he lines:--

"My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
And must thou never utter it in heaven?"

his voice trembled, and he faltered out, "I cannot go on: there is
something in that poem which breaks me down, and I must never try again
to recite verses so full of tenderness and undying love."

For Longfellow's poems, then just published in England, he expressed the
warmest admiration, and thought the author of "Voices of the Night" one
of the most perfect artists in English verse who had ever lived.

Rogers's reminiscences of Holland House that morning were a series of
delightful pictures painted by an artist who left out none of the
salient features, but gave to everything he touched a graphic reality.
In his narrations the eloquent men, the fine ladies, he had seen there
assembled again around their noble host and hostess, and one listened in
the pleasant breakfast-room in St. James Place to the wit and wisdom of
that brilliant company which met fifty years ago in the great _salon_ of
that princely mansion, which will always be famous in the literary and
political history of England.

Rogers talked that morning with inimitable finish and grace of
expression. A light seemed to play over his faded features when he
recalled some happy past experience, and his eye would sometimes fill as
he glanced back among his kindred, all now dead save one, his sister,
who also lived to a great age. His head was very fine, and I never
could quite understand the satirical sayings about his personal
appearance which have crept into the literary gossip of his time. He was
by no means the vivacious spectre some of his contemporaries have
represented him, and I never thought of connecting him with that
terrible line in "The Mirror of Magistrates,"--

"His withered fist still striking at Death's door."

His dome of brain was one of the amplest and most perfectly shaped I
ever saw, and his countenance was very far from unpleasant. His
faculties to enjoy had not perished with age. He certainly looked like a
well-seasoned author, but not dropping to pieces yet. His turn of
thought was characteristic, and in the main just, for he loved the best,
and was naturally impatient of what was low and mean in conduct and
intellect. He had always lived in an atmosphere of art, and his
reminiscences of painters and sculptors were never wearisome or dull. He
had a store of pleasant anecdotes of Chantrey, whom he had employed as a
wood-c