If you
have a possession, retain it; it will be, like Prior's fellowship [3], a
last and sure resource. Compare Mr. Rogers with other authors of the
day; assuredly he is amongst the first of living poets, but is it to
that he owes his station in society, and his intimacy in the best
circles? No, it is to his prudence and respectability; the world (a bad
one, I own) courts him because he has no occasion to court it. He is a
poet, nor is he less so because he was something more. I am not sorry to
hear that you are not tempted by the vicinity of Capel Loft, Esq're.
[4], though, if he had done for you what he has done for the
Bloomfields, I should never have laughed at his rage for patronising.
But a truly constituted mind will ever be independent. That you may be
so is my sincere wish, and, if others think as well of your poetry as I
do, you will have no cause to complain of your readers.
Believe me, etc.
[Footnote 1: Bernard Barton (1784-1849), the friend of Charles Lamb, and
the Quaker poet, to whose 'Poems and Letters' (1849) Edward FitzGerald
prefixed a biographical introduction, published 'Metrical Effusions'
(1812), 'Poems by an Amateur' (1817), 'Poems' (1820), and several other
works. He was for many years a clerk in a bank at Woodbridge, in
Suffolk. Byron's advice to him was that of Lamb: "Keep to your bank, and
your bank will keep you." Two letters, written by him to Byron in 1814,
showing his admiration of the poet, and his appreciation of the
generosity of his character, and part of the draft of Byron's answer,
are given in Appendix IV.
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