the ludicrous, and generally ready to describe it; but hers are not "got-up" scenes of high or low comedy. Job Leigh and Sally in "Ruth," and Dixon in "North and South," have their " humors" duly set forth; and the spinster goings-on in "Cranford" are detailed with a genial irony surprisingly free from scorn and exaggeration. For the author is too earnest, too deep-feeling, too high-minded, to laugh or make laugh out of season, as well as in season. Unmistakably, she writes under a sense of responsibility, a religious conviction of duty, which gives unity and purpose to her fictions, and consecrates them to a lofty end. This must be seen and owned by those who dispute her facts, or reject her conclusions, or doubt the legitimacy of her employment of fiction for doctrinal and didactic purposes. "Some there are whose name will live Not in the memories but the hearts of men, Because those hearts they comforted and chcer'd, These are the glowing lines of a man of genius, supposed to be as fastidious of taste as he is known to be generous of soul-Walter Savage Landor. He owns, in his own instance, the enlightening and bettering influence of the Manchester novelist-impressively adding: "The human heart holds more within its cell And thou hast taught me at the fount of Truth, That none confer God's blessing but the poor, None but the heavy-laden reach His throne." Mrs. Gaskell's shorter tales and sketches well deserved to be collected into the popular form in which they have recently* appeared. Some of them have an earnest pathos akin to that of Mrs. Southey's best stories; others a shrewd sense of humor, and quiet, genial fun, that remind one of Miss Mitford in her cheeriest mood; while they all have a character and expression of their own, the fee-simple of the "Author of Mary Barton."" No common pen could have traced out the history of "Morton Hall," in which the gloom at the heart of the narrative is so quaintly relieved by the comic associations-in excellent taste and keeping, though-of the narrator. "Lizzie Leigh" opens out glimpses of the genius that discovered its fullness in "Ruth." The checkered career of "My French Master" is traced with graphic strokes, often of delicate. beauty. "Company Manners" is a right pleasant bit of miscellaneous gossip, in which the writer makes Madame de Sablé chez lui the text for a homily on English society, what it is, and what it might bea homily without drone or drawl, but pithy and pungent, witty and wise. "Mr. Harrison's Confessions" read like a supplement to "Cranford"-the scene, the actors, the whole humor of the thing are so nearly identical. And other chapters there are, already (to misquote an appropriated motto) Familiar to our eyes in Household Words. "Lizzie Leigh; and other Tales"-in the Select (really select) Library of Fiction. From the Athenæum. SAMUEL THE Patriarch of English poets, wits, and patrons of art, died early on Tuesday morning, at his house in St. James's Place, aged, we believe, ninety-three years. Few lives so long protracted as his have afforded less incident-few may yield so much anecdote to a future biographer of the "Poets of England." It was a life of easy fortunes, spent during a memorable century, among memorable people-a life of taste acquired in foreign travel, before foreign travel had ceased to be a luxurya life of poetical creations-few, far between, and finished so highly, that the best thoughts and lines in them will not readily perish from among the pleasures of memory. The father of Samuel Rogers was a London banker, "renowned," we read, " in the annals of Parliamentary election, for a severe contest with Col. Holroyd, subsequently Lord Sheffield, in dividing the suffrages of the city of Coventry, when the obstinacy of the combat excited much attention." His son's education was begun, we believe, at the school of the Rev. Mr. Pickbourne, of Newington Green. There Rogers contracted one or two friendships which lasted almost as long as his own life. When a young man, after the fashion of the Grays and Beckfords, he began to study the world of art and manners in foreign cities, picture-galleries, embassies, and courts. We have, within the last dozen years, heard Mr. Rogers describe how he had seen Marie Antoinette dance, and illustrate the same by himself walking a minuet. There is, also, an anecdote of his having left an early poem at Dr. Johnson's door only a day or two before the Doctor's death. But this event happened in 1784, and the date of the publication of the "Ode to Superstition" in 1786. We notice these things somewhat doubtfully, since long before Mr. Rogers retired from society, he had outlived the time, at which a man shrinks from being thought oldand had reached the stage when "to be ROGERS. very old is pleasant rather than otherwise." Should the Diary of Memoirs, which it has been said he kept from a very early age, be given to the world, we may know more exactly what company he kept in Paris and London before the French Revolution. In the year 1792 appeared "The Pleasures of Memory," and a notice or two in the memoirs of the time, will show that the writer, besides presenting himself to the public, had time and inclination to wait on those whom Fame had already marked. In 1795, his epilogue written for Mrs. Siddons was spoken by her at her benefit. In 1798, the year when his "Epistles to a Friend" was published, we find Madame d'Arblay writing to her sister, Mrs. Phillips: "I learned... that Mr. Rogers, author of the Pleasures of Memory,' that most sweet poem, had ridden round the lanes about our domain to view it, and stood-or made his horse stand-at our Cottage-a name I am sorry to find, Charles, or gate a considerable time, to examine our Camilla some one, had spread to him; and he honored all with his good word." This humor for pilgrimage, however warped or influenced, lived in Mr. Rogers to the last years of his life. His mind (under conditions) was to the last open to admire and appreciate, and this, perhaps, was one main secret of his poetical success. To complete our notice of his career as a poet, it may be told that the "Pleasures of Memory" was followed at an interval of twenty years by his "Columbus." To this succeeded " Jacqueline," which originally appeared together with Lord Byron's "Lara" (a union soon followed by a separation), "Human Life," and lastly "Italy." The illustration of the lastnamed poem was the last task for the publie undertaken by the author-a task, it may be added, beyond the compass of any one less easy in fortunes, since the production of that volume is said to have cost £10,000, and the days had not then set in when cheap literature on the one hand, had been balanced by a luxury in typography and engraving undreamed of by our fathers. There can be no question that the taste, no less than the cost, brought to bear on this volume, in which some of the most exquisite designs of Turner alternate with those of Stothart, mark a period in the history of English_book-illustration. To this day Rogers' " Italy" remains without a peer. Setting accessories aside for the moment, a word may be said in regard to the place of Mr. Rogers among modern English poets. His poetry is select rather than brilliant. He produced very sparingly-he polished every line with a fastidiousness fatal to vigor-and seemed so little equal to the labor and fatigue attending on a sustained flight, that two of his poems on most ambitious subjects, "The Voyage of Columbus," and "Italy," were given forth to the world in the form of fragments. His "Pleasures of Memory" stand midway betwixt Goldsmith and Campbell, though not on the level of either. Measured against that beautiful poem of the affections, Cowper's "Lines on his Mother's Picture," the reminiscences of Mr. Rogers are faint. The heart in them beats languidly, though the music is "tender and gravely sweet." The symmetry of the versification, nevertheless, has installed several passages among our stock quotations. There are lines and cadences in "Jacqueline," slight as is the structure of the story, that take possession of the heart through the ear—and which by all who are not exclusively given over to the modern style of mystical meaning and rugged versification, will not willingly be let go. Betwixt the indulgent fondness of those to whom these things are already "pleasures of memory," and the recusant spirit of a younger school, too apt to attest its vigor and audacity by undervaluing those who have preceded it, we may stand ill for a fair judgment of these poems. But they will remain, we think, for future critics to test and try, and future lovers of verse to love, in the silver, if not in the "golden" book of English poetry. Again, in the "Italy" of Rogers we have not the Italy of those passions, "sudden and lasting," which Byron sang-nor the Italy of violent words and painfully inconclusive deeds, which has been so sad a sight to more modern pilgrims-but the Italy of |"ruins and the vine." The gentler appearances of its "fatal beauty" have rarely been more gracefully sung than by Rogers; and though his pictures may be undervalued as too smooth and feeble on a first reading, there are not a few who, after passing the Alps, have been surprised, like ourselves, to find how their truth of traits and tones, the quiet musical harmony of some single line, or the sentiment of the entire fragment, calls them up again-as familiar melodies recalled by the sights of the way. Rogers must be commemorated as one who, for more than half a century past, has figured in the foremost rank of London literary society, even in a record so immediate as this. It may be doubted whether any poet, even in the Augustan age of clubs and chocolate houses, ever lived so much in the eye of the world of men and women as the banker-bard of St. James's Place. He had pitched his tent there more than half a century ago. Ere that period, too, he had pronounced himself as a Liberal, and the associate of Liberals, in a manner which socially cost him dear: as we are reminded by a curious entry from Dr. Burney's "Memoirs :" Rogers, put up by Courtney and seconded by me, "May 1st, 1804.-It was at the Club, at which was balloted for, and blackballed: I believe, on account of his politics. There can, indeed, be nothing else against him. He is a good poet-has a refined taste in all the arts-has a select library of authors in most languages-has very fine piction I ever saw of the best Etruscan vases-and, tures-very fine drawings and the finest collecmoreover, gives the best dinners, to the best company of men of talents and genius, of any man I know, and with the best wines, liqueurs, etc. He is not fond of talking politics, for he is no Jacobinenragé-though I believe him to be a principled Republican, and therefore in high favor with Mr. sive; and neither shuns nor dislikes a man for beFox and his adherents. But he is never obtruing of a different political creed to himself; and, in fact, he is much esteemed by many persons belonging to the Government and about the Court. His books of prints of the greatest engravers, from the greatest masters, in history, architecture, and antiquities, are of the first class. His house in St. James's Place, looking into the Green Park, is deliciously situated, and furnished with great taste. ber of the club." He seemed very desirous of being elected a mem This ostracism, however, was soon annulled. Only a few years after the above amusing note was made, London saw that outburst of Liberalism in verse which gives one of its marking glories to the past half 66 But as years wore on, his fastidiousness became somewhat wayward, and his predilections balanced by antipathies for which no reason could be given. His affection for music was greater than his knowledge of it. This amounted to a gentle dilettantism, recalling that of Gray, writing canzonets to an air by Geminiani, to be sung by Miss Speed; and stopping short of the boldness, romance, and discovery which has marked the art since Beethoven was in his prime. But till an accident confined him to his chair, Mr. Rogers continued to be an attendant at the Opera, the Ancient Concerts, and, when these died out, at the Exeter Hall Oratorios. Till a very late period, he might be seen at midnight, feebly hurrying home from these on foot-no matter what the weather-thinly dressed, and as resentful of the slightest offer of attendance as was the Duke" when he was scarcely able to mount his horse. The passion for pleasure did not forsake him till a very late period. Only a few years since, a street accident, caused by this imprudent manner of wandering home alone, sentenced him to a chair for the rest of his days. century. That was a golden age for Whig | relations with artists and men of letters, society when Moore sang his own Irish however, it must be said his tastes were Melodies as none else has ever sung them, somewhat influenced by his sympathies. to the delight of all the music-lovers of He must be commemorated as one of the London; and there was Moore's new po- first English connoisseurs who appreciated litical epigram, or satire, to chuckle over the serene and delicate sanctities of Fra at Lord Holland's table-when Byron beat Beato. He attached himself earnestly to Walter Scott's North Countrie ballad-ro- the genius of Stothard, at a time when a mances out of the field by his Greek tales more potent and more technically accomof crime and mystery-and was not unwil- plished arbiter of taste-Sir George Beauling to allow friends or enemies in corners mont-was unable to relish the works of to add that last spice of interest to the the painter of "The Canterbury Pilgrimsweet new poem" which lay in ascribing age." its origin to some personal adventure. How, with Moore and Byron, Rogers, as the Amphitryon and dilettante and wit of St. James's Place, was perpetually mixed up and intimately conversant, the published diaries and memoirs of the two poets have already told. That such compact of unity meant no compact of mutual forbearance, when a poignant verse could be penned, or a sharp speech made, or a clever note written, is as little a secret. It must have been worth something "to have heard the chimes at midnight" with two such comrades as Byron and Moore. But when Byron left England, and Moore was out of London, there was 66 the Bard of Memory" from morning till midnight in public-giving breakfasts, dining out, afterwards to be seen at the Ancient Concerts or the Opera, or at some of those gatherings which call themselves society in the small great-houses of Babylon. How nerves and thews and sinews could bear such a life of intellectual disport-such a ceaseless flow of varying society as that in which the last fifty years of the life of Rogers passed-seems marvellous; the wonder being doubled to all familiar-and who in London was not ?—with his fragile appearance. Nor were society and entertainment by him taken easily. They implied perpetual effort, perpetual change, a perpetual call on the spirits. His was not a mere coterie made up of a few old friends, among whom the hour could steal away without much excitement. The young poet or painter-the freshly-arrived American traveller-the new actress-the beauty of the season-were all to be found in his circle as they rose on the horizon, mixed up with old acquaintances and established reputation of the Holland-House set. The services and acts of kindness of Rogers to those whom his fancy adopted were many, munificent, and secret. In his A trait has still to be noted, without which no sketch of Rogers, as a man of society, could be complete. Never was host less exclusive in forming his circle; and countless are the acts of substantial kindness which unknown and unfriended persons have occasion to associate with the memory of that breakfast-table in that shaded dining-room pleasantly described by Sydney Smith, as a place of darkness where there shall be gnashing of teeth." Rogers took a tender and indulgent notice of children, rather singular in a wit and a bachelor. But, whether as balancing accounts against the myriad merciful courtesies which he did, or whether as in We have spoken as yet of only one of Mr. Rogers' three bequests to the nation. The Giorgione (on panel, 15 in. by 11 in.) is the portrait of a young Knight, called among critics "Gaston de Foix." Very fine indeed is this picture. Knowing men attribute it to Raphael. It is a small fulllength of a man in armor, with his head bare, and his face seen in front. The coloring is gorgeous-the figure and expression noble. Mr. Rogers delighted to call attention to it; and Mrs. Jamieson has described it with her usual accuracy and point. voluntarily venting humors which could | 1000 guineas-a very large sum in those not be concealed, the author of "The times (five-and-thirty years ago) for a Pleasures of Memory" was also known small Italian picture. For a Dutch picand noted for the indulgence of a "critical" ture, when Plancus was king, and Peel spirit, sometimes passing the bounds of and Baring were collectors, it would not what is gracious in wit, and permissible have been much. in reply. He would conceive an antipathy to look or gesture in an inoffensive person, and pursue the party with an active dislike, which was curious in proportion as it was unreasonable. He was aware of his own propensity, owned it without misgiving, and accounted for it in a manner as ingenious as it was original. "When I was young," he has been heard to say, "I found that no one would listen to my civil speeches, because I had a very small voice so I began to say ill-natured things, and then people began to attend to me!" The habit grew with time, indulgence, and the considerate politeness of a younger generation, to an occasional excess of irritable severity of which, possibly, the wit of St. James's Place was unaware; but in sketching the figure of Rogers as a man long conversant with London society, the keenness of his tongue could be no more omitted or concealed than the extraordinary pallor of his complexion could be overlooked by the painter who professed to offer a record of his expressive but peculiar head. This, by the way, has been done with striking exactness, though perhaps on too large a scale, by Mr. S. Laurence. The following memorandum of some bequests made by Mr. Rogers to the British Nation is from another source: Mr. Rogers' third bequest is the "Head of Our Saviour crowned with Thorns," by Guido, so exquisitely engraved in the line manner by William Sharp. Mr. Rogers obtained this picture at the sale of Benjamin West, the painter. It is a very fine sketch. West was fond of asserting (what we believe to be true) that it was painted "in one day." The impasto is so thin that the canvas is merely covered. There is no trace of retouching, and most unquestionably there is no varnish. A lurking wish must not escape some record in this column. We could have wished that Mr. Rogers had left the nation the far-famed "Puck" of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mr. Rogers acquired it at Boydell's Shakspeare Gallery sale for the insignificant sum of one hundred guineas the sum, Northcote states, that Sir Joshua received for it. Nay, he might have left us the "Strawberry Girl" of the same delightful artist, for which Lord Carysfort paid Sir Joshua fifty pounds, and Mr. Rogers obtained at something like pawnbroker's interest. The "late Mr. Rogers" (how strangely the words sound!) was fifty years in collecting seventy pictures. Other collectors (we have known them) have had the supposed good (rather the ill) luck to find seventy so-called good pictures in seven years. Of these seventy pictures Mr. Rogers has left three to the nation. But to other matters. The "last ArNor are we disposed (his bequest was gonaut of classic English poetry," for so long known) to quarrel with the selection Byron in his better-not in his bitterhe has made. He has given us the best moments delighted to call him, chose his small Titian in England-shall we say the grave in Hornsey churchyard, in the Islworld? the far-famed "Noli me Tan-ington environs of London. We rememgere." In making this bequest, he has given us the picture for which he gave the most. Money, therefore, in making his bequest, never entered into his thoughts. For the "Noli me Tangere" he gave, at Mr. Champernowne's sale, ber Hornsey church ere the demon of so-called improvement lessened its attrac tions. There lies the infant daughter of Thomas Moore, and there that exquisite song-writer was wont, when in London, to make periodical visits to the grave |