ROGERS AND LUTTRELL
[Sidenote: _Captain Gronow_]

I saw a good deal of the poet Rogers during his frequent visits to
Paris; and often visited him in his apartments, which were always on the
fourth or fifth story of the hotel or private house in which he lived.
He was rich, and by no means avaricious, and chose those lofty chambers
partly from a poetic wish to see the sun rise with greater brilliancy,
and partly from a fancy that the exercise he was obliged to take in
going up and down stairs would prove beneficial to his liver.

I could relate many unpublished anecdotes of Rogers, but they lose their
piquancy when one attempts to narrate them. There was so much in his
appearance, in that cadaverous, unchanging countenance, in the peculiar
low, drawling voice, and rather tremulous accents in which he spoke. His
intonations were very much those one fancies a ghost would use if forced
by some magic spell to give utterance to sounds. The mild venom of every
word was a remarkable trait in his conversation. One might have compared
the old poet to one of those velvety caterpillars that crawl gently and
quietly over the skin, but leave an irritating blister behind. To those,
like myself, who were _sans_ consequence, and with whom he feared no
rivalry, he was very good-natured and amiable, and a most pleasant
companion, with a fund of curious anecdote about everything and
everybody. But woe betide those in great prosperity and renown; they
had, like the Roman emperor, in Rogers the personification of the slave
who bade them "remember they were mortal."

At an evening party many years since at Lady Jersey's every one was
praising the Duke of B----, who had just come in, and who had lately