ROGERS. Rogers's keen-edged wit seemed to cut his lips as he uttered it; Sydney Smith's was without sting or edge or venomous point of malice, and his genial humor was really the overflowing of a kindly heart.
Rogers's helpful benevolence and noble generosity to poor artists, poor authors, and all distressed whom he could serve or succor, was unbounded; he certainly had the kindest heart and the unkindest tongue of any one I ever knew. His benefits remind me of a comical story my dear friend Harness once told me, of a poor woman at whose lamentations over her various hardships one of his curates was remonstrating, "Oh, come, come now, my good woman, you must allow that Providence has been, upon the whole, very good to you." "So He 'ave, sir; so He 'ave, mostly. I don't deny it; but I sometimes think He 'ave taken it out in corns." I think Rogers took out his benevolence, in some directions, in the corns he inflicted, or, at any rate, trod upon, in others.
Mr. Rogers's inveterate tongue-gall was like an irresistible impulse, and he certainly bestowed it occasionally, without the least provocation, upon persons whom he professed to like. He was habitually kind to me, and declared he was fond of me. One evening (just after the publication of my stupid drama, "The Star of Seville"), he met me with a malignant grin, and the exclamation, "Ah, I've just been reading your play. So nice! young poetry!"—with a diabolical dig of emphasis on the "young." "Now, Mr. Rogers," said I, "what did I do to deserve that you should say that to me?" I do not know whether this appeal disarmed him, but his only answer was to take me affectionately by the chin, much as if he had been my father. When I told my sister of this, she, who was a thousand times quicker-witted than I, said, "Why didn't you tell him that young poetry was better than old?"
Walking one day in the Green Park, I met Mr. Rogers and Wordsworth, who took me between them, and I continued my walk in great glory and exultation of spirit, listening to Rogers, and hearing Wordsworth,—the gentle rill of the one speech broken into and interrupted by sudden loud splashes of the other; when Rogers, who had vainly been trying to tell some anecdote, pathetically exclaimed, "He won't let me tell my story!" I immediately stopped, and so did Wordsworth, and during this halt Rogers finished his recital. Presently afterwards, Wordsworth having left us, Rogers told me that he (Mr. Wordsworth), in a visit he had been lately paying at Althorpe, was found daily in the magnificent library, but never without a volume of his own poetry in his hand. Years after this, when I used to go and sit with Mr. Rogers, I never asked him what I should read to him without his putting into my hands his own poems, which always lay by him on his table.
SYDNEY SMITH. A comical instance of the rivalry of wits (surely as keen as that of beauties) occurred one day when Mr. Rogers had been calling on me and speaking of that universal social favorite, Lady Morley, had said, "There is but one voice against her in all England, and that is her own." (A musical voice was the only charm wanting to Lady Morley's delightful conversation.) I was enchanted with this pretty and appropriate epigram, so unlike in its tone to Mr. Rogers's usual friendly comments; and, very soon after he left me, Sydney Smith coming in, I told him how clever and how pleasant a remark the "departed" poet (Sydney Smith often spoke of Rogers as dead, on account of his cadaverous complexion) had made on Lady Morley's voice. "He never said it," exclaimed my second illustrious visitor. "But he did, Mr. Smith, to me, in this room, not half an hour ago." "He never made it; it isn't his, it isn't a bit like him." To all which I could only repeat that, nevertheless, he had said it, and that, whether he made it or not, it was extremely well made. Presently Sydney Smith went away. I was living in upper Grosvenor Street, close to Park Lane; and he in Green Street, in the near neighborhood. But I believe he must have run from my house to his own, so short was the interval of time, before I received the following note: "Dans toute l'Angleterre il n'y a qu'une voix contre moi, et c'est la mienne." Then followed the signature of a French lady of the eighteenth century, and these words: "What a dear, innocent, confiding, credulous creature you are! and how you do love Rogers!
"Sydney Smith."
When I was leaving England, I received two most kind and affectionate letters from him, bidding me farewell, and exhorting me, in a most comical and yet pathetic manner, to be courageous and of good cheer in returning to America. One of these epistles ended thus: "Don't forget me, whatever you do; talk of me sometimes, call me Butler's Hudibras, and believe me always.
"Affectionately yours,
"Sydney Smith.">[
Liverpool, Monday, September 11th, 1837.