Samuel Rogers

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
for Samuel Rogers:

1.	1792  Luke Booker, "Lines, inscribed to the Author of The Pleasures of Memory" Gentleman's Magazine 62 (September 1792) 847.
2.	1794  J. B., "On Mr. R—'s Poem, entitled The Pleasures of Memory" European Magazine 26 (July 1794) 62-63.
3.	1794  Robert Merry to Samuel Rogers, January 1794; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 284.
4.	1795  Anonymous, "To Samuel Rogers ... on his ordering a short Great Coat called a Spenser" European Magazine 27 (June 1795) 418.
5.	1796  Anonymous, "To the Author of the Pleasures of Memory" Universal Magazine 99 (August 1796) 129.
6.	1796  Samuel Parr to Samuel Rogers, 14 June 1796; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 220-33.
7.	1796  Joseph Warton to Samuel Rogers, 9 April 1797; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 355-56.
8.	1799  Anonymous, "To Samuel Rogers, Author of the Pleasures of Memory" Morning Post and Gazetteer (15 January 1799).
9.	1801  Alexander Thomson, in The British Parnassus, at the Close of the Eighteenth Century (1801) 60.
10.	1803  S. Whitchurch, "Lines written on a blank Leaf in Rogers's Pleasures of Memory" The Monthly Magazine 15 (February 1803) 37.
11.	1804  Charles Burney, Journal, 1 May 1804; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 6:32.
12.	1807  Richard Cumberland, in Memoirs (1807; 1856) 317-18.
13.	1807  Lady Anne Hamilton, in Epics of the Ton (1807) 10-11 & n.
14.	1809  Lord Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809); Poetical Works, ed. E. H. Coleridge (1898-1904) 1:361-62 &n.
15.	1810  Walter Scott, in "Living Poets" Edinburgh Annual Register for 1808 (1810) 2:426.
16.	1811  Richard Cumberland, in Retrospection, a Poem (1811) 67-68.
17.	1812  Anonymous, "Stanzas written after reading The Pleasures of Memory by Rogers" Lady's Monthly Museum NS 13 (September 1812) 173.
18.	1813  Thomas Campbell to Samuel Rogers, 10 February 1813; P. W. Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 1:126.
19.	1813  Francis Hodgson, "The Pleasures of Poetry, by S. R." Leaves of Laurel; or New Probationary Odes, for the Vacant Laureatship (1813) 5-6.
20.	1813  Edward Thurlow, "Lines, on the beautiful and perfect Poem, An Epistle to a Friend, written by Mr. Rogers" Morning Post (12 March 1813).
21.	1813  Thomas Moore, Review of Rogers, Poems; Edinburgh Review 22 (October 1813) 32-50.
22.	1814  Thomas Barnes, "Portraits of Authors. Mr. Rogers" The Champion (14 June 1814) 198.
23.	1816  John Hamilton Reynolds, in "Pilgrimage of Living Poets to the Stream of Castaly" The Champion (7 April 1816) 110.
24.	1816  Anonymous, "We Three, Poor Mariners Be, the Words by Sam. R—rs, Esq. assisted by Lord B—n, and harmonized by Anacreontic M—re, Esq." The Sun (19 April 1816).
25.	1817  William Wordsworth to Samuel Rogers, 13 May 1817; Letters of the Wordsworth Family, ed. Knight (1907) 2:99-100.
26.	1817  George Crabbe to Mary Leadbeater, 30 October 1817; Leadbeater Papers (1862) 2:349-50.
27.	1818  Henry Luttrell, "Lines in an Alcove in Holland House" 1818; New Monthly Magazine 13 (May 1820) 592-93.
28.	1818  Lord Byron, "Lord Byron's Verses on Sam Rogers, in Question and Answer" 1818; Fraser's Magazine 7 (January 1833) 82-84.
29.	1818  E. W. G., "Apologue" Baldwin's London Weekly Journal (17 January 1818).
30.	1819  F. W., "Lines addressed to Mr. Campbell and Mr. Rogers (par nobile fratum), Authors of The Pleasures of Hope, and The Pleasures of Memory" Morning Post (19 January 1819).
31.	1820  David Carey, in "The Mansion of the Poets" Beauties of the Modern Poets (1820) xxi.
32.	1822  John Taylor Esq., "To Samuel Rogers, Esq." The Sun (28 December 1822).
33.	1822  Anonymous, in "The Augustan Age in England" The Album 1 (1822) 221-22.
34.	1822  Paddy, in "Metricum Symposium Ambrosianum" Blackwood's Magazine 12 (July 1822) 80.
35.	1822  James Harley, in The Press, or Literary Chit-Chat. A Satire (1822) 70 &n.
36.	1823  Anonymous, in "The Literary Police Office, Bow-Street, London" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S4 15 (June 1823) 506.
37.	1823  Rev. Charles Burton, in The Bardiad; a Poem (1823) pp. 23, 142-43n.
38.	1825  William Wordsworth to Samuel Rogers, 23 March 1825; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 1:409.
39.	1827  V. A., "Samuel Rogers, a Biographical and Literary Sketch" Living Poets of England: Specimens of the Living British Poets (1827) 1:59-62.
40.	1829  Charles Lamb, "To Samuel Rogers, Esq." 1829; Works (1847) 2:415.
41.	1829  Mary Ann Browne, "Lines written in a Blank Leaf of Rogers' Pleasures of Memory" Morning Post (6 November 1829).
42.	1830  William Roscoe to Samuel Rogers, 30 October 1830; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:54-55.
43.	1830  George Barrell Cheever, in Studies in Poetry ... A copious Collection of Elegant Extracts (1830) 261.
44.	1830  Oliver William Bourne Peabody, in Review of Cheever, Studies in Poetry; North American Review [Boston] 31 (October 1830) 457.
45.	1830  C. H., "Sonnet, on reading the Voyage of Columbus" Morning Post (21 January 1830).
46.	1830 ca.  John Mitford, "To Samuel Rogers, Esq." 1830 ca.; Mitford, Miscellaneous Poems (1858) 141-42.
47.	1833  Allan Cunningham, in "Biographical and Critical History of the Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (26 October 1833) 716.
48.	1833  Charles Lamb, "To T. Stothard, Esq. on his Illustrations of the Poems of Mr. Rogers" Athenaeum (21 December 1833) 871.
49.	1834  Thomas Babington Macaulay to Samuel Rogers, 14 January 1834; P. W. Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:87-88.
50.	1835  George Ticknor, Journal Entry, 13 July 1835; Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor (1876) 1:410.
51.	1840  Charles Dickens to Samuel Rogers, 13 August 1840; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:197.
52.	1840 ca.  Caroline Norton, "To Samuel Rogers" 1840 ca.; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:288.
53.	1847  Cyrus Redding, in "Life and Reminiscences of Thomas Campbell" New Monthly Magazine 79 (February 1847) 245-46.
54.	1848  Bernard Barton to Samuel Rogers, 3 February 1848; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:322.
55.	1849  William Beattie, Dedication in Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell (1849) 1:vi-vi.
56.	1850  Prince Albert to Samuel Rogers, 8 May 1850; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:352.
57.	1851  David Macbeth Moir, in Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century (1851; 1852) 48-54.
58.	1854  Lydia Huntley Sigourney to Samuel Rogers, 10 February 1854; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:440.
59.	1855  Henry Crabb Robinson, 18 December 1855; in Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence (1870; 1872) 2:355.
60.	1856  Abraham Hayward, "Samuel Rogers" Edinburgh Review 103 (July 1856) 38-63.
61.	1858  Cyrus Redding, in Fifty Years' Recollections (1858) 3:281-82.
62.	1871  S. C. Hall, "Samuel Rogers" in A Book of Memories: Great Men and Women of the Age, from personal Acquaintance (1871) 427-32.
63.	1872  James T. Fields, in Yesterdays with Authors (1872; 1900) 386-95.
64.	1873  Joseph Devey, "Classical School. Rogers" A Comparative View of Modern English Poets (1873) 145-55.
65.	1877  Bryan Waller Procter, in Procter: An Autobiographical Fragment (1877) 148-51.
66.	1880  Henry Taylor, in The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880) 4:89-91.
67.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 267.
68.	1887  P. W. Clayden, in The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 57-61.
69.	1889  P. W. Clayden, in Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 1:13.
70.	1891  Charlotte Matilda Houstoun, in Letters and Reminiscences of the Rev. John Mitford (1892) 44-48.
71.	1898  Rowland E. Prothero, in Byron, Letters and Journals, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1898-1901) 2:66-70n.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Samuel Rogers:

1.	1798  David Rivers, in Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798) 2:219.
2.	1806  Peter L. Courtier, in Lyre of Love (1806) 2:85.
3.	1816  Anonymous, in Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816) 299.
4.	1838  S. C. Hall, in The Book of Gems. The Modern Poets and Artists of Great Britain (1838) 174.
5.	1838  Anonymous, "Memoir of Samuel Rogers" 1838; The Poems of the Pleasures (1841) 125-32.
6.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 2:316.
7.	1847  William Howitt, "Samuel Rogers" Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets (1847) 2:368-89.
8.	1855  Harriet Martineau, Obituary in The Daily News (1855); Martineau, Biographical Sketches (1869) 51-59.
9.	1856  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine NS 45 (February 1856) 191-95.
10.	1883  William Bates, after William Maginn; Maclise Gallery (1883; 1898) 13-22.
11.	1901  Frederic Boase, Modern English Biography (1892-1921) 3:262.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1789  William Gerard Hamilton:   Samuel Rogers, Journal entry, 15 July 1789; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 94-95.
2.	1789  William Parsons:   Samuel Rogers, Journal entry, 26 July 1789; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 103.
3.	1789  Adam Smith:   Samuel Rogers, Journal entry, 16, 19 July 1789; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 92-93.
4.	1791  Henry Mackenzie:   Samuel Rogers, Journal entry, 21 April 1791; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 165-71.
5.	1795  Rev. Joseph Warton:   Samuel Rogers, Commonplace book entry, 1795; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 304.
6.	1798  William Parsons:   Samuel Rogers to Richard Sharp, Sarah Rogers, 5, 9 November 1798; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 345-46, 349-50.
7.	1800  William Jackson of Exeter:   Samuel Rogers to Richard Sharp, 5 February 1800; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 398-99.
8.	1810 ca.  John Herman Merivale:   Samuel Rogers to Francis Hodgson, 1810 ca.; Memoir of Francis Hodgson (1878) 1:276-77.
9.	1838  Rev. Henry Francis Cary:   Samuel Rogers to Lord Holland, 25 December 1838; in P. W. Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:173-74.
10.	1844  John Dryden:   Samuel Rogers and Henry Sharpe, 1844; Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889) 2:264.
11.	1856  Dr. John Aikin:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 81.
12.	1856  Anna Laetitia Barbauld:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 179-80.
13.	1856  Rev. William Lisle Bowles:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 258-59.
14.	1856  Rev. Henry Francis Cary:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 282-84.
15.	1856  Samuel Taylor Coleridge:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 203.
16.	1856  George Colman the Younger:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 248-49.
17.	1856  William Combe:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 112-14.
18.	1856  Dr. Erasmus Darwin:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 180.
19.	1856  John Hookham Frere:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 192.
20.	1856  William Hayley:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 57-58.
21.	1856  Anne Hunter:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 46.
22.	1856  Henry Mackenzie:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 44.
23.	1856  Sir James Mackintosh:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 195.
24.	1856  Thomas James Mathias:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 134-35.
25.	1856  Mary Robinson:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 142.
26.	1856  Adam Smith:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 43-44.
27.	1856  Edward Thurlow:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 279.
28.	1856  Richard Tickell:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 63-64.
29.	1856  Richard West:   Samuel Rogers, in Table Talk (1856) 38-39.