sures. Hush! you think I speak wildly. I we made with hasty strides for the Moletta. Listen, for a whole moon, I knelt, from It was such a night as might have been dawn till dusk, before the great altar of chosen for such an expedition, black, Nuestra Senora, the very pavement was clouded and dreary; such a night as preworn into hollows by my bare knees. The cedes and follows the ruthless hurricane. officials extolled my piety, and celebrated The sea too had an ominous murmur, like my penance; but was such the absolution the growl of a hungry monster awaking I sought? No, Hermano, I never knelt from its sleep. We were not easily dauntbefore the golden censers, the candlesticks, ed, however, and my companion unfastenand the gorgeous trappings of the altar, ing his doree, we put off fearlessly for the but I wished to tear them down. Two old fishing-station. Josés experienced eye negroes assisted me, and I did it. Madre was not long in discovering the repository de Dios! such commotion as it made in of his treasure, though the night was dark the town; the people seemed to have made as Erebus, and we could scarcely see a a vow to talk of nothing else, and the fathom ahead, save by the fitful lightning padres yelled as if it were dooms-day. that at times showed us the heavy black The poor blacks yelled, too, for they were waves mounting round about us like Lespeedily suspected, and expired under such viathans; the spray too was driving furioustortures as could only be devised and ly since the wind rose. I looked at my executed by such agents of the fiend; but companion as he bent forward to lay his I had sworn them to secresy by all the paddle beside me. A streamer played rites of Obeah, and they died with clench-over his face; it was as pale as death. ed teeth, and closed lips-died and 'made no sign!' Ha, ha! I am safe; my punishment is afar off. Hush! the treasure is buried among the rocks of an old fishing-station, ten fathoms down. I alone know the spot; assist me in raising it to-night, and we will share it, take the first chance of escaping to New-Orleans, and begin a new life.' "Tis a wild night, shipmate," said I. "So much the better; wear up the doree while I strip.' "He flung his serape over me as he spoke, to shield me from the drift, and again cautioning me to bear up against the current, and keep near the spot, he crossed himself, and dropped heavily but quietly into the water. I thought I heard a cry as he descended, and my anxiety began to take the shape of fear. I feared he had stunned himself against a sunken rock; but in a few moments he rose again, "I consented at once, for the devil is ever ready to take advantage of a man's necessities, and, as I confessed before, skipper, honesty was a compass I had almost forgotten to steer by; perhaps, how-though he seemed to lie inert and helpless ever, my concurrence appeared somewhat too prompt to be satisfactory, for José grasped my hand firmly, and looked into my face long and earnestly with his dark, gypsy-like eyes, as if he were reading my heart like the leaves of a book. He seemed satisfied, and we continued to discuss the matter in a low tone, till the midnight chimes sounded from the minster of the Remedios, and we could hear the longdrawn cadence of the serenas, or nightwatch, as they commended the sleepers of the city to the Virgin of Guadaloupe. José twisted his serape around him, and stealing along in the shadow of the houses on the water, his bare arms heaving idly with the billows. I called to him, but he returned so answer. Pale with fear, I paddled to where the light had shown me his floating body, and seizing it by the shoulder, with a strong effort I dragged it into the boat. As I did so, blood-warm blood spouted over my breast and knees. I uttered a yell of horror, and let my load drop heavily at my feet. It was a headless trunk! The jaws of a shark had anticipated man's justice - the earthly punishment of the ill-fated and guilty José had only been protracted not repealed!" theOUGH we have published several articles upon Rogers, the following noble vindication of his characbird genius from the implied aspersions of the "Table Talk," must not be omitted. It is replete ote, and is a remarkably fine piece of criticism.-ED.] to wat agreed re than half a century a small | that a niet nook of London has been Memory") abode of taste, and the young banker wit, beauty, learning, and -alluding to surrounded by the choicwhich he bankrt, and in a light reflected a good thing, Titians, have sat and minmy account Wconverse the most eminent In early bo actors, artists, critics, travpulse was to is, warriors, orators, and metrically op generations. Under that and his brothof all sorts, matured or budby the father ver contrasted in genius or to follow, Sar, on the table-land where for that of a D'Alembert) Archimedes explained by stand on a perfect footing "He was one man of mind was introGreen, and Wan of action, and modest the evening w he would talk yet its laurels to win, was quainted with the patron he sent us to its fortunes, or with the heavenly as he sounded like a trumpet the society of people of rank that dining-room that 1 tremely polishe soniana. London: 1856. Erskine told the story of his first brief, and Grattan that of his last duel; that the "Iron Duke" described Waterloo as a "battle of giants;" that Chantrey, placing his hand on a mahogany pedestal, said, "Mr. Rogers, do you remember a workman at five shillings a day who came in at that door to receive your orders for this work? I was that workman." It was there, too, that Byron's intimacy with Moore commenced over the famous mess of potatoes and vinegar; that Madame de Staël, after a triumphant argument with Mackintosh, was (as recorded by Byron) "well ironed" by Sheridan; that Sydney Smith, at dinner with Walter Scott, Campbell, Moore, Wordsworth and Washington Irving, declared that he and Irving, if the only prose-writers, were not the only prosers in the company. It was through that window, opening to the floor and leading through the garden to the Park, that the host started with Sheridan's gifted granddaughter on "The Winter's Walk" which she has so gracefully and feelingly commemorated. It was in the library above, that 10 Wordsworth, holding up the original con- | "Be mine to listen; pleased but not elate, This house, rich as it was in varied associations, was only completed in 1801 or 1802; but the late owner's intimacy with men and women of note goes back to a long antecedent period. He had been, some years before, proposed at Johnson's club,-the club, as it is denominated still-by Fox, seconded by Windham, and (as he fully believed) blackballed by Malone. He had met Condorcet at Lafayette's table in 1789. In the course of a single Sunday at Edinburgh in the same eventful year, he had breakfasted with Robertson, heard him preach in the forenoon, and Blair in the afternoon, taken coffee with the Piozzis, and supped with Adam Smith. gested, or the moral they involved. What has been printed of his "Table Talk" is very far from being in keeping with his character, or on a par with his fame. Indeed, those who form their opinion from such records as the volume before us may be excused for attributing the assiduous court paid him to the caprice of fashion; whilst others, with better materials for judgment, will haply account for the phenomenon by the felicitous combination of long life, ample means, cultivated taste, refined hospitality, and poetic celebrity in one man. Whichever party, the detractors or the admirers, may turn out right, the critical analysis of his life and writings which must precede any honest attempt to adjudicate upon his reputation, cannot fail to be highly instructive; nor will it be found wanting in the leading attractions of literary biogra phy. We therefore propose to review the principal incidents and performances of a life extending over ninety-two of about the most exciting and eventful years of the world's history. ne gan Samuel Rogers was born at Newington Green, on the 30th July, 1763. He was one of a family of six children, three son and three daughters; he was the third son. The father was an opulent banker, he of the firm carried on till the presentry under the name of Rogers, Olding, 29 Clement's Lane. Prior to his he had he was a member of the Church & rock; but the influence of his wife spe again, ed his conversion to her and helpless There is surely something more in this Unitarian; and by the tiheaving idly position, than the extraordinary prolonga- old enough to understang him, but he tion of human life, or than its utility as a by such things the who with fear, I connecting link between two or three gen- regular and rigid attendad shown me erations, the point of view in which hither- istry of the celebrated Ing it by the to it has been almost exclusively consid-versary of Burke. The rt I dragged ered. It leads naturally and necessarily to ance of the principal disse blood-warm reflections on the state of our society, es- undergone so sensible a dt and knees. pecially in relation to the literary, artistic years, in social and lite let my load and intellectual elements, during the last that it may be difficult for was a headseventy years; and we feel eager to profit eration to form a just esti shark had by the experience and sagacity of a nono- nence and influence of th the earthly genarian who has enjoyed such ample community in question.. and guilty opportunities for appreciating mankind. rich in literary illustrationted not reFortunately Mr. Rogers's mental habits and Defoe, Dr. Watts, Dr. tendencies strongly disposed and qualified Mrs. Barbauld, and Dr. A him for turning his length of years to good by no means undistinguis account. His writings teem with maxims associated with the cong of worldly wisdom, enforced or illustrated ington Green; which sti by remarkable incidents, and his conver- the ministry of the Re sation was replete with anecdotes selected (of the Protector's fami for the sake of the light they threw on prises most of the natu® manners, the train of thought they sug-pectable connections o who was undeniably indebted to his dissenting friends for his first introduction to celebrated people in England, Scotland, and France. Nor was this tie to the primitive nonconformists of his youth altogether dissolved by his excursions into the regions of orthodoxy and fashion. Mr. Rogers was a trustee of the Newington Presbyterian Meeting House from 1790 to his death-a period of sixty-five years; and when the Dissenters' Chapel Bill was before Parliament, he signed a petition in favor of it in that capacity. According to his own account, Samuel Rogers had every reason to congratulate himself on his parentage, paternal and maternal. His mother, of whom he uniformly spoke as an aimable and very handsome woman, sedulously inculcated kindness and gentleness; whilst his father, who lived till 1793, gave him a good education suited to his intended mode of life, put him in the way of making a fortune, and carefully refrained from thwarting or crossing him in his inclinations or pursuits, although these must frequently have jarred against the dissenting banker's notions of the fitness of things. On seeing his son taking to poetry and fine company, the old man must have felt like the hen who sees the duckling, which she has hatched as a bird of her own feather, suddenly taking to water; and in his heart, he probably agreed with Lord Eldon, who on hearing that a new poem ("The Pleasures of Memory") had just been published by a young banker, exclaimed, "If old Gozzy" -alluding to the head of the firm with which he banked-"ever so much as says a good thing, let alone writing, I will close my account with him the next morning." In early boyhood, the future poet's impulse was to start off the course in a diametrically opposite direction. When he and his brothers were called in and asked by the father what professions they wished to follow, Samuel avowed his predilection for that of a preacher; a choice which he explained by his admiration for Dr. Price. "He was our neighbor of Newington Green, and would often drop in to spend the evening with us in his dressing gown he would talk and read the Bible to us till he sent us to bed in a frame of mind as heavenly as his own. He lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne and other people of rank, and his manners were extremely polished." If the child be father to the man, we must be pardoned for sus pecting that the mundane advantages of the divine had at least as much to do with the influence which he exercised over his young admirer, as the truths divine that came mended from his tongue. The chief part, if not the whole, of Rogers's formal and regular education was received at a Dissenting school at Hackney, where he learnt Latin enough to enable him to read the easier Latin classics with facility. By the time he quitted it, he had got rid of his pulpit aspirations, and he is not recorded to have manifested any marked reluctance to his destination when he was placed in the paternal countinghouse, with the view of being in due course admitted a member of the firm. He seems to have begun the serious business of life with the good sense and prudence which never left him; although he was constantly exposed to temptations to which most men of poetical or susceptible temperament would have succumbed. When his solid comforts and his well understood interests were involved, the Dalilahs of fame and fashion, of vanity and sensibility, exhausted their arts on him in vain. He kept his gaze steadily fixed on the main chance. Even when he set up as a poet, he could honestly say, "I left no calling for this idle trade-no duty broke;" and he continued laying the foundations of his ideal edifice of social enjoyment and prosperity, with a patience and precision worthy of the most painstaking and methodical of economists and calculators. It was his favorite speculation, that the greatest command of worldly happiness was attainable by one who, beginning low on the social ladder, should mount gradually and regularly to the top. It has been invidiously objected that this sounds very like the career of a successful tuft-hunter. But Rogers insisted that every step in the ascent should be won honorably, and the sustained gratification was to arise from recognized merit, and would be poisoned by the smallest admixture of conscious unworthiness. Fortunately, he has himself explained and amplified his theory, in one of the most striking passages in his "Italy": What men most covet,-wealth, distinction, power, Are baubles nothing worth, that only serve of passion and adventure: an exploit, the honor of which has been claimed for "Christabel" by Coleridge, who borrowed the suggestion from Goethe. ́ Collins and Gray, emboldened by "Alexander's And they, the few, that have it ere they earn it, Feast," and the "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," Having, by favor or inheritance, produced some fine lyrical pieces, as the These dangerous gifts placed in their idle hands," Ode to the Passions" and "The Bard;" And all that should await on worth well-tried, Thirsting for distinction, he hurried into the lists without adequate preparation, and with ill-fitting and borrowed arms. Man is little less an imitative creature than the monkey or the mocking-bird. He instinctively copies the model that caprice or accident has made popular; and indiscriminately adopts, to the best of his ability, the vice or virtue, the folly or wisdom, the style of dress or the style of writing, that is in vogue. When Rogers started as an author, he was not exempt from this almost universal weakness; and, to explain his poetical development, we must cast a retrospect ive glance on the poetical productions and literary tendencies of the generation in which he was trained up. The period in question was the Augustan age of historians and novelists: for within it flourished, in fulness of reputation, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Goldsmith. The rich mine opened by the essayists beginning with the Tattler and the Spectator, had been worked out, and was virtually abandoned after the termination of the Idler in 1757; whilst a cold shade was flung over poetry by the name and memory of Pope. No school has practically proved more depressing to originality in its followers than his,-despite (perhaps by reason) of his own exquisite fancy, and notwithstanding the encouragement to erratic courses held out to them in the familiar couplet: "From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." Nor have many schools retained their influence longer; for Crabbe was wittily described as "Pope in worsted stockings;" and the spell was not completely broken until the 19th century, when Sir Walter Scott inspired the taste for metrical tales but for more than fifty years after the death of the bard of Twickenham, English poetry ran almost exclusively in the didactic, descriptive, or elegiac line, with an occasional digression into satire. Rogers's avowed favorites were Gray and Goldsmith; and his preference has been justified by posterity. "I used," he said, "to take a pocket edition of Gray's Poems with me every morning during my walks to my father's banking-house, where I was a clerk, and read them by the way. I can repeat them all." On another occasion he exclaimed: "What pleasure I felt on being told that Este (Parson Este) had said of me, 'A child of Goldsmith, sir." This must have been after the publication of the "Pleasures of Memory;" for it is curious that Rogers, having first tried his strength in prose, began his poetical career by taking for his prototype the one of these two (Gray and Goldsmith) whose genius was least in harmony with his own, and, by imbuing himself with the spirit of what must have been to him the least congenial of Gray's productions. The, to all agreeable, to many intoxicaing, sensation of first seeing oneself in print, was experienced by Rogers in 1781, when he contributed eight numbers, under the title of The Scribbler, to "The Gentleman's Magazine," -the same which, under the editorship of Sylvanus Urban (Cave), was the repository of the earliest efforts of Johnston in the same walk. "He told me," says Boswell," that when he first saw St. John's Gate, the place where that deservedly popular miscellany was originally printed, he beheld it with reverence." Probably it was Johnsonian influence that gave their peculiar form to Rogers's first attempts at authorship; for the great lexicographer was amongst the idols of his youth. "My friend Maltby and I," he used to relate, "had a strong desire to see Dr. Johnson; and we determined to call upon him and introduce ourselves. We accordingly proceeded to his house in Bolt Court; and I had my hand on the knocker, when our courage failed us, and we retreated. Many years afterwards I men |