William Roscoe, historian, born at Liverpool, 8th March 1753, in 1769 was articled to an attorney, and began to practice in 1774. In 1773 he published a poem, “Mount Pleasant,” and in 1787–88 “Wrongs of Africa,” a protest against the slave-trade. But it was his “Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici” (1796) that established his literary reputation. His second great book, “Life of Leo X” (1805) like the former appeared in German, French, and Italian. He had retired from business in 1796, but in 1799 became partner in a Liverpool Bank, which involved him (1816–20) in pecuniary embarrassment. From his pen also came poems, of which the best known is the “Butterfly’s Ball” (1807); an edition of Pope; and a monograph on Monandrian plants. He died 30th June 1831. See Life by his son, Henry (1833), and Espinasse’s “Lancashire Worthies” (2nd series, 1877).

Personal

  He is a benevolent, cheerful, gentlemanlike old man; tall, neither thin nor fat, thick gray hair. He is very like the prints you have seen of him; his bow courteous, not courtly; his manner frank and prepossessing, without pretension of any kind. He enters into conversation readily, and immediately tells something entertaining or interesting, seeming to follow the natural course of his own thoughts, or of yours, without effort. Mrs. Roscoe seems to adore her husband, and to be so fond of her children, and has such a good understanding and such a warm heart, it is impossible not to like her.

  I desired to see nobody but Mr. Roscoe, and with him I had the pleasure of passing an evening, and finally met him at dinner the last day I spent in Europe. His circumstances have changed entirely since I passed a day with him at Allerton, on my first arrival from America, four years ago. He now lives in a small house, simply and even sparely, but I was delighted to find that poverty had not chilled the warmth of his affections, or diminished his interest in the world and the studies that formerly occupied him. He spoke of his misfortunes incidentally, of the loss of his library, with a blush which was only of regret; but still he was employed in historical and critical researches, and talked of a new edition of his “Lorenzo,” in which he should reply to what Sismondi has said of him in his “History of the Republics of Italy.”

  He was advanced in life, tall, and of a form that might once have been commanding, but it was a little bowed by time—perhaps by care. He had a noble Roman style of countenance; a head that would have pleased a painter; and though some slight furrows on his brow showed that wasting thought had been busy there, yet his eye still beamed with the fire of a poetic soul. There was something in his whole appearance that indicated a being of a different order from the bustling race around him…. Born in a place apparently ungenial to the growth of literary talent; in the very market-place of trade; without fortune, family connections, or patronage; self-prompted, self-sustained, and almost self-taught, he has conquered every obstacle, achieved his way to eminence, and, having become one of the ornaments of the nation, has turned the whole force of his talents and influence to advance and embellish his native town…. He has shown how much may be done for a place in hours of leisure by one master spirit, and how completely it can give its own impress to surrounding objects. Like his own Lorenzo de’ Medici, on whom he seems to have fixed his eye as on a pure model of antiquity, he has interwoven the history of his life with the history of his native town, and has made the foundations of its fame the monuments of his virtues. Wherever you go in Liverpool, you perceive traces of his footsteps in all that is elegant and liberal.

  In his habits Mr. Roscoe was temperate, and was attentive to the regular observance of domestic arrangements. He did not rise unusually early, and the periods he devoted to study were those which remained after concluding the more serious labors of the day. He had no stated times set apart for his studies, which were often carried on in the midst of his family. He was seldom in the habit of entrenching upon the hours devoted to sleep. Even to the latest period of life he usually enjoyed undisturbed repose. Though never in the possession of robust health he very seldom suffered from severe illness, and few persons during a long life have been more exempt from pain. He was accustomed to take exercise frequently both on foot and on horseback, and felt a particular enjoyment in country occupations. He had few amusements beyond those which his usual employments afforded, or which he derived from the cultivation of his garden, and the contemplation of his prints and drawings. He took no pleasure in field sports and other similar pursuits. In his youth he had a taste for theatrical performances, but in after life he seldom entered into public amusements. From music he derived but little pleasure, although he was a great admirer of the works of Handel. To the latest period of his life Mr. Roscoe never disregarded the proprieties of dress and of manners.

  I quite agree as to Roscoe. But mark the reason. Worth and merit of a moral kind are the main topics, and above all, his raising himself. He was a pot-boy at a very low skittle-ground when he was sixteen or seventeen! Did any one ever rise before from such a depth to be an elegant Italian scholar? If Mackintosh had been of this kind, I should have certainly said more.

  To us there is a new scene of meditative enjoyment in our fatherland. Before we reach the sacred precincts of Westminster, or stroll along the green banks of the Avon, we shall linger with respectful and moving interest beside the monument to the memory of William Roscoe, in the churchyard of Liverpool.

Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, 1795

  The complete volume has more than answered the expectations which the sample had raised. The Grecian simplicity of the style is preserved throughout; the same judicious candour reigns in every page; and, without allowing yourself that liberty of indulging your own bias towards good or against criminal characters, which over-rigid critics prohibit, your artful candour compels your readers to think with you without seeming to take a part yourself. You have shown from his own virtues, abilities, and heroic spirit, why Lorenzo deserved to have Mr. Roscoe for his biographer…. Several of his translations of Lorenzo are superior to the originals, and the verses more poetic.

  You will pardon my zeal, Sir, and you may confide in my sincerity, when I declare to you, that the contents of your book far surpassed my expectation, and amply rewarded the attention with which I perused them. You have thrown the clearest and fullest light upon a period most interesting to every scholar. You have produced much that was unknown, and, to that which was known, you have given perspicuity, order, and grace. You have shown the greatest diligence in your researches, and the purest taste in your selection; and, upon the characters and events which passed in review before your inquisitive and discriminating mind, you have united sagacity of observation, with correctness, elegance, and vigour of style.

  I cannot but congratulate the publick upon this great and important addition to Classical History, which I regard as a phenomenon in Literature, in every point of view. It is pleasant to consider a gentleman, not under the auspices of an university, or beneath the shelter of academick bowers, but in the practice of the law and business of great extent, and resident in a remote commercial town, (where nothing is heard of but Guinea ships, slaves, blacks, and merchandise, in the town of Liverpool,) investigating and describing the rise and progress of every polite art in Italy at the revival of learning with acuteness, depth, and precision; with the spirit of the poet, and the solidity of the historian. It is pleasant to consider this. For my own part, I have not terms sufficient to express my admiration of his genius and erudition, or my gratitude for the amusement and information I have received. I may add, that the manner in which Mr. Roscoe procured, from the libraries at Florence, and many of the various inedited manuscripts with which he has enriched the appendix to his history, was singularly curious; not from a Fellow or Traveller of the Dilettanti, but from a commercial man in the intervals of his employment. I shall not violate the dignity of the work by slight objections to some modes of expression, or to a few words, or to some occasional sentiments in the Historian of a Republick. But I recommend it to our country as a work of unquestionable genius, and of uncommon merit. It adds the name of Roscoe to the very first rank of English classical Historians.

  He writes in an easier style (though not without affectation) and is more decent in his narrative than Gibbon; still he is of that school, and appears to have taken him for his model, so fine a thing it seems to our present compilers of history to have no religion.

  The style is pure and elegant; the facts are interesting and instructive; and the moral or application is (if I may so speak) of an incomparable tendency. These facts were new to the greater part of English readers: fresh fountain heads of pleasing intelligence were explored; and a stream of knowledge flowed forth, at once bright, pure, and nourishing. I hardly know a work, of its kind, which evinces throughout a more delicate taste, exercised upon a more felicitous subject. Roscoe is almost the regenerator, among Englishmen, of a love of Italian literature.

Works of Alexander Pope, 1824

  In the year 1824, Mr. Roscoe appeared as the editor and biographer of Pope, an office which he executed with his wonted ability, and with the zeal of a disciple. Had Pope been his own bosom friend, he could not have dilated his virtues more fondly, or touched his failings with greater tenderness. In the court of fame Roscoe was always counsel for the panel, and has pleaded in mitigation of sentence for some very desperate reputations, such as Pope Alexander VI., Lucretia Borgia, and Bonaparte. It must therefore have been a delightful employment to him to vindicate the memory of a poet whose style of excellence was highly congenial to his sympathies, whose literary merit he thought unjustly depreciated, and whose moral character had been most ungently handled.

  He barely contributed a single illustrative note, his criticisms are platitudes, and his vindications of Pope a tissue of blunders. He was misled by his credulous faith in his hero, by the rashness with which he imposed his own guesses for facts, and above all by his want of penetration and research. His half-knowledge was worse than ignorance. A few of his multitudinous errors were exposed by Bowles whom he had attacked. Roscoe replied in a feeble, disingenuous pamphlet, which drew from Bowles his taunting and crushing retort, “Lessons in Criticism to William Roscoe, Esq.” This ended the Pope controversy.

  Of the disgraceful bookseller’s job called “Roscoe’s Pope,” nothing need be said. The booksellers could not have pitched upon a worse editor. For Roscoe, though well versed in the Italian writers of the renaissance, knew nothing of the eighteenth century. He was not a classical scholar. And though his English style is easy and elegant, and his “Life of Pope” very pleasant reading, his command of the facts is so slight, that Roscoe’s memoir of the poet is entirely superseded by Mr. Carruthers’ more correct, though less elegant biography.

General

  In the present age of intellectual activity, attention is so generally bestowed on all modern languages, which are ennobled by a literature, that it is not singular an acquaintance with the Italian in particular, should be widely diffused. Great praise, however, is due to the labours of Mr. Roscoe. There can be little doubt that his elaborate biographies of the Medici, which contain as much literary criticism as historical narrative, have mainly contributed to the promotion of these studies among his countrymen. These works have of late met with much flippant criticism in some of their leading journals. In Italy they have been translated, are now cited as authorities, and have received the most encomiastic notices from several eminent scholars. These facts afford conclusive testimony of their merits.

  The poetical talents of Roscoe have been praised by no mean judges. His verses are very fair specimens of that kind of poetry, the excellence of which consists less in strength of wing, than in beauty of plume and lightness of movement. His song is flowing and harmonious rather than energetic.

  Mr. Roscoe was simple and manly in his demeanor; but there was the feebleness of a mere belle-lettrist, a mere man of virtù, in the style of his sentiments on most subjects. Yet he was a politician, and took an ardent interest in politics, and wrote upon politics—all which are facts usually presuming some vigour of mind. And he wrote, moreover, on the popular side, and with a boldness which, in that day, when such politics were absolutely disreputable, seemed undeniably to argue great moral courage…. Mr. Fox (himself the very feeblest of party writers) was probably sincere in his admiration of Mr. Roscoe’s pamphlets; and did seriously think him, as I know that he is described in private letters, an antagonist well matched against Burke; and that he afterwards became in form. The rest of the world wondered at his presumption, or at his gross miscalculation of his own peculiar powers. An eminent person, in after years (about 1815), speaking to me of Mr. Roscoe’s political writings, especially those which had connected his name with Burke, declared that he always felt of him in that relation not so much as of a feeble man, but absolutely as of a Sporus (that was his very expression), or a man emasculated. Right or wrong in his views, he showed the most painful defect of good sense and prudence in confronting his own understanding, so plain and homely, with the Machiavelian Briareus of a hundred arms—the Titan whom he found in Burke; all the advantages of a living antagonist over a dead one could not compensate odds so fearful in original power.

  Allow me to say that you have hardly done justice to Mackintosh, while you have done something more than justice to Roscoe. Both are good in their way, but there is an apparent fondness in the latter, and coldness in the former that will, I think, be generally perceived. I could produce passages from Mackintosh pregnant with more thought than it would be possible to find in all the volumes of Roscoe, whom you have assuredly overpraised as a literary historian.

  He still moves with accomplished ease among the scholars and artists, and handles with critical discernment masses of new material from the Italian archives. But he is too typical an example of the highly cultured Unitarianism of his time to enter as sympathetically into religious passions and fanaticisms as he does into art and learning; and while he draws Luther with tolerable skill from the outside, Savonarola is to him somewhat as Mohammed to Voltaire.