THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL ROGERS


One common grave, according to Garrick, covers the actor and his art.
The same may be said of the raconteur. Oral tradition, or even his own
writings, may preserve his precise words; but his peculiarities of voice
or action, his tricks of utterance and intonation,--all the collateral
details which serve to lend distinction or piquancy to the
performance--perish irrecoverably. The glorified gramophone of the
future may perhaps rectify this for a new generation; and give us,
without mechanical drawback, the authentic accents of speakers dead and
gone; but it can never perpetuate the dramatic accompaniment of gesture
and expression. If, as always, there are exceptions to this rule, they
are necessarily evanescent. Now and then, it may be, some clever mimic
will recall the manner of a passed-away predecessor; and he may even
contrive to hand it on, more or less effectually, to a disciple. But the
reproduction is of brief duration; and it is speedily effaced or
transformed.

In this way it is, however, that we get our most satisfactory idea of
the once famous table-talker, Samuel Rogers. Charles Dickens, who sent
Rogers several of his books; who dedicated _Master Humphrey's Clock_ to
him; and who frequently assisted at the famous breakfasts in St. James's
Place, was accustomed--rather cruelly, it may be thought--to take off
his host's very characteristic way of telling a story; and it is,
moreover, affirmed by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald[36] that, in the famous
Readings, "the strangely obtuse and owl-like expression, and the slow,
husky croak" of Mr. Justice Stareleigh in the "Trial from _Pickwick_"
were carefully copied from the author of the _Pleasures of Memory_, That