A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Rogers, Samuel

Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855). -- Poet, s. of a banker in London, received a careful private education, and entered the bank, of which, on his father's death, he became the principal partner. From his early youth he showed a marked taste for literature and the fine arts, which his wealth enabled him to gratify; and in his later years he was a well-known leader in society and a munificent patron of artists and men of letters, his breakfasts, at which he delighted to assemble celebrities in all departments, being famous. He was the author of the following poems: The Pleasures of Memory (1792), Columbus (1810), Jacqueline (1814), Human Life (1819), and Italy (1822). R. was emphatically the poet of taste, and his writings, while full of allusion and finished description, rarely show passion or intensity of feeling; but are rather the reflections and memory-pictures of a man of high culture and refinement expressed in polished verse. He had considerable powers of conversation and sarcasm. He was offered, but declined, the laureateship.