Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/207

Rh Mr. Rogers's, who resided at Islington, he was unable to leave his bed. Miss Rogers, his sister, who lived with him, and his brother the poet, received us, quite unconscious of the dangerous condition of their relative, who died the next day.

Thus commenced a friendship with both of my much-valued friends which remained unruffled by the slightest wave until their lamented loss. Miss Rogers removed to a house in the Regent's Park, in which the paintings by modern artists collected by her elder brother, and increased by her own judicious taste, were arranged. The society at that house comprised all that was most eminent in literature and in art. The adjournment after her breakfasts to the delightful verandah overlooking the Park still clings to my fading memory, and the voices of her poet brother, of Jeffrey, and of Sidney Smith still survive in the vivid impressions of their wisdom and their wit.

I do not think the genuine kindness of the poet's character was sufficiently appreciated. I occasionally walked home with him from parties during the first years of our acquaintance. In later years, when his bodily strength began to fail, I always accompanied him, though sometimes not without a little contest.

I have frequently walked with him from his sister's house, in the Regent's Park, to his own in St. James's Place, and he has sometimes insisted upon returning part of the way home with me.

On one of those occasions we were crossing a street near Cavendish Square: a cart coming rapidly round the corner, I almost dragged him over. As soon as we were safe, the poet said, very much as a child would, "There, now, that was all your fault; you would come with me, and so I was nearly run over." However, I found less and less resistance to my