Part 7 (1/2)

Notes:

[36] _Recreations of a Literary Man_, 1882, p. 137.

[37] _My Confidences_, by Frederick Locker-Lampson, 1896, pp. 98 and 325.

[38] The duellists were an Englishman and a Frenchman; and Rogers was in the habit of adding as a postscript: ”When I tell that in Paris, I always put the Englishman up the chimney!”

[39] It may be added that Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, himself no mean mime, may be sometimes persuaded to imitate d.i.c.kens imitating Rogers.

But although the two things are often intimately connected, the ”books,”

and not the ”stories” of Rogers, are the subject of the present paper.

After this, it sounds paradoxical to have to admit that his reputation as a connoisseur far overshadowed his reputation as a bibliophile. When, in December 1855, he died, his pictures and curios,--his ”articles of virtue and bigotry” as a modern Malaprop would have styled them,--attracted far more attention than the not very numerous volumes forming his library.[40] What people flocked to see at the tiny treasure-house overlooking the Green Park,[41] which its nonagenarian owner had occupied for more than fifty years, were the ”Puck” and ”Strawberry Girl” of Sir Joshua, the t.i.tians, Giorgiones, and Guidos,[42]

the Poussins and Claudes, the drawings of Raphael and Durer and Lucas van Leyden, the cabinet decorated by Stothard, the chimney-piece carved by Flaxman; the miniatures and bronzes and Etruscan vases,--all the ”infinite riches in a little room,” which crowded No. 22 from garret to bas.e.m.e.nt. These were the rarities that filled the columns of the papers and the voices of the quidnuncs when in 1856 they came to the hammer.

But although the Press of that day takes careful count of these things, it makes little reference to the sale of the ”books” of the banker-bard who spent some 15,000 on the embellishments of his _Italy_ and his _Poems_; and although Dr. Burney says that Rogers's library included ”the best editions of the best authors in most languages,” he had clearly no widespread reputation as a book-collector pure and simple.

Nevertheless he loved his books,--that is, he loved the books he read.

And, as far as can be ascertained, he antic.i.p.ated the late Master of Balliol, since he read only the books he liked. Nor was he ever diverted from his predilections by mere fas.h.i.+on or novelty. ”He followed Bacon's maxim”--says one who knew him--”to read much, not many things: _multum legere, non multa_. He used to say, 'When a new book comes out, I read an old one.'”[43]

Notes:

[40] The prices obtained confirm this. Thetotaisum realised was 45,188:14:3. Of this the books represented no more than 1415:5.

[41] This--with its triple range of bow-windows, from one of which Rogers used to watch his favourite sunsets--is now the residence of Lord Northcliffe.

[42] Three of these--the ”_Noli me tangere_” of t.i.tian, Giorgione's ”Knight in Armour,” and Guide's ”_Ecce h.o.m.o_”--are now in the National Gallery, to which they were bequeathed by Rogers.

[43] _Edinburgh Review_, vol. civ. p. 105, by Abraham Hayward.

The general Rogers-sale at Christie's took place in the spring of 1856, and twelve days had been absorbed before the books were reached. Their sale took six days more--_i.e._ from May 12 to May 19. As might be expected from Rogers's traditional position in the literary world, the catalogue contains many presentation copies. What, at first sight, would seem the earliest, is the _Works_ of Edward Moore, 1796, 2 vols. But if this be the fabulist and editor of the _World_, it can scarcely have been received from the writer, since, in 1796, Moore had been dead for nearly forty years. With Bloomfield's poems of 1802, l. p., we are on surer ground, for Rogers, like Capel Lofft, had been kind to the author of _The Farmer's Boy_, and had done his best to obtain him a pension.

Another early tribute, subsequently followed by the _Tales of the Hall_, was Crabbe's Borough, which he sent to Rogers in 1810, in response to polite overtures made to him by the poet. This was the beginning of a lasting friends.h.i.+p, of no small import to Crabbe, as it at once admitted him to Rogers's circle, an advantage of which there are many traces in Crabbe's journal. Next comes Madame de Stael's much proscribed _De l'Allamagne_ (the Paris edition); and from its date, 1813, it must have been presented to Rogers when its irrepressible author was in England.

She often dined or breakfasted at St. James's Place, where (according to Byron), she out-talked Whitbread, confounded Sir Humphry Davy, and was herself well ”_ironed_”[44] by Sheridan. Rogers considered _Corinne_ to be her best novel, and _Delphine_ a terrible falling-off. The Germany he found ”very fatiguing.” ”She writes her works four or five times over, correcting them only in that way”--he says. ”The end of a chapter [is]

always the most obscure, as she ends with an epigram,”[45] Another early presentation copy is the second edition of Bowles's _Missionary_, 1815.

According to Rogers, who claims to have suggested the poem, it was to have been inscribed to him. But somehow or other, the book got dedicated to n.o.ble lord who--Rogers adds drily--never, either by word or letter, made any acknowledgment of the homage.[46] It is not impossible that there is some confusion of recollection here, or Rogers is misreported by Dyce. The first anonymous edition of the _Missionary_, 1813, had _no_ dedication; and the second was inscribed to the Marquess of Lansdowne because he had been prominent among those who recognised the merit of its predecessor.

Notes:

[44] Perhaps a remembrance of Mrs Slipslop's ”_ironing_.”

[45] Clayden's _Rogers and his Contemporaries_, 1889, i. 225. As an epigrammatist himself, Rogers might have been more indulgent to a _consoeur_. Here is one of Madame de Stael's ”ends of chapters”:--”_La monotonie, dans la retraite, tranquillise l'ame; la monotonie, dans le grand monde, fatigue l'esprit_” (ch. viii.). But he evidently found her rather overpowering.

[46] Table-Talk, 1856, p. 258.

Several of Scott's poems, with Rogers's autograph, and Scott's card, appear in the catalogue; and, in 1812, Byron, who a year after inscribed the _Giaour_ to Rogers, sent him the first two cantos of _Childe Harold._ In 1838, Moore presents _Lalla Rookh_, with Heath's plates, a work which, upon its first appearance, twenty years earlier, had been dedicated to Rogers. In 1839 Charles d.i.c.kens followed with _Nicholas Nickleby_, succeeded a year later by _Master Humphrey's Clock_ (1840-1), also dedicated to Rogers in recognition, not only of his poetical merit, but of his ”active sympathy with the poorest and humblest of his kind.”

Rogers was fond of ”Little Nell”; and in the Preface to _Barnaby Rudge_, d.i.c.kens gracefully acknowledged that ”for a beautiful thought” in the seventy-second chapter of the _Old Curiosity Shop_, he was indebted to Rogers's Ginevra in the _Italy_:--

And long might'st thou have seen An old man wandering _as in quest of something,_ Something he could not find--he knew not what.