e afterward that among other things she read, at Rogers's request,
the 14th chapter of Isaiah, and that her voice and manner seemed like
inspiration.

Seeing and talking with Rogers was, indeed, like living in the past:
and one may imagine how weird it seemed to a raw Yankee youth, thus
facing the man who might have shaken hands with Dr. Johnson. I ventured
to ask him one day if he had ever seen the doctor. "No," said he; "but I
went down to Bolt Court in 1782 with the intention of making Dr.
Johnson's acquaintance. I raised the knocker tremblingly, and hearing
the shuffling footsteps as of an old man in the entry, my heart failed
me, and I put down the knocker softly again, and crept back into Fleet
Street without seeing the vision I was not bold enough to encounter." I
thought it was something to have heard the footsteps of old Sam Johnson
stirring about in that ancient entry, and for my own part I was glad to
look upon the man whose ears had been so strangely privileged.

Rogers drew about him all the musical as well as the literary talent of
London. Grisi and Jenny Lind often came of a morning to sing their best
_arias_ to him when he became too old to attend the opera; and both
Adelaide and Fanny Kemble brought to him frequently the rich tributes of
their genius in art.

It was my good fortune, through the friendship of Procter, to make the
acquaintance, at Rogers's table, of Leslie, the artist,--a warm friend
of the old poet,--and to be taken round by him and shown all the
principal private galleries in London. He first drew my attention to the
pictures by Constable, and pointed out their quiet beauty to my
uneducated eye, thus instructing me to hate all those intemperate
landscapes and lurid compositions which abound in the shambles of modern
art. In the company of Leslie I saw my first Titians and Vandycks, and
felt, as Northcote says, on my good behavior in the presence of
portraits so lifelike and inspiring. It was Leslie who inoculated me
with a love of Gainsborough, before whose perfect pictures a spectator
involuntarily raises his hat and stands uncovered. (And just here let
me advise every art lover who goes to England to visit the little
Dulwich Gallery, only a few miles from London, and there to spend an
hour or two among the exquisite Gainsboroughs. No small collection in
Europe is better worth a visit, and the place itself in summer-time is
enchanting with greenery.)

As Rogers's dining-room abound