Richard Sharp (politician) - Friends and Acquaintances

Friends and Acquaintances

Sharp’s reputation as a critic increased when his close friend, Samuel Rogers, began to emerge as the most eminent and popular poet of that period (his poem "To a Friend" being dedicated to Sharp) and both visited Wordsworth in the Lakes and gave him important 'city' support before this new, naturalistic style of poetry became truly fashionable. The Rogers family in Newington Green was a well known one in Dissenting circles, and the names of Joseph Priestley, Samuel Parr, Richard Price, Rev. John Fell, Kippis and Towers were eminently familiar to both men. Apart from a common interest in Unitarianism, both Sharp and Rogers became well known for their good taste at a time when ‘taste’ was one of the most vital commodities that an aspiring young man could acquire. Rogers’ home in St James’s Place was visited by almost every famous person in London and he was a guest of royalty. Both men were habitues at the fashionable Whig salon, Holland House, and considerable correspondence between Sharp and Lord and Lady Holland has survived to this day. When Sharp moved to his house in Park Lane he acquired portraits painted by Reynolds of Johnson, Burke and of Reynolds himself as symbols of those things that he most cherished – language, oratory and art. At his cottage retreat, in Mickleham, Surrey, he received politicians, artists, scientists and some of the cleverest minds of the day including people from abroad such as the intriguing but formidable Mme de Staël. Guests were recorded and included such names as Henry Hallam, Thomas Colley Grattan, Sydney Smith John Stuart Mill, James Mill, Basil Hall, Dugald Stewart, Horne Tooke, Lord Jeffrey, Archbishop Whately, Walter Scott, Tom Moore, George Crabbe, Michael Faraday, Charles Babbage, Richard Porson, Maria Edgeworth, Francis Chantrey, and Sir Thomas Lawrence.