Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/121

 The chief work of Rogers's life was a series of carefully executed facsimiles of original drawings from the great masters, engraved in tint. The book was issued in 1778, with the title ‘A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings … to which are annexed Lives of their Authors, with Explanatory and Critical Notes,’ 2 vols. imperial folio. The plates, which are 112 in number, were engraved chiefly by Bartolozzi, Ryland, Basire, and Simon Watts, from drawings some of which were in Rogers's own collection.

In 1782 Rogers printed in quarto an anonymous blank-verse translation of Dante's ‘Inferno.’ He also contributed to ‘Archæologia’ and the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’

A portrait of Rogers was painted in 1777 by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and now hangs in the Cottonian Library. It was engraved in mezzotint by W. Wynne Ryland for Rogers's ‘Imitations,’ also by S. W. Reynolds and by J. Cook for the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’



ROGERS, CHARLES (1825–1890), Scottish author, only son of James Rogers (1767–1849), minister of Denino in Fife, was born in the manse there on 18 April 1825. His mother, who died at his birth, was Jane, second daughter of William Haldane, minister successively at Glenisla and Kingoldrum. The father published a ‘General View of the Agriculture of Angus,’ Edinburgh, 1794, 4to; an ‘Essay on Government,’ Edinburgh, 1797, 8vo; and contributed an account of Monikie and of Denino to the ‘New Statistical Account of Scotland,’ vol. ix. After attending the parish school of Denino for seven years, Charles in 1839 matriculated at the university of St. Andrews, and passed a like period there. Licensed by the presbytery of that place in June 1846, he was employed in the capacity of assistant successively at Western Anstruther, Kinglassie, Abbotshall, Dunfermline, Ballingry, and Carnoustie. Subsequently he opened a preaching station at the Bridge of Allan, and from January 1855 until 11 Aug. 1863 was chaplain of the garrison at Stirling Castle.

During his residence in Stirling Rogers was elected in 1861 a member of the town council, and took a prominent part in local improvements, including the erection of the national Wallace monument on the Abbey Craig. In 1855 he inaugurated at Stirling a short-lived Scottish Literary Institute. In 1862 he opened the British Christian Institute, for the dissemination of religious tracts, especially to soldiers and sailors, and in connection with it he issued a weekly paper, called ‘The Workman's Friend,’ and afterwards monthly serials, ‘The Briton’ and ‘The Recorder;’ but the scheme collapsed in 1863. In 1863 he founded and edited a newspaper, ‘The Stirling Gazette,’ but its career was brief. These schemes involved Rogers in much contention and litigation, and he imagined himself the victim of misrepresentation and persecution. To escape his calumniators he resigned his chaplaincy in 1863, went to England, and thenceforth devoted himself to literary work.

Rogers's earliest literary efforts in London were journalistic, but Scottish history, literature, and genealogy were throughout his life the chief studies of his leisure, and his researches in these subjects, to which he mainly devoted his later years, proved of value. Nor did he moderate the passion for founding literary societies which he had first displayed in Stirling. In November 1865 he originated in London a short-lived Naval and Military Tract Society, as a successor to his British Christian Institute, and in connection with it he edited a quarterly periodical called ‘The British Bulwark.’ When that society's existence terminated, he set up ‘The London Book and Tract Depository,’ which he carried on until 1874. A more interesting venture was Rogers's Grampian Club, for the issue of works illustrative of Scottish literature, history, and antiquities. This, the most successful of all his foundations, was inaugurated in London on 2 Nov. 1868, and he was secretary and chief editor until his death. He also claimed to be the founder of the Royal Historical Society, which was established in London on 23 Nov. 1868, for the conduct of historical, biographical, and ethnological investigations. He was secretary and historiographer to this society until 1880, when he was openly charged with working it for his own pecuniary benefit. He defended himself in a pamphlet, ‘Parting Words to the Members,’ 1881, and reviewed his past life in ‘The Serpent's Track: a Narrative of twenty-two years' Persecution’ (1880). He edited eight volumes of the Historical Society's ‘Transactions,’ in which he wrote much himself.

In 1873 a number of Rogers's friends