Samuel Rogers had considerably more taste than poetic talent, more friends than favorable reviews. His seven rooms at 22 St. James's Place, London, were, according to Donald Weeks, "the first small home to become a great museum," and there Rogers reigned supreme as an arbiter of taste, noted as much for the sharpness of his tongue as the kindness of his heart, the openness of his purse, and the power of his influence. He built his reputation on the success of The Pleasures of Memory (1792), which went through fifteen editions by 1806 and which was quoted by William Wordsworth in Descriptive Sketches (1793) and admired by him throughout the writing of Lyrical Ballads (1798). As if in return, Rogers arranged, by a timely comment to Sir William Lowther, Lord Lonsdale, for Wordsworth to be appointed Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland in 1813, and in 1843, when Wordsworth was appointed poet laureate, Rogers dressed him...