In the memoirs, diaries, journals, and reviews of the first half of the nineteenth century, Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) has an importance which is in sharp contrast to his present obscurity. It is no fault of the modern reader that he cannot remember one of Rogers' poems. Even before Rogers' death, his contemporaries had judged his work as essentially worthless, but they continued to speak with admiration of the “bard, beau, and banker” of St. James's Place. They remembered always the little house which he had made one of the great sights of London, of cultured society in the western world. Here above all was revealed Rogers the man of taste, arbiter elegantiarum, a rôle which he played with a curious combination of modesty, pleasure, and pride. Since his was the first small home to become a great museum, comparable to the Bache Collection today, No. 22 St. James's Place is worth reconstructing in detail and considering as an influence on its time.