Samuel Lawrence had recently painted in oils a portrait of Rogers, and we asked to see it; so Edmund was sent up stairs to get it, and bring it to the table.  Rogers himself wished to compare it with his own face, and had a looking-glass held before him.  We sat by in silence as he regarded the picture attentively, and waited for his criticism.  Soon he burst out with, “Is my nose so d——­y sharp as that?” We all exclaimed, “No! no! the artist is at fault there, sir.”  “I thought so,” he cried; “he has painted the face of a dead man, d—­n him!” Some one said, “The portrait is too hard.”  “I won’t be painted as a hard man,” rejoined Rogers.  “I am not a hard man, am I, Procter?” asked the old poet.  Procter deprecated with energy such an idea as that.  Looking at the portrait again, Rogers said, with great feeling, “Children would run away from that face, and they never ran away from me!” Notwithstanding all he had to say against the portrait, I thought it a wonderful likeness, and a painting of great value.  Moxon, the publisher, who was present, asked for a certain portfolio of engraved heads which had been made from time to time of Rogers, and this was brought and opened for our examination of its contents.  Rogers insisted upon looking over the portraits, and he amused us by his cutting comments on each one as it came out of the portfolio.  “This,” said he, holding one up, “is the head of a cunning fellow, and this the face of a debauched clergyman, and this the visage of a shameless drunkard!” After a comic discussion of the pictures of himself, which went on for half an hour, he said, “It is time to change the topic, and set aside the little man for a very great one.  Bring me my collection of Washington portraits.”  These were brought in, and he had much to say of American matters.  He remembered being told, when a boy, by his father one day, that “a fight had recently occurred at a place called Bunker Hill, in America.”  He then inquired about Webster and the monument.  He had met Webster in England, and greatly admired him.  Now and then his memory was at fault, and he spoke occasionally of events as still existing which had happened half a century before.  I remember what a shock it gave me when he asked me if Alexander Hamilton had printed any new pamphlets lately, and begged me to send him anything that distinguished man might publish after I got home to America.

I recollect how delighted I was when Rogers sent me an invitation the second time to breakfast with him.  On that occasion the poet spoke of being in Paris on a pleasure-tour with Daniel Webster, and he grew eloquent over the great American orator’s genius.  He also referred with enthusiasm to Bryant’s poetry, and quoted with deep feeling the first three verses of “The Future Life.”  When he pronounced the lines:—­

    “My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
    And must thou never utter it in heaven?”

his voice trembled, and he faltered out, “I cannot go on:  there is something in that poem which breaks me down, and I must never try again to recite verses so full of tenderness and undying love.”