The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-03-01 00:00:00

of 1815, when the distinguished party assembled in the
preceding year at Holicham were invited to meet hial at
Allerton.
Owing to various ci-cumstances, much difficulty was
experienced at the end of 1815 by the banking-house in
which Mr. Roscoe was a partner, and on the 25th of
Januarv,lBl6,they suspended their payments. Mr. Roscoe,
with the ready consent of the creditors, undertook the
arrangement of the affairs ; and, when a committee de-
clared the house solvent, he drew ap a plan by which he
proposed to discharge th whole of the debts in six years.
But the noble strugglewhich he made was of no avail,
and the depreciation of their property, coupled with other
unexpected reasons, obliged Mr. Roscoe to surrender the
management of his afftirs. He resolved to offer up to
public sale the whole of his effects, including those books
and works of art which le had employed himself in col-
lecting for half a century, and which were so much
endeared to him. The collection produced upwards of
£19,000,
At the meeting for theestablishroent of the Royal In-
stitution, Mr. Roscoe wai put upon the committee, and
the first report was from his pen. He likewise delivered
the introductory lecture. In 1825 he resigned the office
of president of the Liteary and Philosophical Society ;
shortly afterwards he was added to the list of the mem-
bers of the Philadelphia linnaenn Society.
In 1818, a year devotedchiefly to the settlement of the
affairs of the bank, Mr. Roscoe superintended the pub-
lication of a collection of lymns for the use of the congre-
gation of Protestant Dissenters, at Renshaw-street, of
which he was a membe. In 1819 he published his
" Observations on Penal Jurisprudence and the Refor-
mation of Offenders," which was followed by " Addi-
tional Observations," in reply to an Edinburgh Reviewer,
besides other pamphlets nn the nature and objects of
punishment.
The affairs of Mr. Resew terminating in bankruptcy,
he retired to Chatmoss, where he translated a portion of
Dante's immortal poem. Cn his certificate being granted
he returned to Liverpool, and shortly afterwards retired
altogether from business.' Unkmwn to himself, his
friends subscribed the sum of .£2,100, which was vested
in trustees for the benefit of himseir and family. Shortly
afterwards he published the " Illustrations of the Life of
Lorenzo de Medici," which was trinslated into Italian,
and led to a friendship between its author and the dis-
tineuished M. Sismondi. He next issued a " Memoir of
Richard Robert Jones," who was firt introduced to Mr.
Roscoe's attention in 1806. In the Summer of 1822 he
took a house in Lodge-lane, Toxteth-}ark, where he pre-
pared for the press his new edition of ;he works of Pope,
and "A Declaration of the Objects of the Liverpool So-
ciety for Promoting the Abolition of Savory."
In the autumn of 1824 he suffered in irreparable loss
in the death of Mrs. Roscoe, whose health for a long
time had been in a very precarious statt.
Resuming the study of botany, he de'oted much atten-
tion to the Monandrian plants, of which le made a new ar-
rangement usually called Scitaminew. lir. Roscoe in the
same year was elected an honorary assotiate of the Royal
Society of Literature, and afterwards an associate of the
first class. Subsequently he received tie gold medal of
the society; and he was also elected corresponding mem-
ber of the Academy della Crusca, and of the New York
Horticultural Society.
his new edition of Pope involved him n a controversy
with the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, as to the character of the
author of the " Essay on Man." Tovards the close
of the year 1825 the health of Roscoe ms considerably
affected, insomuch that he was frequenly unable to
pursue his usual literary avocations. He began to feel
the pressure of years, not only in the failue of his bodily
strength, but in the increasing difficulty of mental exer-
tion. He was, happily, able to complete tie magnificent
catalogue of the Holk ham MSS. On Sundiy, December
16, 1827, he was suddenly attacked. with Taralysis ; but
he soon recovered the use of the hand afbcted by the
malady, notwithstanding that he persisted in preparing
for the press the " Letters to Mr. Stephen Bien, of New
York," against the injunctions of his medics], attendant.
With a serenity and cheerfulness which neither ago nor
ailment could overcast—in the full enjoy vent of the
pleasures afforded by the works of nature, of fancy, and
of art—with the high tone of feeling, and thebenevolent
dispositions of youth, unchillea by a wintry ell—William
Roscoe passed his closing days on earth in a mood of
uniform, unvarying, and calm gladness. He retained all
his warmth of feeling, his animating views of human
nature, and his benevolent purposes. He hat not his
sensibility to the beauties of poetry •, nor did he ever give
way to depression of mind' or gloomy apprehension.
More than half a century had elapsed since he lost his
early friends, Holden and Rigby ; twenty-five years since
the grave closed over the remains of Currie and of Clarke ;
and now he was destined to stand by and see 'Ass away,
in quick succession, Dr. Parr, Dr. Aikin, Fuseli, and Sir
James Smith—all of whom had been attracted to him by
the ties of no common friendships.
In 1831, he partly prepared for publication, "Poems,
Original and Fugitive, written between the vests 1770
and 1830;" which, however, be did not live to complete;
and, in a tranquil and happy frame of mind, Win. Roscoe
expired at eleven o'clock on Thursday morning, the 30th
of June, 1831. The immediate cause of his deati was an
effusion of water on the chest. He was interred in the
burying ground attached to the Unitarian Chapel, in
Renshaw-street. He left a family surviving him of six
sons and two daughters. He had lost a daughter in
infancy, and a son in mature age. Soon after his death a
monument was raised by public subscription to his me-
mory.
With the Marquis of Lansdowne he enjoyed a king and
confidential correspondence on political topics; with the
Duke of Gloucester he corresponded on Slavery mid other
subjects ; and among his friends and constant correspond.
ents were Lord Holland. Lord Erskine, Sir Samuel
Romilly, Lord Brougham, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir
Philip Francis, Fuseli, Mr. Whitbread, Dr. Currie, Mr.
William Smith, Rammohun Roy, Wilberforce, Clarkson,
Macaulay (father of the historian), Lord Orford, Lord
Carlisle, Rogers, Rev. James Graham, Campbell, Mont-
gomery, Wilson, Hogg, Hector Macneill, Bernard Bar-

lon, Dr. Parr, Dr. Aikin, Dr, Dibdin, Miss Edgeworth,
Mrs. Barbauld, Miss Aikin, Mrs. Wolstoncroft, Mr.
Coke, Mr. John Shepherd, and many others.

In person, Mr. Roscoe was tall and rather slender.
His hair was light auburn ; his full great eye was clear
and mild ; his face expressive and cheerful.

WILLIAM ROSCOt'S FAMILY

The eldest daughter of this distinguished man was
married in the year 1825 to Thomas Jevons, Esq., of
Liverpool. His son Henry, by whom his life has been
written, died in 1836, having been called to the bar in
1826, and written, in addition to his father's biography,
many able digests of different branches of the law.

CONTEMPORARY ESTIMATES OF ROSCOE

" I can bear testimony," said the Hon. G. C. Ver-
planck, of New York, " to the philanthropic zeal with
which Roscoe entered into the examination of every ques-
tion of improvement on this side of the Atlantic ; to the
warm interest he took in everything that concerned the
cause of civil and religious liberty, of education of hu-
manity ; his zeal, his courage, and ids unwearied efforts
in promoting the success of all of them."
" To say the truth," said Mr. Coke, the representative
of the Leicesters, " be is a most extraordinary personage ;
such a head, such a heart, such suavity of disposition,
such courage in the pursuit of what is right, such pure
philanthropy, are seldom combined in one individual."