| <Saturday Review 16 February 1856: Lewes> 
| <Roger’s Table Talk>
| If talk were always equal to experience, whose talk ought to have 
| been richer than that of Samuel Rogers? He moved among the 
| <hi> elite </hi> of three generations. He had known all, or nearly all, 
| the celebrities of England. His first poem was published in 1786, 
| before Darwin, now long forgotten, was hear of, before Crabbe had 
| written his best poems ~~ while Cowper was gaining a little 
| celebrity ~~ and while Johnson still reigned in Bolt court. He knew 
| Boswell, was intimate with the Piozzis, with Porson, Parr, Fox, 
| Sheridan, Byron, Wordsworth, Talleyrand, Murat, the royal princes 
| and princesses, Queen Caroline, in a word, <p> “everyone.” </p> 
| Poets and painters courted him, authors and artists in distress 
| appealed to him, great ladies cajoled him, royal princesses had him 
| to breakfast, and Caroline, Princess of Wales, would drop in 
| suddenly to sup with him, or make him accompany her <hi> incog. 
| </hi> to the theatre ~~ a freak which might have been dangerous 
| with most men, but Rogers was a banker, and <hi> so </hi> 
| respectable! Besides, in spite of his having had, as he informs us, a 
| <p> “very handsome mother,” </p> Talleyrand might have said to 
| him, what he so wittily said to another not handsome man, boasting 
| of the maternal beauty, ~~ <hi> <f> </f> </hi> And with the aegis of 
| respectability, and a father <hi> <f> </f> </hi> Rogers might be a 
| cavalier to royalty without tremendous scandal. At any rate he was 
| ~~ and much else. Lady jersey made him her confidant, and could 
| afford to place a humorous possibility before him when he lamented 
| his bachelorhood ~~
| <q> </q>
| Then, too, consider the piquant contrasts of manners which his 
| memory could furnish! He had seen Brighton before the Pavilion 
| was dreamed of, when the First Gentleman in Europe was noticed 
| drinking tea in the public room of the chief inn, just like ordinary 
| <hi> epiciers </hi> ~~ he who, late in life, could hardly be seen 
| anywhere out of his palace. Rogers remembered having worn a 
| cocked-hat at school, in company with a tribe of toddlers in 
| cocked-hats: ~~ <q> </q> What a picture! He remembered Garrick and the 
| <hi> furor </hi> to see him act, in those days when noblemen 
| crowded to the pit, and when Sir George Beaumont and several 
| others bribed servants to let them into the pit before the doors 
| opened, on the understanding that they were <q> </q> And of 
| course he heard from older men things still more extraordinary: ~~
| <q> </q>
| He recollected when it was the fashion for gentlemen to wear 
| swords, and had seen Hayden play at a concert in a tie-wig with a 
| sword at his side. Looking on the plain <hi> bandeaux </hi> of 
| ladies’ hair before him as they graced his pleasant breakfasts, he 
| could recal the preposterous head-dresses of their grandmothers, 
| and could remember having gone to <q> </q>
| Further, he could remember how, <q> </q>
| He also recollected how, at Paris, a bottle of English porter was 
| placed on the table by a French nobleman as a great rarity, the 
| dark <p> “Entire” </p> being sipped from tiny glasses as if it were 
| Tokay.
| He saw Lady Hamilton, at a splendid party given by Lord Hampden 
| to the Prince of Wales, go through all those <p> “attitudes” </p> 
| which have been engraved ~~ her admiring husband looking on. 
| He saw Nelson occupied in a way that winds our hearts ~~ <q> 
| </q>
| Such retrospective glances must have wonderfully lighted up the 
| somewhat trivial talk, and made charming what would otherwise 
| have been weak and thin. Even such a touch as the following has 
| this merit: ~~ <q> </q>
| But over and above the interest of these contrasts of manners, his 
| conversation, feeble itself, and apt to wander into twaddle, flashed 
| out occasionally into the brilliancy of borrowed wit, and secured the 
| wandering attention by anecdotes of brilliant men. Here, for 
| example, are some of Erskine’s <p> “good things” </p>:~~
| <q> </q>
| Here, again, we see Fox: ~~
| <q> </q>
| All the anecdotes we are given of Sydney Smith but ill-represent 
| the prodigal wealth of his wit, yet they are worth quoting: ~~
| <q> </q>
| This of the Duke of Wellington is capital: ~~
| <q> </q>
| From what has already been said, it is clear that Rogers must have 
| had unusual opportunities for becoming the most agreeable of 
| table-talkers, and that this volume ought to be a rarity among 
| volumes of <hi> table-talk </hi>. Agreeable it is, and anecdotical; 
| but there goes more to the making of a good talker than mere 
| opportunity, and Rogers certainly was not highly gifted with the 
| faculties which could successfully make use of opportunities. We 
| do not mean to disparage this book, which indeed has given us 
| great amusement, and will, we doubt not, amuse the public; we 
| only wish to indicate that the expectations which might be formed 
| from a knowledge of Rogers’s great opportunities, by those who did 
| not know him, will certainly be disappointed. The editor has 
| executed his task with skill and discretion, not printing more than he 
| thought the public would care to have, and not printing anecdotes 
| which might give pain to persons now living. Diners-out will pounce 
| upon the volume, which, indeed, will supply them with a batch of 
| new stories; but readers of another turn will remark, with some 
| surprise, the utter absence of anything like thought or wisdom, no 
| less than of tolerable criticism.