imagination lets me touch nothingness: and yet I feel myself
a slave. Destiny may strike with redoubled blows upon me; I
may be harassed by the troop of enemies from without, or by
a worse one which we carry within ourselves; I may find myself
in the clutches of those two adversaries which in other times I
would not have hesitated to rid myself of at the price of life,—
misery and suffering.
I shall probably have to struggle
with them for a long time; to bear their frightful wiles: my
relations with men may become a source of continual goadings,
on which my imagination will pour the boiling oil of its dreams.
I must support all this,-patient beast of burden bending under
the lash,
without a way of issue, without being able to
look once more toward the Great Liberator; without ever dream-
ing again in sweet hours of the means of putting an end to all
the evils.
•
Sometimes at nightfall we go and sit beside that Auteuil
pond, which we have taken to loving for its silence, and its old
trees that bathe their branches in its sleeping waters. Generally
it is deserted; and, separated from the road by a thick curtain
of leaves, we are very far from the Bois, very far from Paris,
very far from life. To-day, by chance, a young woman was there
with her children: one still in swaddling-clothes, sleeping on her
lap; while the other, a little girl, was playing at her side with
a shovel in the gravel. We seated ourselves opposite this pretty
group; and soon the little girl observed us and came toward us,
her finger in her mouth, with an adorable air of timidity and
roguishness. She greatly wanted to come to us, yet dared not
quite do so. Ever looking at us, she stooped to gather a few
daisies in the turf; then deciding suddenly, she came running
and laid them on my wife's knee, with a pretty "Here," friendly
and satisfied. We embraced her, and she told us many charming
things, and we played with her until her mother called her back
again. She left, throwing us kisses. Then, left alone, we began
to speak of children. She, like all women, a mother by instinct,
desired to have them. I do not.
I do not. I fear the responsibilities; fear
the disturbances: our intimacy of two suffices me; it seems to
me that we lack nothing. "Nevertheless," said she, "they are
so beautiful, and put so much life into the house. Imagine how
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much gayer our house would be with a pretty little girl,— such
a one as you have just kissed. "
"But the anxieties about the mother, the cares, the noise night
and day, the worry with the nurse, the sacrifice of our independ-
ence! Would it not be necessary to renounce our walks, our
project of traveling, change all our plans for the future, which
we have made as though we were always to be tête-à-tête ? »
«< But when we are old? »
"Well, when we are old,- and after all it is not certain that
we ever shall be old,-our affection will be all the more solid
because we are alone. God knows the storms which await our
common life; escaping together, wearied it may be, we shall
press one to the other to brave the common sadness of our fate.
Our days being fewer, will be dearer to us; we shall not have
one too many in which to love on; and how well off we shall be
amid the revolutions of human affairs, which will scarcely touch
us any longer! Detached from all save one another, having
inclosed our entire horizon with our affection, life-whose pos-
sible caprices we now dread—will have glided away behind our
footsteps; we shall look upon it as from the summit of a traveled
road, of which we no longer see the rough places or pebbles;
recalling together good and bad recollections, which in the mirage
of memory will appear equally good to us. We shall love each
the other all the more, for we shall have proved each other
for a long time: for the heart grows old only to the world; it
remains a temple wherein are piously preserved sacred affections:
and if we too come to be cold, that indifference towards every-
thing, which obscures the eyes of the aged, shall not prevent our
cultivating the feeling which shall still unite us, but rather the
contrary. Who knows but that some night, bent and leaning one
upon the other, going out once more to breathe the spring air,—
our last, perhaps,—our talk of to-day will come back to us like
a gust of air from the past? And I am sure that, taught by our
experience, we shall say then, 'Decidedly it is best it should
have been so. '»
She looked at the murmuring water with an unconvinced air,
hesitating to answer. "But," she said at last, after a silence in
which we both heard the other think, «< one of us two will go
first. If we have no child, the other will remain alone. ” This
was precisely the idea that had come to me, and had silenced
Both of us shivered and said no more.
me.
Translation of Grace King.
## p. 12342 (#392) ##########################################
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ÉDOUARD ROD
PATERNITY
From The Sense of Life'
WIFE has gravely propounded the question of
M Before, when I was an aggressive unbeliever, I loved to
say in a peremptory tone that my children should never be
baptized. She would never reply, and her silence irritated me:
I divined a menace; I understood that it announced a resistance,
and that I should never be able to impose my opinion except by
an act of tyranny. This perspective troubled me a little, although
I was determined to remain firm. But time has progressed since
that epoch, which already seems far away; I have just made an
examination of conscience in order that I may answer in perfect
sincerity my wife's question. I find I have no longer any tem-
per against religion,- quite the contrary. When I had broken
the chains that it had so firmly bound about me, I had a period
of hatred and revolt, in which I dreamed of exciting the world
to the great combat for Truth against Faith.
Then this hatred changed into a profound indifference; the
meaning of the word "truth" wavered in my mind; I no longer
found either criterion or proof: I said to myself that my nega-
tion was a religion also, just as much so as affirmation; just as
gross, no more certain, no better, worse probably.
Then why trouble simple souls? Why prevent them from
deceiving themselves holily? Why teach them that the source
at which they quench their thirst is imaginary? Is their error
greater than mine? In the ocean of uncertainty on which we
float, is my plank any safer than theirs? I have therefore prom-
ised myself to remain neutral in the contest.
I had reached thus far, when I recognized that it was the
free-thinkers who had disgusted me with free thought.
It was at the time of the "disaffection" of the Pantheon.
God was being chased out to give place to Victor Hugo: the
adored of yesterday ceded place to the idol of to-day; the sweet
Christ of the 'Imitation' fled before the man of the Chastise-
ments'; the good Holy Virgin of so many tender miracles went
down before Lucretia Borgia and Marion Delorme. And this
was, they said, the progress of light, and the cause of truth
gained in the exchange. Chance led me into the temple. They
were all there: municipal counselors, deputies, politicians of all
kinds, as if they were at home; hats on heads, canes in hands;
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some had not even extinguished their cigars: and all were proud
of driving out by their smoke the last vanishing trace of incense.
Beneath the majesty of the dome they talked, laughed, gesticu-
lated, and disputed, insolent and disrespectful.
In a corner, however, before an altar left standing for a mo-
ment, a poor old woman in black cap and blue apron, unmindful
of their noise, faithful to the God they had chased out, fervently
knelt and prayed. She had brought two candles, whose flames
flickered in the draught, and which a brutal breath would blow
out before they were half consumed. Of what sorrow had she
laid there the burthen? of what remorse, perhaps? What confi-
dences was she addressing silently to the One who understands,
compassionates, pardons? And when the last altar shall have
fallen, which of these political mountebanks will give her the
means of appeasing her sufferings? Then I understood that she
was in the right against them all: for a moment the light of her
flickering candle seemed to me a sun of truth; and passing before
the altar, I bent my knee, and made the sign of the Cross. Ah!
poor old unknown woman! Thou hast enlightened me more than
much reading. If thy prayer was lost in its flight through space,
it at least resounded in my heart, and thou madest me feel the
void in my own depths. Why should I prevent the baptism of
my child?
To-day is Marie's birthday, and she probably has but a few
hours to live. Her condition is unaltered. The fever does not
increase; if it had increased, all would now be ended; but it has
not decreased. Her respiration is just as labored, her breathing
uneven, the noise in her chest is like broken machinery, and the
same hacking cough shakes and rends her. She is as languid as
ever, as indifferent, as detached from all.
What beginnings of ideas may not this unexplained and bru-
tal illness start in her little brain through which fever gallops ?
Oh, that constant moan! And there is one thing more heart-
rending: it is when the wailing is suddenly interrupted for a
moment, and the hoarse voice begins to coo as it used to do in
her well days. No, I cannot imagine the little body stiffened in
death! It would be too hideous to see it immovable and to know
that it is so forever; that no voice can call her back; that she
will never smile again; that she must be put into the earth,
where soon she will be nothing: while the inanimate objects she
has touched her doll, her sheep-will remain here, surviving
·
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her in all their longevity as things. And then I think of the
mother's grief. And then I imagine the material details which
come after: the little coffin which they will nail; the mourning
notes to be addressed, all the formalities that have been invented
to make mourning more painful. And again the slow procession
winding its way, so far, to the cemetery of Passy; and on our
return, the desolation, the immense desolation, of the apartment
where she is no more!
The danger is over; yesterday the fever fell almost at once,
as if by enchantment. It already seems as if the illness were
only a part of a bad dream. I am happy. Up to this time I
have asked myself unceasingly whether I loved my child. Now
I am enlightened: and my affection is so deep in this hour of
deliverance that I forget to grieve that she will have to live a
whole life; that she will have to become acquainted with the
agonies we have passed through, and more still,-who knows
what? —all the future sufferings from which death would have
delivered her. And for the first time I saw that in all I had
said and thought of life, there was a good part of it only words,
phrases.
And when one has felt death pass very near; when
one has just missed seeing one of those existences which is
one's very own disappear, then one understands probably that
life-frightful, iniquitous, ferocious life-is perhaps better than
nothingness.
Live then, little Marie, as thou hast not wished to die! Live,
- that is, suffer, weep, despair; live to the end, as long as Des-
tiny will drag thee on its hurdle. And knowest thou, since he
can no longer wish thee unborn, since he has not the strength
to wish thee to die young as those whom the gods love,-
knowest thou what thy father wishes for thee? It is to see all,
feel all, know all, understand all. I say "all," and I know the
bitternesses the word contains; yet I do not wish to spare thee
one: since if all be sorrow, chimera, falsehood, the summing-up
of all these sorrows, chimeras, falsehoods, is nevertheless fine, like
a landscape made up of abysms; and since there is a supreme
satisfaction in feeling that we change with the years, that we
ever reflect more images, even as a river grows larger in rolling
towards the sea, and that we are, and we shall have been; and
that nothing, neither human revolutions nor universal catastro-
phe, can ever cause to be taken away from us that part of
eternity which we have had, which is human life.
Translation of Grace King.
## p. 12345 (#395) ##########################################
12345
-
SAMUEL ROGERS
(1763-1855)
ATE in the eighteenth century a young man started out one
day to call upon the great Dr. Johnson. He himself was
nursing literary ambition, and he felt a vast veneration for
successful authorship. He rang the bell; then fancying he heard
the Doctor's own steps approaching, he lost courage and ran away.
Young Samuel Rogers hardly foresaw that he too was to be a lit-
crary lion of London, his favor eagerly sought by tyros in writing.
For over half a century his home in St. James's Place was a ren-
dezvous for poets and artists, statesmen and
musicians; for English men and women of
note, and for distinguished people from
abroad. Here almost daily he entertained
five or six at breakfast, and talked with
them through the morning hours. Here
art and politics were discussed, bons-mots
originated, and entertaining anecdotes re-
tailed. This English "autocrat of the break-
fast table," whose keen ugly face, high
brow, and striking pallor, had a cadaverous
effect provoking much witticism, was him-
self an able story-teller. Sometimes his
wit grew caustic, and his almost ferocious
frankness inspired terror. But in spite of
surface crabbedness he was philanthropic and personally generous.
He was a faithful friend not alone to Sheridan through his wretched
last years of poverty, but to many another unfortunate, author or not.
Keenly appreciative rather than creative, the practical adviser of
Wordsworth and the other "Lake poets," as well as their admiring
auditor, he was the friend of poets to a greater extent than a con-
siderable poet himself. Perhaps his greatest hindrance was his con-
tinuous prosperity. From the beginning to the end of his life he was
quite too comfortable for poetic thrills. His poems have no intensity;
they are gentle moralizings and appreciations of moral and physical
beauty, the fruit more of refinement and cultivation than of irresist-
ible poetic impulse,- and bear no very strong individual stamp.
SAMUEL ROGERS
There is idyllic charm about Rogers's early life. Fortunate son of
a loving if austere father and a beautiful sprightly mother, he was
## p. 12346 (#396) ##########################################
T2346
SAMUEL ROGERS
born at Stoke Newington, a suburb of London, on July 30th, 1763.
His parents were people of refined and liberal tastes, who constantly
received in their hospitable mansion a circle of delightful friends,
among them Dr. Priestley. There with his brothers and sisters, ten
in all, Samuel was carefully trained by private tutors. Good Dr.
Price, the clergyman, dropping in of an evening in dressing-gown
and slippers to chat with the children before their bedtime, was an
important factor in their daily life. At this home Rogers learned to
appreciate social intercourse; and there in leisure hours he pored
over Pope and Goldsmith, and took their poems as models. When
he was sixteen or seventeen his father placed him in the London
bank of which he himself was head; and he remained in connection
with it all his life, as clerk, partner, or director. In London he found
a helpful friend in Miss Helen Williams, an intellectual woman, at
whose literary parties he heard brilliant conversation and formed con-
genial friendships. In 1793, when he was about thirty, his father's
death left him with an income of £5,000. Ten years later he fitted up
comfortable bachelor quarters in St. James's Place; where, following
his own recipe for long life, "temperance, the bath and flesh-brush,
and don't fret," he lived to the age of ninety-two, dying in 1855.
Rogers's first literary efforts were short sketches, signed "The
Scribbler," which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, and were
the tentative work every young poet must practice his hand on.
In 1786 the 'Ode to Superstition,' appearing in a time of com-
parative poetic dearth and of metrical trivialties, was greatly admired.
Rogers loved music; and his ear for harmonious sound guided him
to a pleasing choice of word and measure. At its best, his verse is
as trim and ently smooth as a Kentish landscape. He was reared
in the traditions of an era of common-sense and well-regulated emo-
tions. Grace of workmanship is the predominating characteristic of
the banker-poet; he had nothing in common with the passion of his
younger friend Byron. The Pleasures of Memory,' published in
1792 (doubtless suggested by Akenside's 'Pleasures of Imagination'),
and 'Human Life,' have the same leisurely, meditative quality. At
the same time, the usual fling that Rogers owed all his contemporary
repute to his social and business position is unjust and untrue. He
was a welcome member of the literary group, as a distinguished
component of it, before he had any such position.
Travelers in Italy soon grow familiar with often quoted lines from
his long poem upon Italy. In 1814 he spent eight months in Italy;
and he worked over material gathered there until 1822, when the
first part of the poem appeared. It was a failure; and the author
burned the unsold copies, and set about a careful revision. A second
edition, beautifully bound, and so profusely illustrated that an ill-
natured critic called it "Turner illustrated," had more success, though
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public taste was already demanding something different. The very
fact, however, that a century after it was written it is still quoted
from, shows that it has some enduring quality; for poems on Italy
have been written and forgotten by the thousand, and there is noth-
ing to keep Rogers's alive but its own merit. What that is, our
extract will indicate.
Rogers was a link between the forms of thought and expression
before and after the French Revolution. A disciple of Pope, intimate
with the Barbaulds and the Burneys, with Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Sid-
dons, Fox, and Sheridan, he saw the revival of the poetry of the
soul, knew Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron and Scott, and lived on
to know Dickens and Thackeray.
"
GINEVRA
I'
F THOU shouldst ever come by choice or chance
To Modena, where still religiously
Among her ancient trophies is preserved
Bologna's bucket (in its chain it hangs
Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine),
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain thee; through their arched walks,
Dim at noonday, discovering many a glimpse
Of knights and dames such as in old romance,
And lovers such as in heroic song,-
Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight
That in the springtime, as alone they sate,
Venturing together on a tale of love,
Read only part that day. -A summer sun
Sets ere one-half is seen; but ere thou go,
Enter the house - prithee, forget it not-
And look a while upon a picture there.
care not.
'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth,
The very last of an illustrious race,
Done by Zampieri - but by whom
He who observes it, ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up when far away.
She sits, inclining forward as to speak,
Her lips half-open, and her finger up,
## p. 12348 (#398) ##########################################
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SAMUEL ROGERS
As though she said "Beware! " her vest of gold
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot,
An emerald stone in every golden clasp;
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
A coronet of pearls. But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart,—
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody!
Alone it hangs
Over a moldering heirloom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With Scripture stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestor.
That by the way,-it may be true or false,—
But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not,
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there.
She was an only child; from infancy
The joy, the pride, of an indulgent sire.
Her mother dying of the gift she gave,-
That precious gift,- what else remained to him?
The young Ginevra was his all in life;
Still as she grew, forever in his sight:
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,—
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.
Just as she looks there in her bridal dress,
She was all gentleness, all gayety,
Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;
And in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.
Great was the joy; but at the bridal feast,
When all sate down, the bride was wanting there.
Nor was she to be found! Her father cried,
"Tis but to make a trial of our love! "
And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back and flying still,
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SAMUEL ROGERS
12349
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger:
But now, alas! she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed
But that she was not! -Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.
Orsini lived; and long was to be seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,
Something he could not find - he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained a while
Silent and tenantless-then went to strangers.
Full fifty years were past, and all forgot,
When on an idle day—a day of search
'Mid the old lumber in the gallery,-
That moldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
"Why not remove it from its lurking-place? "
'Twas done as soon as said: but on the way
It burst, it fell; and, lo! a skeleton,
With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold.
All else had perished-save a nuptial ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy,
Engraven with a name, the name of both,
"Ginevra. " There then had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy;
When a spring-lock that lay in ambush there
Fastened her down forever!
FROM THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY
OPENING LINES
Τ
WILIGHT'S Soft dews steal o'er the village green,
With magic tints to harmonize the scene.
Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke,
When round the ruins of their ancient oak
The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day.
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more
With treasured tales and legendary lore.
All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows
To chase the dreams of innocent repose.
## p. 12350 (#400) ##########################################
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SAMUEL ROGERS
All, all are fled; yet still I linger here!
What secret charms this silent spot endear?
Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees,
Whose hollow turret wooes the whistling breeze.
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed.
The moldering gateway strews the grass-grown court,
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport;
When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew.
Childhood's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades and life forgets to charm,-
Thee would the Muse invoke! to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song.
What softened views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek landscape steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play. —
Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned,
Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind.
The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn.
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship formed and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.
CLOSING LINES
OFT may the spirits of the dead descend
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend;
To hover round his evening walk unseen,
And hold sweet converse on the dusky green;
To hail the spot where first their friendship grew,
And heaven and nature opened to their view!
## p. 12351 (#401) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12351
Oft when he trims his cheerful hearth and sees
A smiling circle emulous to please,-
There may these gentle guests delight to dwell,
And bless the scene they loved in life so well.
O thou! with whom my heart was wont to share
From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care;
With whom, alas, I fondly hoped to know
The humble walks of happiness below;
If thy blest nature now unites above
An angel's pity with a brother's love,
Still o'er my life preserve thy mild control,
Correct my views and elevate my soul;
Grant me thy peace and purity of mind,
Devout yet cheerful, active yet resigned;
Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise,
Whose blameless wishes never aimed to rise,
To meet the changes Time and Chance present
With modest dignity and calm content.
When thy last breath, ere Nature sunk to rest,
Thy meek submission to thy God expressed,—
When thy last look ere thought and feeling fled,
A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed,-
What to thy soul its glad assurance gave,
-
Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
The sweet remembrance of unblemished Youth,
The still inspiring voice of Innocence and Truth!
Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
Thy pleasures must we feel, when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
Lo, Fancy's fairy frostwork melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a stream of living light;
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where Virtue triumphs and her sons are blest!
## p. 12352 (#402) ##########################################
12352
SAMUEL ROGERS
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF THE TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL
ROGERS
I
WAS present when Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered his last lect-
ure at the Royal Academy. On entering the room, I found
that a semicircle of chairs immediately in front of the pul-
pit was reserved for persons of distinction, being labeled “Mr.
Burke," "Mr. Boswell," etc. , etc. ; and I, with other young men,
was forced to station myself a good way off. During the lecture,
a great crash was heard; and the company, fearing that the build-
ing was about to come down, rushed towards the door. Presently
however it appeared that there was no cause for alarm, and they
endeavored to resume their places: but in consequence of the
confusion, the reserved seats were now occupied by those who
could first get into them; and I, pressing forwards, secured one
of them. Sir Joshua concluded the lecture by saying with great
emotion, "And I should desire that the last words which I should
pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the
name of Michael Angelo. " As he descended from the rostrum,
Burke went up to him, took his hand, and said,-
"The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear. "
What a quantity of snuff Sir Joshua took! I once saw him
at an Academy dinner when his waistcoat was absolutely pow-
dered with it.
THE head-dresses of the ladies during my youth were of a
truly preposterous size. I have gone to Ranelagh in a coach
with a lady who was obliged to sit upon a stool placed in the
bottom of the coach, the height of her head-dress not allowing
her to occupy the regular seat.
Their tight lacing was equally absurd. Lady Crewe told me
that on returning home from Ranelagh, she has rushed up to
her bedroom, and desired her maid to cut her laces without a
moment's delay, for fear she should faint.
DR. FORDYCE sometimes drank a good deal at dinner. He
was summoned one evening to see a lady patient when he was
more than half-seas-over, and conscious that he was so. Feel-
ing her pulse, and finding himself unable to count its beats, he
## p. 12353 (#403) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12353
muttered, "Drunk, by God! " Next morning, recollecting the
circumstance, he was greatly vexed; and just as he was thinking
what explanation of his behavior he should offer to the lady, a
letter from her was put into his hand. "She too well knew,"
said the letter, "that he had discovered the unfortunate condition
in which she was when he last visited her; and she entreated
him to keep the matter secret in consideration of the inclosed"
(a hundred-pound bank-note)!
SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT once met Quin at a very small dinner
party. There was a delicious pudding, which the master of the
house, pushing the dish towards Quin, begged him to taste. A
gentleman had just before helped himself to an immense piece
of it. "Pray," said Quin, looking first at the gentleman's plate
and then at the dish, "which is the pudding? "
Sir George Beaumont, when a young man, was one day in
the Mount (a famous coffee-house in Mount Street, Grosvenor
Square) with Harvey Aston. Various persons were seated at
different tables. Among others present, there was an Irishman
who was very celebrated as a duelist, having killed at least half
a dozen antagonists. Aston, talking to some of his acquaintance,
swore that he would make the duelist stand barefooted before
them. "You had better take care what you say," they replied;
"he has his eye upon you. " "No matter," rejoined Aston; "I
declare again that he shall stand barefooted before you, if you
will make up among you a purse of fifty guineas. " They did so.
Aston then said in a loud voice, "I have been in Ireland, and
am well acquainted with the natives. " The Irishman was all
ear. Aston went on, "The Irish, being born in bogs, are every
one of them web-footed: I know it for a fact. ” "Sir," roared
the duelist, starting up from his table, "it is false! " Aston per-
sisted in his assertion. "Sir," cried the other, "I was born in
Ireland; and I will prove to you that it is a falsehood. " So
saying, in great haste he pulled off his shoes and stockings and
displayed his bare feet. The joke ended in Aston's sharing the
purse between the Irishman and himself, giving the former thirty
guineas and keeping twenty. Sir George assured me that this was
a true story.
Aston was always kicking up disturbances. I remember being
at Ranelagh with my father and mother, when we heard a great
row and were told that it was occasioned by Aston.
XXI-773
## p. 12354 (#404) ##########################################
12354
SAMUEL ROGERS
If I mistake not, Aston fought two duels in India on two
successive days, and fell in the second one.
WORDS are so twisted and tortured by some writers of the
present day that I am really sorry for them,-I mean for the
words. It is a favorite fancy of mine that perhaps in the next
world the use of words may be dispensed with,-that our
thoughts may stream into each other's minds without any verbal
communication.
THOMAS GRENVILLE told me this curious fact. When he
a young man, he one day dined with Lord Spencer at Wimble-
don. Among the company was George Pitt (afterwards Lord
Rivers), who declared that he could tame the most furious ani-
mal by looking at it steadily. Lord Spencer said, "Well, there
is a mastiff in the court-yard here which is the terror of the
neighborhood: will you try your powers on him? " Pitt agreed
to do so; and the company descended into the court-yard. A
servant held the mastiff by a chain. Pitt knelt down at a short
distance from the animal, and stared him sternly in the face.
They all shuddered. At a signal given, the mastiff was let
loose, and rushed furiously towards Pitt, then suddenly checked
his pace, seemed confounded, and leaping over Pitt's head, ran
away, and was not seen for many hours after.
During one of my visits to Italy, while I was walking a little
before my carriage on the road not far from Vicenza, I per-
ceived two huge dogs, nearly as tall as myself, bounding towards
me (from out a gateway, though there was no house in sight).
I recollected what Pitt had done; and trembling from head to
foot, I yet had resolution enough to stand quite still and eye.
them with a fixed look. They gradually relaxed their speed from
a gallop to a trot, came up to me, stopped for a moment, and
then went back again.
•
DUNNING (afterwards Lord Ashburton) was "stating the law"
to a jury at Guildhall, when Lord Mansfield interrupted him by
saying, "If that be law, I'll go home and burn my books. " "My
lord," replied Dunning, "you had better go home and read
them. "
Dunning was remarkably ugly. One night while he was play-
ing whist at Nando's with Horne Tooke and two others, Lord
## p. 12355 (#405) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12355
Thurlow called at the door and desired the waiter to give a note
to Dunning (with whom, though their politics were so different,
he was very intimate). The waiter did not know Dunning by
sight. "Take the note up-stairs," said Thurlow, "and deliver it
to the ugliest man at the card-table-to him who most resem-
bles the knave of spades. " The note immediately reached its
destination. Horne Tooke used often to tell this anecdote.
WHEN titled ladies become authoresses or composers, their
friends suffer for it. Lady asked me to buy her book, and
I replied that I would do so when I was rich enough. I went
to a concert at Lady - -'s, during which several pieces com-
posed by her daughter were performed; and early next morning
a music-seller arrived at my house, bringing with him the daugh-
ter's compositions (and a bill receipted), price sixteen shillings.
THOMAS GRENVILLE told me that he was present in the House
when Lord North, suddenly rising from his seat and going out,
carried off on the hilt of his sword the wig of Welbore Ellis,
who was stooping to take up some papers. I have myself often
seen Lord North in the House. While sitting there he would
frequently hold a handkerchief to his face; and once after a long
debate, when somebody said to him, "My lord, I fear you have
been asleep," he replied, "I wish I had. "
ONE morning at his own house, while speaking to me of his
travels, Fox could not recollect the name of a particular town in
Holland, and was much vexed at the treacherousness of his mem-
ory. He had a dinner party that day; and just as he had applied
the carving-knife to the sirloin, the name of the town having
suddenly occurred to him, he roared out exultingly, to the aston-
ishment of the company, "Gorcum, Gorcum! "
LORD ST. HELENS (who had been ambassador to Russia) told
me as a fact this anecdote of the Empress Catherine. She fre-
quently had little whist parties, at which she sometimes played,
and sometimes not. One night when she was not playing, but
walking about from table to table and watching the different
hands, she rang the bell to summon the page-in-waiting from
an antechamber. No page appeared. She rang the bell again;
and again without effect. Upon this she left the room, looking
## p. 12356 (#406) ##########################################
12356
SAMUEL ROGERS
daggers, and did not return for a very considerable time; the
company supposing that the unfortunate page was destined for
the knout or Siberia. On entering the antechamber, the Empress
found that the page, like his betters, was busy at whist; and that
when she had rung the bell, he happened to have so very inter-
esting a hand that he could not make up his mind to quit it.
Now what did the Empress do? She dispatched the page on
her errand, and then quietly sat down to hold his cards till he
should return.
Lord St. Helens also told me that he and Ségur were with
the Empress in her carriage, when the horses took fright, and
ran furiously down-hill. The danger was excessive. When it
was over the Empress said, "Mon étoile vous a sauvée. "
## p. 12357 (#407) ##########################################
12357
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
BY HARRIET WATERS PRESTON
E
ARLY in the second century A. D. the sweet but slender after-
math of Latin pagan poetry began to ripen upon the sunny
hillside where it had pleased the Emperor Hadrian to fix
his most magnificent abode. That many-sided and enigmatical being,
whom the ancient writers can only attempt to describe by accumu
lating pairs of contradictory adjectives-"grave and gay, cordial and
reserved, impulsive and cautious, niggardly and lavish, crafty and
ingenuous," had certainly both a refined taste in poetry and a deli-
cate poetical talent of his own. The ghosts of the light and languid
men of letters whom he rather disdainfully patronized — " with an
air," goes on Spartianus, the author quoted above, "of knowing much
more than they". -seem always to haunt the beautiful oval gymna-
sium of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, upon whose original marble seats
one may still dream away an idle hour. Here Annius Florus chanted
the brief glories of the rose, or engaged in merry metrical duels with
his imperial master; and the Etruscan Annianus sang in tripping
measure the song of the Falernian vine ("I am the one grape —I am
the grape of Falernum"), or sought to bring again into vogue, by
slightly adapting to the superficial squeamishness of a sophisticated
time, the naïve indecencies of the Fescennine harvest-home and mar-
riage hymns. The taste of the clique, as often happens in a period
of decadence, was for the far-sought and archaic, the curious and the
daintily sensuous, for tender sentimentalism and aromatic pains.
These artificial folk doted upon nature; and the fragments of their
verse which we possess reveal an altogether new sensitiveness to her
beauties, and sympathy with her moods. Whatever they knew of
aspiration or regret seems to have been gathered into one wistful
sigh, and to exhale in the forever inimitable farewell of the Emperor
himself to his own departing soul,—"Animula, blandula, vagula. ”
It is difficult also, upon internal evidence, not to refer to the same
period, and to some member or members of the same circle, the one
fragment of highly impassioned and melodious Latin verse which
has survived the wreckage of a couple of centuries,- the 'Pervigil-
ium Veneris. ' We know that Hadrian restored with great pomp the
worship of Alma Venus; and it seemed as if this dulcet song for the
vigil of her festa must have been inspired by that circumstance. The
## p. 12358 (#408) ##########################################
12358
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
connection of ideas is loose, the imagery as vaporous, fluctuating,
and insaissisable as in a Troubadour love-song; but here too the atmo
sphere is voluptuous and the emotion strong. The German critic who
"proves all things," without always holding fast to that which is
good, has both shown conclusively that the 'Pervigilium' does belong
to the time of Hadrian, and that it does not. The fact that the
strongly accented septennarian verse in which it is written, constantly
recalls the long surge of certain Augustinian hymns, may only mean
that the tonic accent really went for more in the delivery of native
Latin verse than is commonly supposed.
A similar uncertainty with regard to its date involves the work of
the best Latin bucolic poet after Virgil; the only one, in fact, whose
compositions will stand any kind of comparison with those of the
master. Calpurnius Siculus wrote eclogues of indisputable though
unequal beauty. He offered the incense of extravagant praise to a
youthful emperor who had lately acceded, whose advent had been
heralded by the appearance of a wonderful comet; whose personal
and mental gifts excited ardent hopes; who built a huge amphitheatre
of wood on or near the Campus Martius, and ransacked the earth for
curious beasts to exhibit therein. All these things have commonly
been thought to refer to Nero, and to the first five years of his reign
(54-59 A. D. ), during which he gave no sign of the vicious and insane
propensities which afterwards made his name a synonym of horror.
It appears, however, by the precise testimony of astronomy, that the
comet of 54 cannot be identified with the one which is described so
very vividly by Calpurnius; while a comet meeting the requirements.
fairly well did appear early in the third century A. D. Of the eleven
eclogues long attributed to the Sicilian, four are now almost univer-
sally assigned to the African, Olympius Aurelius Nemesianus, who
also wrote a poem upon hunting, and who certainly flourished during
the brief reign of the Emperor Carus and his sons,-282-284 A. D.
On the other hand, the recurring refrain of the last of these Neme-
sianian eclogues bears a strong resemblance to that of the 'Pervigil-
ium Veneris,' and may perhaps be considered an argument for the
advanced date of the latter.
Nearly a century more was to pass before the last ardent revival
of Roman patriotism found expression in a poetic revival, during
which the venerable forms of classic Latin verse were once again
handled for a moment with something like the old mastery and
grace. It was the flare of a forlorn hope. The cloud of barbarian
invasion already hung low upon the horizon; and the end of the
Golden City of the past was as plainly announced as is that of the
"golden autumn woodland" on the last still day of October. Mean-
while Roma Aurea had lost but little as yet of her unparalleled
## p. 12359 (#409) ##########################################
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12359
outward magnificence; and it seems to have been more that vision-
ary and bewildering beauty of aspect which fired the imaginations of
her latest pagan devotees, than any deep reverence for her hoary
traditions, or reasoned attachment to her political code and forms.
The three poets of the fourth and early fifth centuries whose names
we instinctively associate - Ausonius, Claudian, and Rutilius-were
all of them, like nearly every other late writer whose name has sur-
vived, of provincial extraction. Two were professed pagan believers,
and eager pagan apologists. The third, who as the tutor of a nom-
inally Christian prince was himself of necessity a nominal Christian,
was the most deeply imbued with pagan feeling, and debauched by
pagan sensualism, of them all.
Decimus Magnus Ausonius-"proud," as he used to say, "of pre-
serving even in his name a reminiscence of Italy"-was born in
Burdigala, now Bordeaux, in 309. He saw the conversion of Con-
stantine, the apostasy and death of Julian, the restoration of so-
called Christian rule in the person of the blunt soldier Jovian. In
369, being already well advanced in years, he was appointed tutor
to Gratian, then a boy of eight, son of the Pannonian general Valen-
tinian I. , who had been proclaimed Roman Emperor three years
before. Valentinian had divided the empire with his brother Valens;
sending the latter to the city of Constantine in the East, while he
himself assumed the sovereignty of the West and fixed his court at
Augusta Trevirorum (Trier or Trèves). Ausonius was educated at
Toulouse, and returned at about the age of twenty-eight to Bor-
deaux, where he had been known as a teacher of rhetoric and
literature for nearly thirty years before he received his court ap-
pointment. In 375 Valentinian I. went back to his own native prov-
ince, to subdue a revolt which had broken out among the Quadi;
and died there suddenly in the month of November of the same
year.
After the accession of his royal pupil at the age of sixteen, Auso-
nius was made prefect of Italy and Africa. Three years later, in 378,
he and his son Hesperius were joint prefects of Gaul; and we find
him consul-designate for 379. Four years later Gratian was murdered
by the revolting Briton Maximus, but not before he had associated
with himself in the empire a Spanish general who was none other
than Theodosius the Great. Maximus managed to hold his own for
four years; and while he reigned at Trèves, Ausonius was in disgrace.
Theodosius restored him to favor; but he was now past seventy, and
soon retired to a fine estate near his native town of Bordeaux, where
he seems to have lived to extreme old age, corresponding with
friends all over the Roman world, and polishing for publication his
early poetical writings.
## p. 12360 (#410) ##########################################
12360
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
The most noteworthy of these, the 'Idyll of the Moselle,' is a
description of the poet's journey upon that river from the port of
Taberna (now Bern-Castel) to the Augustan capital. It is full of
keen observation and picturesque description, affording by far the
clearest picture we possess of Roman civilization in the north of
Europe, and enabling us-along with the highly impressive Roman
remains yet existing in and about Trèves - to reconstruct with very
tolerable success the outward features of that civilization.
Ausonius also sketched a certain number of human figures typical
of his time, in the series of epigrams and epitaphs upon his own
kindred which he entitled 'Parentalia'; and in his 'Ordo Nobilium
Orbium' he described, seemingly from personal observation, the six-
teen greatest cities of Europe in his day, beginning with Rome and
ending with Bordeaux. "Her I love," he says of his native place;
"but Rome I worship. "
Officially as a laureate produces a birthday ode - Ausonius com-
posed, soon after his arrival at Valentinian's court, an Easter hymn.
But in his graceful 'Dream of Cupid Crucified' he travesties, appar-
ently with no thought of blasphemy, and in singularly light and
charming verse, the awful central scene of Christian history; and in
his 'Griphus, or riddling disquisition on the properties of the num-
ber three, he points out that there are "three Graces, three Harpies,
three Furies, three prophesying Sibyls, three drinks to a toast, and
three persons in the Trinity. " Ausonius also perpetrated many epi-
grams, most of them insufferably coarse, and a few tame and tasteless
eclogues; and he wrote other idyls besides that of the 'Moselle. '
In the best of these he essays, as Omar Khayyám and Ronsard, Wal-
ler and Herrick, and a hundred more have done since his day, the
everlasting theme of the evanescent rose; adorning it lavishly with
"pathetic fallacies," and giving it a wealth of sentimental develop-
ment which contrasts curiously with the perfectly simple transcrip-
tion of the elementary melody by Florus, two hundred years before.
ing amid crowds to evade myself; forcing myself to the illusion
that I was something to those others who were moving before my
eyes. I have fled with horror from my home, so pitilessly filled
with myself; where the smallest objects-the bibelots, books,
paper on the wall, pictures and easy-chairs-sent back to me
like multiplied mirrors my odious image. It seemed to me that
I might leave it behind me as I went in the streets
this me;
or forget it in a café, or deposit it in a theatre; and I haunted
theatres, cafés, and streets. Often I fastened myself on to
trumpery friends,- friends met by chance,- and recounted to
them my affairs, sharing with them fragments of my soul, with-
out allowing myself to be rebuffed by their indifference. How
many times has not my heart beat out to strange hearts, without
hearing aught but its own palpitations beating in a vacancy?
How many times after having forgotten myself for an hour or
a night in gay company,- in salons, casinos, or taverns; after
laughing from full lips, and talking boisterously; after having
diffused myself in confidences to others, and received with a
friendly air theirs in return,- have I not felt with tenfold bit-
terness on the morrow that I was still alone, irremediably alone;
that the noises had vanished, leaving naught behind; that the
fumes of alcohol,- all had exhaled into sadness, like the friend-
ship or love of the day before.
Well, it seems to me now that my solitude is vanquished;
certainly not because I see unceasingly near me the same known
form, but because that form is loved. Something of her passes
continually into me, like a beautiful warmth; like another, bet-
ter life; and something of me passes into her. It is no longer a
-
-
## p. 12339 (#389) ##########################################
ÉDOUARD ROD
12339
strange soul, which remains a stranger in spite of frequent meet-
ings, in spite of closeness of relation; it is a continuous penetra-
tion, which little by little, of two beings makes only one.
It is strange how one permits oneself to be taken and swept
on by the machinery of life. We yield one finger carelessly; it
takes the whole body. We think we can play with it; take from
it what we wish; give up to it, through laziness, through las-
situde or indifference, fragments of ourselves, and yet remain
masters and maintain our independence. Illusion! After the
revolt of first youth, one day we see that we have surrendered
ourselves, that we are bound! It is the trifling and treacherous
habits whose insinuating sweetness has insensibly conquered you;
it is the ambition for a long-disdained aim, which yet developed
itself across your disdain; it is love-your powerlessness to
feel which made you for a long time doubt it, which you even
denied because you had experienced it under none of its known
forms, and which glides into you in a guise you never expected.
It is duty.
Heavens! Yes, duty,-the sentiment unjusti-
fied among all; that convention, that absurdity, that imperative,
whose non-existence your reason has a thousand times demon-
strated; which sets itself to cry out its orders, and makes itself
obeyed. All these ties bind me; all these voices govern me; I
feel that I no longer belong to myself.
How many times before, when I suffered without cause, or
when some dolorous shock produced agonizing thoughts in me,
have I consoled myself by saying, "After all, I am master of my
existence; when the measure shall be full, nothing shall prevent
my delivering myself; a few precautions so as not to be remarked,
the least noise possible, and all these worries will be forever
away from me! " Now I can no longer thus console myself: I
have by an act of will bound myself, my destiny, to another
destiny; and this double chain which I imprudently linked, I
have not the right to break. . The right! -oh, the absurd
word which comes and imposes itself upon my mind! Whence
comes that unknown force which can weigh upon my decision?
whence the mysterious fluid which paralyzes my egoism?
know that the moment I close my eyes, the world will cease to
exist, with her of whom I think, with the affection which grows
in my heart, with the ideas I forge around myself, and with my
wranglings about the right, duty, liberty, and all the rest. I
know that I shall know nothing of the tears, sorrows, struggles,
·
—
## p. 12340 (#390) ##########################################
ÉDOUARD ROD
12340
which will exist after me; that in my repose I shall feel noth-
ing, absolutely nothing, of the ill caused by my act, which may
even possibly result in good. I know all this; an effort of my
imagination lets me touch nothingness: and yet I feel myself
a slave. Destiny may strike with redoubled blows upon me; I
may be harassed by the troop of enemies from without, or by
a worse one which we carry within ourselves; I may find myself
in the clutches of those two adversaries which in other times I
would not have hesitated to rid myself of at the price of life,—
misery and suffering.
I shall probably have to struggle
with them for a long time; to bear their frightful wiles: my
relations with men may become a source of continual goadings,
on which my imagination will pour the boiling oil of its dreams.
I must support all this,-patient beast of burden bending under
the lash,
without a way of issue, without being able to
look once more toward the Great Liberator; without ever dream-
ing again in sweet hours of the means of putting an end to all
the evils.
•
Sometimes at nightfall we go and sit beside that Auteuil
pond, which we have taken to loving for its silence, and its old
trees that bathe their branches in its sleeping waters. Generally
it is deserted; and, separated from the road by a thick curtain
of leaves, we are very far from the Bois, very far from Paris,
very far from life. To-day, by chance, a young woman was there
with her children: one still in swaddling-clothes, sleeping on her
lap; while the other, a little girl, was playing at her side with
a shovel in the gravel. We seated ourselves opposite this pretty
group; and soon the little girl observed us and came toward us,
her finger in her mouth, with an adorable air of timidity and
roguishness. She greatly wanted to come to us, yet dared not
quite do so. Ever looking at us, she stooped to gather a few
daisies in the turf; then deciding suddenly, she came running
and laid them on my wife's knee, with a pretty "Here," friendly
and satisfied. We embraced her, and she told us many charming
things, and we played with her until her mother called her back
again. She left, throwing us kisses. Then, left alone, we began
to speak of children. She, like all women, a mother by instinct,
desired to have them. I do not.
I do not. I fear the responsibilities; fear
the disturbances: our intimacy of two suffices me; it seems to
me that we lack nothing. "Nevertheless," said she, "they are
so beautiful, and put so much life into the house. Imagine how
## p. 12341 (#391) ##########################################
ÉDOUARD ROD
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much gayer our house would be with a pretty little girl,— such
a one as you have just kissed. "
"But the anxieties about the mother, the cares, the noise night
and day, the worry with the nurse, the sacrifice of our independ-
ence! Would it not be necessary to renounce our walks, our
project of traveling, change all our plans for the future, which
we have made as though we were always to be tête-à-tête ? »
«< But when we are old? »
"Well, when we are old,- and after all it is not certain that
we ever shall be old,-our affection will be all the more solid
because we are alone. God knows the storms which await our
common life; escaping together, wearied it may be, we shall
press one to the other to brave the common sadness of our fate.
Our days being fewer, will be dearer to us; we shall not have
one too many in which to love on; and how well off we shall be
amid the revolutions of human affairs, which will scarcely touch
us any longer! Detached from all save one another, having
inclosed our entire horizon with our affection, life-whose pos-
sible caprices we now dread—will have glided away behind our
footsteps; we shall look upon it as from the summit of a traveled
road, of which we no longer see the rough places or pebbles;
recalling together good and bad recollections, which in the mirage
of memory will appear equally good to us. We shall love each
the other all the more, for we shall have proved each other
for a long time: for the heart grows old only to the world; it
remains a temple wherein are piously preserved sacred affections:
and if we too come to be cold, that indifference towards every-
thing, which obscures the eyes of the aged, shall not prevent our
cultivating the feeling which shall still unite us, but rather the
contrary. Who knows but that some night, bent and leaning one
upon the other, going out once more to breathe the spring air,—
our last, perhaps,—our talk of to-day will come back to us like
a gust of air from the past? And I am sure that, taught by our
experience, we shall say then, 'Decidedly it is best it should
have been so. '»
She looked at the murmuring water with an unconvinced air,
hesitating to answer. "But," she said at last, after a silence in
which we both heard the other think, «< one of us two will go
first. If we have no child, the other will remain alone. ” This
was precisely the idea that had come to me, and had silenced
Both of us shivered and said no more.
me.
Translation of Grace King.
## p. 12342 (#392) ##########################################
12342
ÉDOUARD ROD
PATERNITY
From The Sense of Life'
WIFE has gravely propounded the question of
M Before, when I was an aggressive unbeliever, I loved to
say in a peremptory tone that my children should never be
baptized. She would never reply, and her silence irritated me:
I divined a menace; I understood that it announced a resistance,
and that I should never be able to impose my opinion except by
an act of tyranny. This perspective troubled me a little, although
I was determined to remain firm. But time has progressed since
that epoch, which already seems far away; I have just made an
examination of conscience in order that I may answer in perfect
sincerity my wife's question. I find I have no longer any tem-
per against religion,- quite the contrary. When I had broken
the chains that it had so firmly bound about me, I had a period
of hatred and revolt, in which I dreamed of exciting the world
to the great combat for Truth against Faith.
Then this hatred changed into a profound indifference; the
meaning of the word "truth" wavered in my mind; I no longer
found either criterion or proof: I said to myself that my nega-
tion was a religion also, just as much so as affirmation; just as
gross, no more certain, no better, worse probably.
Then why trouble simple souls? Why prevent them from
deceiving themselves holily? Why teach them that the source
at which they quench their thirst is imaginary? Is their error
greater than mine? In the ocean of uncertainty on which we
float, is my plank any safer than theirs? I have therefore prom-
ised myself to remain neutral in the contest.
I had reached thus far, when I recognized that it was the
free-thinkers who had disgusted me with free thought.
It was at the time of the "disaffection" of the Pantheon.
God was being chased out to give place to Victor Hugo: the
adored of yesterday ceded place to the idol of to-day; the sweet
Christ of the 'Imitation' fled before the man of the Chastise-
ments'; the good Holy Virgin of so many tender miracles went
down before Lucretia Borgia and Marion Delorme. And this
was, they said, the progress of light, and the cause of truth
gained in the exchange. Chance led me into the temple. They
were all there: municipal counselors, deputies, politicians of all
kinds, as if they were at home; hats on heads, canes in hands;
## p. 12343 (#393) ##########################################
ÉDOUARD ROD
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some had not even extinguished their cigars: and all were proud
of driving out by their smoke the last vanishing trace of incense.
Beneath the majesty of the dome they talked, laughed, gesticu-
lated, and disputed, insolent and disrespectful.
In a corner, however, before an altar left standing for a mo-
ment, a poor old woman in black cap and blue apron, unmindful
of their noise, faithful to the God they had chased out, fervently
knelt and prayed. She had brought two candles, whose flames
flickered in the draught, and which a brutal breath would blow
out before they were half consumed. Of what sorrow had she
laid there the burthen? of what remorse, perhaps? What confi-
dences was she addressing silently to the One who understands,
compassionates, pardons? And when the last altar shall have
fallen, which of these political mountebanks will give her the
means of appeasing her sufferings? Then I understood that she
was in the right against them all: for a moment the light of her
flickering candle seemed to me a sun of truth; and passing before
the altar, I bent my knee, and made the sign of the Cross. Ah!
poor old unknown woman! Thou hast enlightened me more than
much reading. If thy prayer was lost in its flight through space,
it at least resounded in my heart, and thou madest me feel the
void in my own depths. Why should I prevent the baptism of
my child?
To-day is Marie's birthday, and she probably has but a few
hours to live. Her condition is unaltered. The fever does not
increase; if it had increased, all would now be ended; but it has
not decreased. Her respiration is just as labored, her breathing
uneven, the noise in her chest is like broken machinery, and the
same hacking cough shakes and rends her. She is as languid as
ever, as indifferent, as detached from all.
What beginnings of ideas may not this unexplained and bru-
tal illness start in her little brain through which fever gallops ?
Oh, that constant moan! And there is one thing more heart-
rending: it is when the wailing is suddenly interrupted for a
moment, and the hoarse voice begins to coo as it used to do in
her well days. No, I cannot imagine the little body stiffened in
death! It would be too hideous to see it immovable and to know
that it is so forever; that no voice can call her back; that she
will never smile again; that she must be put into the earth,
where soon she will be nothing: while the inanimate objects she
has touched her doll, her sheep-will remain here, surviving
·
## p. 12344 (#394) ##########################################
ÉDOUARD ROD
12344
her in all their longevity as things. And then I think of the
mother's grief. And then I imagine the material details which
come after: the little coffin which they will nail; the mourning
notes to be addressed, all the formalities that have been invented
to make mourning more painful. And again the slow procession
winding its way, so far, to the cemetery of Passy; and on our
return, the desolation, the immense desolation, of the apartment
where she is no more!
The danger is over; yesterday the fever fell almost at once,
as if by enchantment. It already seems as if the illness were
only a part of a bad dream. I am happy. Up to this time I
have asked myself unceasingly whether I loved my child. Now
I am enlightened: and my affection is so deep in this hour of
deliverance that I forget to grieve that she will have to live a
whole life; that she will have to become acquainted with the
agonies we have passed through, and more still,-who knows
what? —all the future sufferings from which death would have
delivered her. And for the first time I saw that in all I had
said and thought of life, there was a good part of it only words,
phrases.
And when one has felt death pass very near; when
one has just missed seeing one of those existences which is
one's very own disappear, then one understands probably that
life-frightful, iniquitous, ferocious life-is perhaps better than
nothingness.
Live then, little Marie, as thou hast not wished to die! Live,
- that is, suffer, weep, despair; live to the end, as long as Des-
tiny will drag thee on its hurdle. And knowest thou, since he
can no longer wish thee unborn, since he has not the strength
to wish thee to die young as those whom the gods love,-
knowest thou what thy father wishes for thee? It is to see all,
feel all, know all, understand all. I say "all," and I know the
bitternesses the word contains; yet I do not wish to spare thee
one: since if all be sorrow, chimera, falsehood, the summing-up
of all these sorrows, chimeras, falsehoods, is nevertheless fine, like
a landscape made up of abysms; and since there is a supreme
satisfaction in feeling that we change with the years, that we
ever reflect more images, even as a river grows larger in rolling
towards the sea, and that we are, and we shall have been; and
that nothing, neither human revolutions nor universal catastro-
phe, can ever cause to be taken away from us that part of
eternity which we have had, which is human life.
Translation of Grace King.
## p. 12345 (#395) ##########################################
12345
-
SAMUEL ROGERS
(1763-1855)
ATE in the eighteenth century a young man started out one
day to call upon the great Dr. Johnson. He himself was
nursing literary ambition, and he felt a vast veneration for
successful authorship. He rang the bell; then fancying he heard
the Doctor's own steps approaching, he lost courage and ran away.
Young Samuel Rogers hardly foresaw that he too was to be a lit-
crary lion of London, his favor eagerly sought by tyros in writing.
For over half a century his home in St. James's Place was a ren-
dezvous for poets and artists, statesmen and
musicians; for English men and women of
note, and for distinguished people from
abroad. Here almost daily he entertained
five or six at breakfast, and talked with
them through the morning hours. Here
art and politics were discussed, bons-mots
originated, and entertaining anecdotes re-
tailed. This English "autocrat of the break-
fast table," whose keen ugly face, high
brow, and striking pallor, had a cadaverous
effect provoking much witticism, was him-
self an able story-teller. Sometimes his
wit grew caustic, and his almost ferocious
frankness inspired terror. But in spite of
surface crabbedness he was philanthropic and personally generous.
He was a faithful friend not alone to Sheridan through his wretched
last years of poverty, but to many another unfortunate, author or not.
Keenly appreciative rather than creative, the practical adviser of
Wordsworth and the other "Lake poets," as well as their admiring
auditor, he was the friend of poets to a greater extent than a con-
siderable poet himself. Perhaps his greatest hindrance was his con-
tinuous prosperity. From the beginning to the end of his life he was
quite too comfortable for poetic thrills. His poems have no intensity;
they are gentle moralizings and appreciations of moral and physical
beauty, the fruit more of refinement and cultivation than of irresist-
ible poetic impulse,- and bear no very strong individual stamp.
SAMUEL ROGERS
There is idyllic charm about Rogers's early life. Fortunate son of
a loving if austere father and a beautiful sprightly mother, he was
## p. 12346 (#396) ##########################################
T2346
SAMUEL ROGERS
born at Stoke Newington, a suburb of London, on July 30th, 1763.
His parents were people of refined and liberal tastes, who constantly
received in their hospitable mansion a circle of delightful friends,
among them Dr. Priestley. There with his brothers and sisters, ten
in all, Samuel was carefully trained by private tutors. Good Dr.
Price, the clergyman, dropping in of an evening in dressing-gown
and slippers to chat with the children before their bedtime, was an
important factor in their daily life. At this home Rogers learned to
appreciate social intercourse; and there in leisure hours he pored
over Pope and Goldsmith, and took their poems as models. When
he was sixteen or seventeen his father placed him in the London
bank of which he himself was head; and he remained in connection
with it all his life, as clerk, partner, or director. In London he found
a helpful friend in Miss Helen Williams, an intellectual woman, at
whose literary parties he heard brilliant conversation and formed con-
genial friendships. In 1793, when he was about thirty, his father's
death left him with an income of £5,000. Ten years later he fitted up
comfortable bachelor quarters in St. James's Place; where, following
his own recipe for long life, "temperance, the bath and flesh-brush,
and don't fret," he lived to the age of ninety-two, dying in 1855.
Rogers's first literary efforts were short sketches, signed "The
Scribbler," which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, and were
the tentative work every young poet must practice his hand on.
In 1786 the 'Ode to Superstition,' appearing in a time of com-
parative poetic dearth and of metrical trivialties, was greatly admired.
Rogers loved music; and his ear for harmonious sound guided him
to a pleasing choice of word and measure. At its best, his verse is
as trim and ently smooth as a Kentish landscape. He was reared
in the traditions of an era of common-sense and well-regulated emo-
tions. Grace of workmanship is the predominating characteristic of
the banker-poet; he had nothing in common with the passion of his
younger friend Byron. The Pleasures of Memory,' published in
1792 (doubtless suggested by Akenside's 'Pleasures of Imagination'),
and 'Human Life,' have the same leisurely, meditative quality. At
the same time, the usual fling that Rogers owed all his contemporary
repute to his social and business position is unjust and untrue. He
was a welcome member of the literary group, as a distinguished
component of it, before he had any such position.
Travelers in Italy soon grow familiar with often quoted lines from
his long poem upon Italy. In 1814 he spent eight months in Italy;
and he worked over material gathered there until 1822, when the
first part of the poem appeared. It was a failure; and the author
burned the unsold copies, and set about a careful revision. A second
edition, beautifully bound, and so profusely illustrated that an ill-
natured critic called it "Turner illustrated," had more success, though
## p. 12347 (#397) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12347
public taste was already demanding something different. The very
fact, however, that a century after it was written it is still quoted
from, shows that it has some enduring quality; for poems on Italy
have been written and forgotten by the thousand, and there is noth-
ing to keep Rogers's alive but its own merit. What that is, our
extract will indicate.
Rogers was a link between the forms of thought and expression
before and after the French Revolution. A disciple of Pope, intimate
with the Barbaulds and the Burneys, with Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Sid-
dons, Fox, and Sheridan, he saw the revival of the poetry of the
soul, knew Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron and Scott, and lived on
to know Dickens and Thackeray.
"
GINEVRA
I'
F THOU shouldst ever come by choice or chance
To Modena, where still religiously
Among her ancient trophies is preserved
Bologna's bucket (in its chain it hangs
Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine),
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain thee; through their arched walks,
Dim at noonday, discovering many a glimpse
Of knights and dames such as in old romance,
And lovers such as in heroic song,-
Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight
That in the springtime, as alone they sate,
Venturing together on a tale of love,
Read only part that day. -A summer sun
Sets ere one-half is seen; but ere thou go,
Enter the house - prithee, forget it not-
And look a while upon a picture there.
care not.
'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth,
The very last of an illustrious race,
Done by Zampieri - but by whom
He who observes it, ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up when far away.
She sits, inclining forward as to speak,
Her lips half-open, and her finger up,
## p. 12348 (#398) ##########################################
12348
SAMUEL ROGERS
As though she said "Beware! " her vest of gold
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot,
An emerald stone in every golden clasp;
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
A coronet of pearls. But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart,—
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody!
Alone it hangs
Over a moldering heirloom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With Scripture stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestor.
That by the way,-it may be true or false,—
But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not,
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there.
She was an only child; from infancy
The joy, the pride, of an indulgent sire.
Her mother dying of the gift she gave,-
That precious gift,- what else remained to him?
The young Ginevra was his all in life;
Still as she grew, forever in his sight:
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,—
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.
Just as she looks there in her bridal dress,
She was all gentleness, all gayety,
Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;
And in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.
Great was the joy; but at the bridal feast,
When all sate down, the bride was wanting there.
Nor was she to be found! Her father cried,
"Tis but to make a trial of our love! "
And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back and flying still,
## p.
12349 (#399) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12349
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger:
But now, alas! she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed
But that she was not! -Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.
Orsini lived; and long was to be seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,
Something he could not find - he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained a while
Silent and tenantless-then went to strangers.
Full fifty years were past, and all forgot,
When on an idle day—a day of search
'Mid the old lumber in the gallery,-
That moldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
"Why not remove it from its lurking-place? "
'Twas done as soon as said: but on the way
It burst, it fell; and, lo! a skeleton,
With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold.
All else had perished-save a nuptial ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy,
Engraven with a name, the name of both,
"Ginevra. " There then had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy;
When a spring-lock that lay in ambush there
Fastened her down forever!
FROM THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY
OPENING LINES
Τ
WILIGHT'S Soft dews steal o'er the village green,
With magic tints to harmonize the scene.
Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke,
When round the ruins of their ancient oak
The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day.
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more
With treasured tales and legendary lore.
All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows
To chase the dreams of innocent repose.
## p. 12350 (#400) ##########################################
12350
SAMUEL ROGERS
All, all are fled; yet still I linger here!
What secret charms this silent spot endear?
Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees,
Whose hollow turret wooes the whistling breeze.
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed.
The moldering gateway strews the grass-grown court,
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport;
When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew.
Childhood's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades and life forgets to charm,-
Thee would the Muse invoke! to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song.
What softened views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek landscape steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play. —
Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned,
Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind.
The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn.
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship formed and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.
CLOSING LINES
OFT may the spirits of the dead descend
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend;
To hover round his evening walk unseen,
And hold sweet converse on the dusky green;
To hail the spot where first their friendship grew,
And heaven and nature opened to their view!
## p. 12351 (#401) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12351
Oft when he trims his cheerful hearth and sees
A smiling circle emulous to please,-
There may these gentle guests delight to dwell,
And bless the scene they loved in life so well.
O thou! with whom my heart was wont to share
From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care;
With whom, alas, I fondly hoped to know
The humble walks of happiness below;
If thy blest nature now unites above
An angel's pity with a brother's love,
Still o'er my life preserve thy mild control,
Correct my views and elevate my soul;
Grant me thy peace and purity of mind,
Devout yet cheerful, active yet resigned;
Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise,
Whose blameless wishes never aimed to rise,
To meet the changes Time and Chance present
With modest dignity and calm content.
When thy last breath, ere Nature sunk to rest,
Thy meek submission to thy God expressed,—
When thy last look ere thought and feeling fled,
A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed,-
What to thy soul its glad assurance gave,
-
Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
The sweet remembrance of unblemished Youth,
The still inspiring voice of Innocence and Truth!
Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
Thy pleasures must we feel, when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
Lo, Fancy's fairy frostwork melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a stream of living light;
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where Virtue triumphs and her sons are blest!
## p. 12352 (#402) ##########################################
12352
SAMUEL ROGERS
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF THE TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL
ROGERS
I
WAS present when Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered his last lect-
ure at the Royal Academy. On entering the room, I found
that a semicircle of chairs immediately in front of the pul-
pit was reserved for persons of distinction, being labeled “Mr.
Burke," "Mr. Boswell," etc. , etc. ; and I, with other young men,
was forced to station myself a good way off. During the lecture,
a great crash was heard; and the company, fearing that the build-
ing was about to come down, rushed towards the door. Presently
however it appeared that there was no cause for alarm, and they
endeavored to resume their places: but in consequence of the
confusion, the reserved seats were now occupied by those who
could first get into them; and I, pressing forwards, secured one
of them. Sir Joshua concluded the lecture by saying with great
emotion, "And I should desire that the last words which I should
pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the
name of Michael Angelo. " As he descended from the rostrum,
Burke went up to him, took his hand, and said,-
"The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear. "
What a quantity of snuff Sir Joshua took! I once saw him
at an Academy dinner when his waistcoat was absolutely pow-
dered with it.
THE head-dresses of the ladies during my youth were of a
truly preposterous size. I have gone to Ranelagh in a coach
with a lady who was obliged to sit upon a stool placed in the
bottom of the coach, the height of her head-dress not allowing
her to occupy the regular seat.
Their tight lacing was equally absurd. Lady Crewe told me
that on returning home from Ranelagh, she has rushed up to
her bedroom, and desired her maid to cut her laces without a
moment's delay, for fear she should faint.
DR. FORDYCE sometimes drank a good deal at dinner. He
was summoned one evening to see a lady patient when he was
more than half-seas-over, and conscious that he was so. Feel-
ing her pulse, and finding himself unable to count its beats, he
## p. 12353 (#403) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12353
muttered, "Drunk, by God! " Next morning, recollecting the
circumstance, he was greatly vexed; and just as he was thinking
what explanation of his behavior he should offer to the lady, a
letter from her was put into his hand. "She too well knew,"
said the letter, "that he had discovered the unfortunate condition
in which she was when he last visited her; and she entreated
him to keep the matter secret in consideration of the inclosed"
(a hundred-pound bank-note)!
SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT once met Quin at a very small dinner
party. There was a delicious pudding, which the master of the
house, pushing the dish towards Quin, begged him to taste. A
gentleman had just before helped himself to an immense piece
of it. "Pray," said Quin, looking first at the gentleman's plate
and then at the dish, "which is the pudding? "
Sir George Beaumont, when a young man, was one day in
the Mount (a famous coffee-house in Mount Street, Grosvenor
Square) with Harvey Aston. Various persons were seated at
different tables. Among others present, there was an Irishman
who was very celebrated as a duelist, having killed at least half
a dozen antagonists. Aston, talking to some of his acquaintance,
swore that he would make the duelist stand barefooted before
them. "You had better take care what you say," they replied;
"he has his eye upon you. " "No matter," rejoined Aston; "I
declare again that he shall stand barefooted before you, if you
will make up among you a purse of fifty guineas. " They did so.
Aston then said in a loud voice, "I have been in Ireland, and
am well acquainted with the natives. " The Irishman was all
ear. Aston went on, "The Irish, being born in bogs, are every
one of them web-footed: I know it for a fact. ” "Sir," roared
the duelist, starting up from his table, "it is false! " Aston per-
sisted in his assertion. "Sir," cried the other, "I was born in
Ireland; and I will prove to you that it is a falsehood. " So
saying, in great haste he pulled off his shoes and stockings and
displayed his bare feet. The joke ended in Aston's sharing the
purse between the Irishman and himself, giving the former thirty
guineas and keeping twenty. Sir George assured me that this was
a true story.
Aston was always kicking up disturbances. I remember being
at Ranelagh with my father and mother, when we heard a great
row and were told that it was occasioned by Aston.
XXI-773
## p. 12354 (#404) ##########################################
12354
SAMUEL ROGERS
If I mistake not, Aston fought two duels in India on two
successive days, and fell in the second one.
WORDS are so twisted and tortured by some writers of the
present day that I am really sorry for them,-I mean for the
words. It is a favorite fancy of mine that perhaps in the next
world the use of words may be dispensed with,-that our
thoughts may stream into each other's minds without any verbal
communication.
THOMAS GRENVILLE told me this curious fact. When he
a young man, he one day dined with Lord Spencer at Wimble-
don. Among the company was George Pitt (afterwards Lord
Rivers), who declared that he could tame the most furious ani-
mal by looking at it steadily. Lord Spencer said, "Well, there
is a mastiff in the court-yard here which is the terror of the
neighborhood: will you try your powers on him? " Pitt agreed
to do so; and the company descended into the court-yard. A
servant held the mastiff by a chain. Pitt knelt down at a short
distance from the animal, and stared him sternly in the face.
They all shuddered. At a signal given, the mastiff was let
loose, and rushed furiously towards Pitt, then suddenly checked
his pace, seemed confounded, and leaping over Pitt's head, ran
away, and was not seen for many hours after.
During one of my visits to Italy, while I was walking a little
before my carriage on the road not far from Vicenza, I per-
ceived two huge dogs, nearly as tall as myself, bounding towards
me (from out a gateway, though there was no house in sight).
I recollected what Pitt had done; and trembling from head to
foot, I yet had resolution enough to stand quite still and eye.
them with a fixed look. They gradually relaxed their speed from
a gallop to a trot, came up to me, stopped for a moment, and
then went back again.
•
DUNNING (afterwards Lord Ashburton) was "stating the law"
to a jury at Guildhall, when Lord Mansfield interrupted him by
saying, "If that be law, I'll go home and burn my books. " "My
lord," replied Dunning, "you had better go home and read
them. "
Dunning was remarkably ugly. One night while he was play-
ing whist at Nando's with Horne Tooke and two others, Lord
## p. 12355 (#405) ##########################################
SAMUEL ROGERS
12355
Thurlow called at the door and desired the waiter to give a note
to Dunning (with whom, though their politics were so different,
he was very intimate). The waiter did not know Dunning by
sight. "Take the note up-stairs," said Thurlow, "and deliver it
to the ugliest man at the card-table-to him who most resem-
bles the knave of spades. " The note immediately reached its
destination. Horne Tooke used often to tell this anecdote.
WHEN titled ladies become authoresses or composers, their
friends suffer for it. Lady asked me to buy her book, and
I replied that I would do so when I was rich enough. I went
to a concert at Lady - -'s, during which several pieces com-
posed by her daughter were performed; and early next morning
a music-seller arrived at my house, bringing with him the daugh-
ter's compositions (and a bill receipted), price sixteen shillings.
THOMAS GRENVILLE told me that he was present in the House
when Lord North, suddenly rising from his seat and going out,
carried off on the hilt of his sword the wig of Welbore Ellis,
who was stooping to take up some papers. I have myself often
seen Lord North in the House. While sitting there he would
frequently hold a handkerchief to his face; and once after a long
debate, when somebody said to him, "My lord, I fear you have
been asleep," he replied, "I wish I had. "
ONE morning at his own house, while speaking to me of his
travels, Fox could not recollect the name of a particular town in
Holland, and was much vexed at the treacherousness of his mem-
ory. He had a dinner party that day; and just as he had applied
the carving-knife to the sirloin, the name of the town having
suddenly occurred to him, he roared out exultingly, to the aston-
ishment of the company, "Gorcum, Gorcum! "
LORD ST. HELENS (who had been ambassador to Russia) told
me as a fact this anecdote of the Empress Catherine. She fre-
quently had little whist parties, at which she sometimes played,
and sometimes not. One night when she was not playing, but
walking about from table to table and watching the different
hands, she rang the bell to summon the page-in-waiting from
an antechamber. No page appeared. She rang the bell again;
and again without effect. Upon this she left the room, looking
## p. 12356 (#406) ##########################################
12356
SAMUEL ROGERS
daggers, and did not return for a very considerable time; the
company supposing that the unfortunate page was destined for
the knout or Siberia. On entering the antechamber, the Empress
found that the page, like his betters, was busy at whist; and that
when she had rung the bell, he happened to have so very inter-
esting a hand that he could not make up his mind to quit it.
Now what did the Empress do? She dispatched the page on
her errand, and then quietly sat down to hold his cards till he
should return.
Lord St. Helens also told me that he and Ségur were with
the Empress in her carriage, when the horses took fright, and
ran furiously down-hill. The danger was excessive. When it
was over the Empress said, "Mon étoile vous a sauvée. "
## p. 12357 (#407) ##########################################
12357
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
BY HARRIET WATERS PRESTON
E
ARLY in the second century A. D. the sweet but slender after-
math of Latin pagan poetry began to ripen upon the sunny
hillside where it had pleased the Emperor Hadrian to fix
his most magnificent abode. That many-sided and enigmatical being,
whom the ancient writers can only attempt to describe by accumu
lating pairs of contradictory adjectives-"grave and gay, cordial and
reserved, impulsive and cautious, niggardly and lavish, crafty and
ingenuous," had certainly both a refined taste in poetry and a deli-
cate poetical talent of his own. The ghosts of the light and languid
men of letters whom he rather disdainfully patronized — " with an
air," goes on Spartianus, the author quoted above, "of knowing much
more than they". -seem always to haunt the beautiful oval gymna-
sium of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, upon whose original marble seats
one may still dream away an idle hour. Here Annius Florus chanted
the brief glories of the rose, or engaged in merry metrical duels with
his imperial master; and the Etruscan Annianus sang in tripping
measure the song of the Falernian vine ("I am the one grape —I am
the grape of Falernum"), or sought to bring again into vogue, by
slightly adapting to the superficial squeamishness of a sophisticated
time, the naïve indecencies of the Fescennine harvest-home and mar-
riage hymns. The taste of the clique, as often happens in a period
of decadence, was for the far-sought and archaic, the curious and the
daintily sensuous, for tender sentimentalism and aromatic pains.
These artificial folk doted upon nature; and the fragments of their
verse which we possess reveal an altogether new sensitiveness to her
beauties, and sympathy with her moods. Whatever they knew of
aspiration or regret seems to have been gathered into one wistful
sigh, and to exhale in the forever inimitable farewell of the Emperor
himself to his own departing soul,—"Animula, blandula, vagula. ”
It is difficult also, upon internal evidence, not to refer to the same
period, and to some member or members of the same circle, the one
fragment of highly impassioned and melodious Latin verse which
has survived the wreckage of a couple of centuries,- the 'Pervigil-
ium Veneris. ' We know that Hadrian restored with great pomp the
worship of Alma Venus; and it seemed as if this dulcet song for the
vigil of her festa must have been inspired by that circumstance. The
## p. 12358 (#408) ##########################################
12358
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
connection of ideas is loose, the imagery as vaporous, fluctuating,
and insaissisable as in a Troubadour love-song; but here too the atmo
sphere is voluptuous and the emotion strong. The German critic who
"proves all things," without always holding fast to that which is
good, has both shown conclusively that the 'Pervigilium' does belong
to the time of Hadrian, and that it does not. The fact that the
strongly accented septennarian verse in which it is written, constantly
recalls the long surge of certain Augustinian hymns, may only mean
that the tonic accent really went for more in the delivery of native
Latin verse than is commonly supposed.
A similar uncertainty with regard to its date involves the work of
the best Latin bucolic poet after Virgil; the only one, in fact, whose
compositions will stand any kind of comparison with those of the
master. Calpurnius Siculus wrote eclogues of indisputable though
unequal beauty. He offered the incense of extravagant praise to a
youthful emperor who had lately acceded, whose advent had been
heralded by the appearance of a wonderful comet; whose personal
and mental gifts excited ardent hopes; who built a huge amphitheatre
of wood on or near the Campus Martius, and ransacked the earth for
curious beasts to exhibit therein. All these things have commonly
been thought to refer to Nero, and to the first five years of his reign
(54-59 A. D. ), during which he gave no sign of the vicious and insane
propensities which afterwards made his name a synonym of horror.
It appears, however, by the precise testimony of astronomy, that the
comet of 54 cannot be identified with the one which is described so
very vividly by Calpurnius; while a comet meeting the requirements.
fairly well did appear early in the third century A. D. Of the eleven
eclogues long attributed to the Sicilian, four are now almost univer-
sally assigned to the African, Olympius Aurelius Nemesianus, who
also wrote a poem upon hunting, and who certainly flourished during
the brief reign of the Emperor Carus and his sons,-282-284 A. D.
On the other hand, the recurring refrain of the last of these Neme-
sianian eclogues bears a strong resemblance to that of the 'Pervigil-
ium Veneris,' and may perhaps be considered an argument for the
advanced date of the latter.
Nearly a century more was to pass before the last ardent revival
of Roman patriotism found expression in a poetic revival, during
which the venerable forms of classic Latin verse were once again
handled for a moment with something like the old mastery and
grace. It was the flare of a forlorn hope. The cloud of barbarian
invasion already hung low upon the horizon; and the end of the
Golden City of the past was as plainly announced as is that of the
"golden autumn woodland" on the last still day of October. Mean-
while Roma Aurea had lost but little as yet of her unparalleled
## p. 12359 (#409) ##########################################
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12359
outward magnificence; and it seems to have been more that vision-
ary and bewildering beauty of aspect which fired the imaginations of
her latest pagan devotees, than any deep reverence for her hoary
traditions, or reasoned attachment to her political code and forms.
The three poets of the fourth and early fifth centuries whose names
we instinctively associate - Ausonius, Claudian, and Rutilius-were
all of them, like nearly every other late writer whose name has sur-
vived, of provincial extraction. Two were professed pagan believers,
and eager pagan apologists. The third, who as the tutor of a nom-
inally Christian prince was himself of necessity a nominal Christian,
was the most deeply imbued with pagan feeling, and debauched by
pagan sensualism, of them all.
Decimus Magnus Ausonius-"proud," as he used to say, "of pre-
serving even in his name a reminiscence of Italy"-was born in
Burdigala, now Bordeaux, in 309. He saw the conversion of Con-
stantine, the apostasy and death of Julian, the restoration of so-
called Christian rule in the person of the blunt soldier Jovian. In
369, being already well advanced in years, he was appointed tutor
to Gratian, then a boy of eight, son of the Pannonian general Valen-
tinian I. , who had been proclaimed Roman Emperor three years
before. Valentinian had divided the empire with his brother Valens;
sending the latter to the city of Constantine in the East, while he
himself assumed the sovereignty of the West and fixed his court at
Augusta Trevirorum (Trier or Trèves). Ausonius was educated at
Toulouse, and returned at about the age of twenty-eight to Bor-
deaux, where he had been known as a teacher of rhetoric and
literature for nearly thirty years before he received his court ap-
pointment. In 375 Valentinian I. went back to his own native prov-
ince, to subdue a revolt which had broken out among the Quadi;
and died there suddenly in the month of November of the same
year.
After the accession of his royal pupil at the age of sixteen, Auso-
nius was made prefect of Italy and Africa. Three years later, in 378,
he and his son Hesperius were joint prefects of Gaul; and we find
him consul-designate for 379. Four years later Gratian was murdered
by the revolting Briton Maximus, but not before he had associated
with himself in the empire a Spanish general who was none other
than Theodosius the Great. Maximus managed to hold his own for
four years; and while he reigned at Trèves, Ausonius was in disgrace.
Theodosius restored him to favor; but he was now past seventy, and
soon retired to a fine estate near his native town of Bordeaux, where
he seems to have lived to extreme old age, corresponding with
friends all over the Roman world, and polishing for publication his
early poetical writings.
## p. 12360 (#410) ##########################################
12360
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
The most noteworthy of these, the 'Idyll of the Moselle,' is a
description of the poet's journey upon that river from the port of
Taberna (now Bern-Castel) to the Augustan capital. It is full of
keen observation and picturesque description, affording by far the
clearest picture we possess of Roman civilization in the north of
Europe, and enabling us-along with the highly impressive Roman
remains yet existing in and about Trèves - to reconstruct with very
tolerable success the outward features of that civilization.
Ausonius also sketched a certain number of human figures typical
of his time, in the series of epigrams and epitaphs upon his own
kindred which he entitled 'Parentalia'; and in his 'Ordo Nobilium
Orbium' he described, seemingly from personal observation, the six-
teen greatest cities of Europe in his day, beginning with Rome and
ending with Bordeaux. "Her I love," he says of his native place;
"but Rome I worship. "
Officially as a laureate produces a birthday ode - Ausonius com-
posed, soon after his arrival at Valentinian's court, an Easter hymn.
But in his graceful 'Dream of Cupid Crucified' he travesties, appar-
ently with no thought of blasphemy, and in singularly light and
charming verse, the awful central scene of Christian history; and in
his 'Griphus, or riddling disquisition on the properties of the num-
ber three, he points out that there are "three Graces, three Harpies,
three Furies, three prophesying Sibyls, three drinks to a toast, and
three persons in the Trinity. " Ausonius also perpetrated many epi-
grams, most of them insufferably coarse, and a few tame and tasteless
eclogues; and he wrote other idyls besides that of the 'Moselle. '
In the best of these he essays, as Omar Khayyám and Ronsard, Wal-
ler and Herrick, and a hundred more have done since his day, the
everlasting theme of the evanescent rose; adorning it lavishly with
"pathetic fallacies," and giving it a wealth of sentimental develop-
ment which contrasts curiously with the perfectly simple transcrip-
tion of the elementary melody by Florus, two hundred years before.
