Everything about William Roscoe totally explained
William Roscoe (
March 8,
1753 -
June 30,
1831), was an
English historian and miscellaneous writer.
He was born in
Liverpool, where his father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at
Mount Pleasant. Roscoe was left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach. He assisted his father in the work of the garden, but spent his leisure time on reading and study. "This mode of life," he says, "gave health and vigour to my body, and amusement and instruction to my mind; and to this day I well remember the delicious sleep which succeeded my labors, from which I was again called at an early hour. If I were now asked whom I consider to be the happiest of the human race, I should answer, those who cultivate the earth by their own hands." At fifteen he began to look for a suitable career. A month's trial of bookselling was unsuccessful, and in
1769 he was articled to a
solicitor. Although a diligent student of
law, he continued to read the classics, and made the acquaintance with the language and literature of
Italy which was to dominate his life.
His poem,
Mount Pleasant, was written when he was sixteen, and together with other verses, now forgotten, won the esteem of good critics. In
1774 he went into business as a lawyer, and in
1781 married Jane, second daughter of William Griffies, a Liverpool tradesman; they'd seven sons and three daughters. Roscoe had the courage to denounce the
African
slave trade in his native town, where much of the wealth came from slavery. He wrote the
Wrongs of Africa (1787-1788), and entered into a controversy with an ex-
Roman Catholic priest, who tried to justify the slave trade through the
Bible. Roscoe was also a political pamphleteer, and like many other
Liberals of the day hailed the promise of liberty in the
French Revolution.
Meanwhile he'd pursued his Italian studies, and had carried out research, which resulted in his
Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, which appeared in 1796, and gained him a reputation among contemporary historians. It was often reprinted, and translations in
French,
German and other languages show that its popularity wasn't confined to Britain.
Angelo Fabroni, who had intended to translate his own
Latin life of Lorenzo, abandoned the idea and persuaded
Gaetano Mecherini to undertake an Italian version of Roscoe's work.
In
1796 Roscoe gave up legal practice, and toyed with the idea of going to the bar. Between 1793 and 1800 he paid much attention to agriculture, and helped to reclaim
Chat Moss, near
Manchester. He also succeeded in restoring to good order the affairs of a banking house in which his friend William Clark, then resident in Italy, was a partner. This led to his introduction to the business, which eventually proved disastrous. His translation of
Luigi Tansillo's
Nurse appeared in 1798, and went through several editions. It is dedicated in a
sonnet to his wife, who had practised the precepts of the Italian poet.
The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth appeared in
1805, and was a natural sequel to his previous work of history. The new work, whilst it maintained its author's fame, didn't meet with so favourable a reception as the
Life of Lorenzo. It was frequently reprinted, and the insertion of the Italian translation in the
Index didn't prevent its circulation even in the papal states. Roscoe was elected member of parliament for Liverpool in 1806, but the
House of Commons wasn't for him, and at the dissolution in the following year he stood down. The commercial troubles of
1816 brought into difficulties the banking house with which he was connected, and forced the sale of his collection of books and pictures. It was on this occasion that he wrote the fine
Sonnet on Parting with his Books.
Dr SH Spiker, the king of
Prussia's librarian, visited Roscoe at this difficult time. Roscoe said he still desired to write a biography of
Erasmus but lacked both leisure and youth. The project was never carried out. After five years struggling to discharge the liabilities of the bank, the action of a small number of creditors forced the partners into
bankruptcy in
1820. For a time Roscoe was in danger of arrest, but ultimately he received honourable discharge. On the dispersal of his library, the volumes most useful to him were secured by friends and placed in the Liverpool Athenaeum. The sum of £2500 was also invested for his benefit.
Having now resigned commercial pursuits entirely, he found a pleasant task in the arrangement of the great library at
Holkham, the property of his friend
Thomas Coke. In
1822 he issued an appendix of illustrations to his Lorenzo and also a
Memoir of Richard Robert Jones of Aberdaron, a remarkable self-taught linguist. The year
1824 was memorable for the death of his wife and the publication of his edition of the works of
Alexander Pope, which involved him in a controversy with
William Lisle Bowles. His versatility was shown by the appearance of a folio monograph on the
Monandrian Plants, which was published in 1828. The last part came out after his recovery from a stroke.
Roscoe showed considerable moral courage as well as devotion to study. He had many friends. Posterity isn't likely to endorse the verdict of
Horace Walpole, who thought Roscoe the best of our historians, but his books on
Lorenzo de' Medici and
Pope Leo X remained important contributions to historical literature.
In addition to these, Roscoe wrote tracts on penal
jurisprudence, and contributed to the Transactions of the
Royal Society of Literature and of the Linijean Society. The first collected edition of his
Poetical Works was published in 1857, and is sadly incomplete, omitting, with other verses known to be from his pen, the
Butterfly's Ball, a fantasy, which has charmed thousands of children since it appeared in 1807. Other verses are in
Poems for Youth, by a Family Circle (1820).
The
Life by his son
Henry Roscoe (2 vols., London, 1906) contains full details of Roscoe's career, and there are references to him in the
Autobiographical Sketches of De Quincey, and in
Washington Irving's
Sketch Book.
Further Information
Get more info on 'William Roscoe'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://william_roscoe.totallyexplained.com">William Roscoe Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
