Samuel Rogers (30 July 1763 – 18 December 1855) was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron.

His recollections of these and other friends such as Charles James Fox are key sources for information about London artistic and literary life, with which he was intimate, and which he used his wealth to support.

On his mother's side Samuel Rogers was connected with the well-known Welsh Dissenting clergymen Philip Henry and his son Matthew, was brought up in Nonconformist circles, and became a long-standing member of the Unitarian congregation at Newington Green, then led by the remarkable Dr Richard Price.

Two nephews, orphaned young and for whom he assumed responsibility, were Samuel Sharpe, the Egyptologist and translator of the Bible, and his younger brother Daniel, the early geologist.

In long holidays, necessitated by delicate health, Rogers became interested in English literature, particularly the work of Samuel Johnson, Thomas Gray and Oliver Goldsmith.

With Gray as his model, Rogers took great pains in polishing his verses, and six years elapsed after the publication of his first volume before he printed his elaborate poem on The Pleasures of Memory (1792) – regarded by some as the last embodiment of the poetic diction of the 18th century.

Rogers hosted social breakfasts with guests such as Thomas Macaulay, Henry Hallam, Sydney Smith, George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle, Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, Nassau Senior, Charles Greville, Henry Hart Milman, Anthony Panizzi, George Cornewall Lewis, Sylvain Van de Weyer,[2] Charles Babbage and Catharine Sedgwick[3] An invitation to one of Rogers's breakfasts was a formal entry into literary society, and his dinners were even more select.

His social success was due less to his literary position than to his powers as a conversationalist, his educated taste in all matters of art, and no doubt to his sarcastic and bitter wit, for which he excused himself by saying that he had such a small voice that no one listened if he said pleasant things.

John Mitford, while maintaining his country livings, rented permanent lodgings in Sloane Street, where he enjoyed "the most perfect intimacy with Samuel Rogers for more than twenty years".

Rogers held various honorary positions: he was one of the trustees of the National Gallery; and he served on a commission to inquire into the management of the British Museum, and on another for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament.

He travelled through Switzerland to Italy, keeping a full diary of events and impressions, and had made his way to Naples when the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba obliged him to hurry home.

He died in London at 92, a remarkable age for the time, and is buried in the family tomb in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Hornsey High Street, Haringey.