The son of a wealthy banker, Samuel Rogers studied at dissenting academies and considered career in the ministry before taking a position in his father's business. In 1789 Rogers visited Scotland, where he made the acquaintance of men of letters, and in 1792 visited France. In that year he published his immensely popular poem, The Pleasures of Memory. In London Rogers was a prominent member of literary society, lending financial assistance to poets in distress, among them Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Thomas Campbell. Byron admired his poetry and everyone seems to have feared his sarcasm. In 1850 Rogers declined the laureateship upon the death of Wordsworth.
TEXT RECORDS:
1781The Scribbler. No. VII. [The Temple of Fashion.]
1786Ode to Superstition.
1792The Pleasures of Memory, a Poem.
PUBLICATIONS:
The choice: a poem. 1774.
An ode to superstition, with some other poems. 1786.
The pleasures of memory. 1792.
An epistle to a friend, with other poems. 1798.
Verses written in Westminster Abbey after the funeral of Charles James Fox. 1806.
The voyage of Columbus: a poem. 1810.
Poems, 1812, 1814, 1816, 1822, etc.
Jacqueline, a poem. 1814.
Human life: a poem. 1819.
Italy, a poem. 1823, 1828.
Poetical works. 1848.
Complete poetical works, ed. E. Sargen. 1854.
Recollections of the table talk of Samuel Rogers, ed. Alexander Dyce. 1856.
Recollections, ed. William Sharpe. 1859.
Poetical works, ed. Edward Bell. 1875.
Italian journal, ed. J. R. Hale. 1956.
Samuel Rogers and William Gilpin: their friendship and correspondence, ed. Carl Paul Barbier. 1959.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Unitarian
Dissenter
Hackney College
Stoke Newington Academy
Dissenting academy
poet
Whitehall Evening Post
Gentleman's Magazine
The Morning Chronicle
Dr. John Aikin
James Pettit Andrews
Joanna Baillie
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Dr. William Beattie
Rev. William Lisle Bowles
Lord Byron
Thomas Campbell
Rev. Henry Francis Cary
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Combe
William Cook
Richard Cumberland
Isaac D'Israeli
Gen. Richard Fitzpatrick
Charles James Fox
Rev. Francis Hodgson
Washington Irving
Edward Jerningham
William Jackson of Exeter
Henry Gally Knight
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Henry Mackenzie
Sir James Mackintosh
Thomas James Mathias
Robert Merry
Rev. John Mitford
Thomas Moore
Edward Moxon
Caroline Norton
Samuel Parr
William Parsons
Thomas Pringle
Edward Quillinan
Sir Walter Scott
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Robert Southey
Melesina Chenevix Trench
Edward Thurlow
Rev. Joseph Warton
Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen
Helen Maria Williams
William Wordsworth
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed).
David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); Peter L. Courtier, ed., Lyre of Love (1806); "Poems by Samuel Rogers" The Stranger [Albany] 1 (28 August 1813) 65-72; "Samuel Rogers" The Champion (19 June 1814) 118; Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); "Memoir of Samuel Rogers" New Monthly Magazine 12 (December 1819) 574-76 [portrait]; "Contemporary Authors: Rogers" Monthly Magazine 50 (January 1821) 522-26; "Remarks on the Poetry of Rogers" Literary Speculum 1 (April 1822) 361-68 [portrait]; "Samuel Rogers" La Belle Assemblee NS 27 (April 1823) 159-51; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Gay versus Rogers" European Magazine NS 2 (June 1826) 621-26; Living Poets of England: Specimens of the Living British Poets (1827); William Maginn, "Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters: Samuel Rogers" Fraser's Magazine 2 (September 1830) 237 [portrait]; George B. Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (26 October 1833) 716-17; S. C. Hall, in The Book of Gems (1838); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); Illustrated London News 27 (20 December 1855) 763, 768 [portrait], 28 (1856) 5-6 [portrait]; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine NS 45 (February 1856) 191-95; Alexander Dyce, Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers (1856); "The Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers" Gentleman's Magazine NS 56 (April 1856) 331-39; Abraham Hayward, review of Table-Talk, Edinburgh Review 103 (July 1856) 38-63; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Samuel Sharp, memoir in Rogers, Poems (1860); William Jerdan, Men I have Known (1866) 375-80; The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887); "Reminiscences of Samuel Rogers" Quarterly Review (October 1888); P. W. Clayden, Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889); William Bates, Maclise Portrait Gallery (1883; 1898); Frederic Boase, in Modern English Biography (1892-1921); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Richard Ellis Roberts, Rogers and his Circle (1910); Joseph Firebaugh, "Samuel Rogers and American Men of Letters," American Literature 13 (January 1942) 331-334; Donald Weeks, "Samuel Rogers: Man of Taste" PMLA 62 (1947) 472-486; C. P. Barbier, ed, Samuel Rogers and William Gilpin: their Friendship and Correspondence (1959); A. N. L. Munby, Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons (1971-75); Ernest Giddey, "Byron and Samuel Rogers" Byron Journal 7 (1979) 4-19; Ben Harris McClary, "Alaric Watts on Samuel Rogers: an Unpublished Personal Remembrance" Bulletin of Research in the Humanities 84 (Spring 1981) 121-125; Prance, Companion to Charles Lamb (1983); Avery F. Gaskins, "Samuel Rogers: a Revaluation" Wordsworth Circle 16 (Summer 1985) 146-149.
COMMENTARY RECORDS
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BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
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