djasson's review
3.0
An enjoyable read of a poet who was friends with Byron and Shelley and one of only three people to turn down the post of Poet Laureate of the UK. The main poem, "The Pleasures of Memory", was good. But for melancholic and nostalgic poetry, I prefer Thomas Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight". The other long poem in this volume, "An Epistle to a Friend", was nice, especially in the preface about the difference between true and false taste. Rogers says true taste is confined to "a few objects, and delights in producing great effects by small means" versus false taste which is "forever sighing after the new and the rare" (p. 87). Well said, even if I don't always follow that philosophy.
I really enjoyed the notes to this work, especially the items on Edward Gibbon (p. 75) and Lord Chesterfield (p. 109). The latter describes the quote from Horace's Satires (ii 6. 60-62) Chesterfield had inscribed in his library: "nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, &c.", which translates to "now the books of the ancients, now sleep, etc."
I really enjoyed the notes to this work, especially the items on Edward Gibbon (p. 75) and Lord Chesterfield (p. 109). The latter describes the quote from Horace's Satires (ii 6. 60-62) Chesterfield had inscribed in his library: "nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, &c.", which translates to "now the books of the ancients, now sleep, etc."
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