Boswell, who said, 'What a pity you did not go boldly in! he would have received you with all kindness.""

Rogers commonly followed up this anecdote with another of the advice he gave, instead of a letter of introduction, to a young friend who was going to Birmingham, and had a similar desire to see Dr. Parr. The advice was to be collected from the result. 66 Well, what did you do?" was my first question to the traveller on his return. "Exactly as you told me. I knocked boldly at the door, and asked for Dr. Parr. I was shown into a parlour on the ground floor by a servant-maid. When the Doctor appeared, I looked steadily at him for a moment, and then said, 'Dr. Parr, I have taken an inexcusable liberty, and I cannot complain if you order me to be kicked out of your house. On seeing your name upon the door, I could not make up my mind to pass the house of the greatest man in Europe without seeing him. I knocked, was adImitted, and here I am!' The Doctor seized me by both hands in a kind of transport of welcome, fairly danced me up and down the room, and ended by keeping me to dinner on a roast shoulder of

mutton."

Rogers's admiration of Johnson never extended to his style, and the most remarkable features of "The

Scribbler

guage.

are the correctness and ease of the lanAll the essays are commonplace enough in point of thought and conception, nor would it be difficult to specify the very "Ramblers" or "Idlers" which the writer had in his mind's eye whilst composing them; but the one on "Fashion" is written with a freedom and rhythmical flow which are rarely found in essayists of eighteen :

Whether she (Fashion) heightened with a pencil the vermilion of her check, or clothed her limbs with a tight or

flowing vest; whether she collected her ringlets in a knot, or suffered them to hang negligently on her shoulders; whether she shook the dice, waked the lyre, or filled the sparkling glass, she was imitated by her votaries, who vied with each other in obsequiousness and reverence. All insisted on presenting their offerings; either their health, their fortunes, or their integrity. Though numbers incessantly disappeared, the assembly, receiving continual supplies, preserved its grandeur and its brilliancy. At the entrance I observed Vanity, fantastically crowned with flowers and feathers, to whom the fickle deity committed the initiation of her votaries. These having fluttered as gaily as their predecessors, in a few moments vanished, and were succeeded by others. All who rejected the solicitations of Vanity, were compelled to enter by Ridicule, whose shafts were universally dreaded. Even Literature, Science, and Philosophy were obliged to comply. Those only escaped who were concealed beneath the veil of Obscurity. As I gazed on this glittering scene, having declined the invitation of Vanity, Ridicule shot an arrow from her bow, which pierced my heart: I fainted, and in the violence of my agitation awaked."

To judge from the small type in which they were printed, and the places assigned to them in the columns of Mr. Sylvanus Urban, that practised judge of literary merit attached no great value to the lucubrations of "The Scribbler," and they were discontinued after September 1781. The author of the "Table Talk" states that he was present when Mr. Rogers tore to pieces, and threw into the fire, a manuscript operatic drama, the "Vintage of Burgundy," which he had written early in life. "He told me he offered it to a manager, who said, 'I will bring it on the stage if you are determined to have it acted, but it will certainly be damned.'" Unless this drama was composed wholly or in part between 1781 and 1786, we must conclude that this interval was employed in preparing for his first public appearance as a poet, which was not unlikely, considering

the amount of labour that he was wont to devote to his compositions. The "Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems," was published in 1786. It was an eighteenpenny quarto of twenty-six pages, after the fashion of the times, when the eye was relieved by "rivulets of text running through meadows of margin." He is reported as saying: "I wrote it whilst in my teens, and afterwards touched it up. I paid down to the publisher 30l. to insure him from being a loser by it. At the end of four years, I found that he had sold about twenty copies. However, I was consoled by reading in a critique on the 'Ode' that I was 'an able writer' or some such expression."

6

Whoever lived much with him will remember that any reference to the "Ode" was the inevitable prelude to the production of the volume containing the critique, the "Monthly Review," December 1786. It began thus: "In these pieces we perceive the hand of an able master. The Ode to Superstition' is written with uncommon boldness of language and strength of diction. The author has collected some of the most striking historical facts, to illustrate the tyranny of the demon he addresses, and has exhibited them with the fire and energy proper to lyric poetry. The following stanzas are particularly excellent." The reviewer then quotes, without remarking the resemblance, the very stanzas or strophes which are most palpably imitated from Gray's "Bard." "Alexander's Feast was also copied in parts, and the result recalls the fable of the ambitious frog, or reminds us of " all the contortions of the Sibyl without one particle of her inspiration." Almost the only lines which do not creak, groan and tremble with the strain, or which bear token of his subsequently matured preference for simple uninverted language, are the following:

The wonder is, that whilst imitating Gray, Rogers was not irresistibly and exclusively attracted by the "Elegy." One would have thought that he, of all others, would have been fascinated by the exquisite finish and sober grace of that incomparable performance. But it was easier to mimic the clamour and clatter of the dithyrambic ode than to catch the pathos and simplicity of the "Elegy" or the "Ode to Eton College."

Mr. Rogers's compositions down to this time, both in verse and prose, leave the impression that he was extremely anxious to write without having anything to write about. He had sharpened and polished his tools, and had acquired no slight dexterity in the use of them, but materials were altogether wanting. He had laid up no stock of thought, sentiment, or observation worthy of being worked up or moulded into form; and his attempts to compensate for this deficiency by artificial fire, borrowed movements, and forced enthusiasm, proved about as successful as those of the German baron who jumped over the chairs and tables to acquire vivacity. Rogers, however, was not to be dispirited by failure. He at length hit upon the right vein, and from the moment he discovered that he was destined to excel by grace, elegance, subdued sentiment, and chastened fancy-not by fervid

passion, lofty imagination, or deep feeling, his poetic fortune was made.

During the six years that elapsed before he again ventured into print, he visited Paris and Edinburgh, conversed with many who were acting as well as with some who were writing history, and indefinitely extended his knowledge of books, of external nature, of social systems, and of mankind. The firstfruits were the "Pleasures of Memory," published with the name of the author in 1792.

The epoch was fortunately hit upon or judiciously chosen. The old school was wearing out, and the new had not commenced. The poem struck into the happy medium between the precise and conventional style, and the free and natural one. The only competitor formidable from newly acquired popularity, was Cowper. Crabbe's fame was then limited: Darwin never had much: and Burns, incomparably the greatest poetic genius of his generation (1759-1796), was not appreciated in England in his lifetime, or something better than an exciseman's place would have been bestowed upon him. We are therefore not surprised at the immediate success of Rogers's second and better calculated experiment on the public taste. Yet with undeniable merits of a high order, it had little of the genuine inspiration of original genius. strongest proof of its deficiency in this respect is that, although it has long taken its place as an English classic, none of its mellifluous verses or polished images are freshly remembered, like "The coming events cast their shadows before," of Campbell; or the "Oh, woman, in our hours of ease," of Scott; or Oh, ever thus from childhood's hour," of Moore; or the "He who hath bent him o'er the dead," of Byron; or the "Creature not too bright or good," of Wordsworth. Any zealous admirer of these writers will be ready at any moment to justify his or her ad

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