. But the literary world
of authors and critics saw and heard little or nothing of him or his
writings. "I once had a bit of scholar-craft," he says of himself on one
occasion, "and had I attempted it in some pitiful sectarian or party or
literary sheet, I should have stood a chance to get quoted into the
periodicals. Now, who dares quote from the _Herald of Freedom_?" He
wrote for humanity, as his biographer justly says, not for fame. "He
wrote because he had something to say, and true to nature, for to him
nature was truth; he spoke right on, with the artlessness and simplicity
of a child."

He was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire, in the sixth month of 1794,--
a lineal descendant from John Rogers, of martyr-memory. Educated at
Dartmouth College, he studied law with Hon. Richard Fletcher, of
Salisbury, New Hampshire, now of Boston, and commenced the practice of it
in 1819, in his native village. He was diligent and successful in his
profession, although seldom known as a pleader. About the year 1833, he
became interested in the anti-slavery movement. His was one of the few
voices of encouragement and sympathy which greeted the author of this
sketch on the publication of a pamphlet in favor of immediate
emancipation. He gave us a kind word of approval, and invited us to his
mountain home, on the banks of the Pemigewasset,--an invitation which,
two years afterwards, we accepted. In the early autumn, in company with
George Thompson, (the eloquent reformer, who has since been elected a
member of the British Parliament from the Tower Hamlets,) we drove up the
beautiful valley of the White Mountain tributary of the Merrimac, and,
just as a glorious sunset was steeping river, valley, and mountain in its
hues of heaven, were welcomed to the pleasant home and family circle of
our friend Rogers. We spent two delightful evenings with him. His
cordiality, his warm-hearted sympathy in our object, his keen wit,
inimitable humor, and childlike and simple mirthfulness, his full
appreciation of the beautiful in art and nature, impressed us with the
conviction that we were the guests of no ordinary man; that we were
communing with unmistakable genius, such an one as might have added to
the wit and eloquence of Ben Jonson's famous club at the _Mermaid_, or
that which Lamb and Coleridge and Southey frequented at the _Salutation
and Cat_, of Smithfield. "The most brilliant man I have met in America!"
said George Thompson, as