endent picture;
containing neither passion nor declamation, but polish, taste, and
tenderness.

Rogers was born in a suburb of London, in 1762. His father was a banker;
and, although well educated, the poet was designed to succeed him, as he
did, being until his death a partner in the same banking-house. Early
enamored of poetry by reading Beattie's _Minstrel_, Rogers devoted all his
spare time to its cultivation, and with great and merited success.

In 1786 he produced his _Ode to Superstition_, after the manner of Gray,
and in 1792 his _Pleasures of Memory_, which was enthusiastically
received, and which is polished to the extreme. In 1812 appeared a
fragment, _The Voyage of Columbus_, and in 1814 _Jacqueline_, in the same
volume with Byron's _Lara_. _Human Life_ was published in 1819. It is a
poem in the old style, (most of his poems are in the rhymed pentameter
couplet;) but in 1822 appeared his poem of _Italy_, in blank verse, which
has the charm of originality in presentation, freshness of personal
experience, picturesqueness in description, novelty in incident and story,
scholarship, and taste in art criticism. In short, it is not only the best
of his poems, but it has great merit besides that of the poetry. The story
of Ginevra is a masterpiece of cabinet art, and is universally
appreciated. With these works Rogers contented himself. Rich and
distinguished, his house became a place of resort to men of distinction
and taste in art: it was filled with articles of _vertu_; and Rogers the
poet lived long as Rogers the _virtuoso_. His breakfast parties were
particularly noted. His long, prosperous, and happy life was ended on the
18th December, 1855, at the age of ninety-two.

The position of Rogers may be best illustrated in the words of Sir J.
Mackintosh, in which he says: "He appeared at the commencement of this
literary revolution, without paying court to the revolutionary tastes, or
seeking distinction by resistance to them." His works are not destined to
live freshly in the course of literature, but to the historical student
they mark in a very pleasing manner the characteristics of his age.

PERCY B. SHELLEY.--Revolutions never go backward; and one of the greatest
characters in this forward movement was a gifted, irregular, splendid,
unbalanced mind, who, while taking part in it, unconsciously, as one of
many, stands out also in a very singular individuality.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on the 4th of