THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOOM

To satisfy claims so far as he alone was able, Roscoe sold at auction his library of rare books, also his famous collection of paintings and sculpture. His friends bought in, at £600, a selection of his rarest works and tendered them to him as a gift; but he felt he could not conscientiously accept them so long as there remained a single unsatisfied creditor of the bank. These works now constitute the Roscoe collection in the Liverpool Athenæum.

Though his bank made large payments to its creditors, it failed to recover its lost standing, and in 1820 it was declared bankrupt. Dr. Trail! and others raised £2,500 for the relief of Roscoe's family, and at the age of sixty-one the banker-by-accident retired from business and gave himself up to literary pursuits too long postponed.

Roscoe's literary career began at twenty, when he printed an "Ode on the Foundation of a Society for the Encouragement of the Art of Painting and Design." The title not wholly weighing down his muse, he wrote another ode, entitled "Mount Pleasant," which he published four years later. At thirty-four he attacked, in blank verse, the iniquities of the African slave trade. At forty-three, he published "The Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent," a two-volume

quarto which rapidly passed through several editions, and was translated into Italian, French and German. The critics conceded great merit to the work, but many took exception to what they regarded as excessive praise of Lorenzo and Pope Leo X. The severely critical Walpole highly praised its delightfully Grecian simplicity of style. Nine years later, he brought out "The History of the Life and Pontificate of Leo X," which, like his first great work, was severely criticised-Catholics as well as Protestants taking exception to his views-possibly so much negative testimony to the fairness of his treatment. At sixty-nine, he issued a supplementary volume entitled "Illustrations, Historical and Critical, of the Life of Lorenzo de'Medici," in which he replied to his critics. At seventy-one, he appeared as the editor of a ten-volume edition of Pope's Works. His introductory biography drew him into controversy over the relative merits of Pope and other poets of his time. Though touched with hero-worship, Roscoe was not all praise. His criticisms on the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Swift, Gay, Ramsay and others are given place in Moulton's "Library of Literary Criticism."

Roscoe's verse is for the most part ephemeral. His translations, chiefly from the Italian, are

superior to his original poems. There is an intensely personal note to this poem-wrung from his soul in the dark days of his financial reverses:

TO MY BOOKS.

As one who, destined from his friends to part,
Regrets his loss, but hopes again erewhile
To share their converse and enjoy their smile,
And tempers as he may affliction's dart;

Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art,

Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,
I now resign you; nor with fainting heart;
For pass a few short years, or days, or hours,
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,
And all your sacred fellowship restore;
When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers,

Mind shall with mind direct communion hold,
And kindred spirits meet to part no more.

Mrs. Hemans saw Roscoe in his old age, and described him as "a delightful old man with a fine Roman style of head." She saw him sitting in his study in his little home, fittingly "surrounded by busts, books and flowers."

But the best picture we have of Roscoe is drawn by Irving, who devotes to him a whole chapter in his "Sketch Book." Following is the more personal portion of the chapter:

"As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned [the Athenæum, Liverpool], my attention was attracted to a person just entering the room. He was advanced in life, tall, and of a