The Right Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe P.C., D.C.L., F.R.S. / A Biographical Sketch

by T. E. Thorpe

As he has told us in his Autobiography, his family was one of the many that could not trace its origin for more than three or four generations back. All he knew was that he came of a North-country stock, members of which—village Hampdens and mute inglorious Miltons—had been settled in the County Palatine and in the vicinity of Liverpool for many years. He had a distinguished grandfather, a man of mark and public weight in his native town, and who bears an honoured name in our literature. Of him it is related that when a certain Garter Principal King-at-Arms desired to trace his pedigree (which had hitherto baffled his researches), he replied that he was a good patriarch, and the proper person to begin a family, as he had a quiverful of sons. “Accordingly the whole descent is registered, and the Roscoes may now go on in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.”

Mr. William Roscoe—Grandfather Roscoe as he was called in the family circle—was justly claimed by his grandson to be the first man of distinction that Liverpool had produced. Although more than one hundred and fifty years have passed since his birth his name still remains one of the most prominent in its history. His story is one of the Romances of Literature.

Born in 1753, he was the son of a market gardener who kept a bowling-green, attached to a tavern, in what was then a rural district of Liverpool known as Mount Pleasant. He learned to read and write, and that was practically all the schooling he received, for at the age of twelve he was required to help his father in the cultivation of his garden, and to carry cabbages and potatoes on his head to market. But he had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and such leisure as he could secure he gave to reading and study. His love of literature led him to take service in a bookseller’s shop, but finding that his duties were those of a drudge, leaving him little opportunity for gratifying his passion, he articled himself when fifteen years old to an attorney. He worked hard at his profession, but still found time to cultivate the Muses, and, with the assistance of a gifted friend of his own age who taught languages in a school, he read the Classics and began the study of the literature of Italy. He early tried his hand at poetry—imitations of Goldsmith and Shenstone, or translations from the Italian. When he was twenty-four he published a long poem—“Mount Pleasant”—a characteristically stilted eighteenth-century production of no great merit and now forgotten, but which on its appearance was praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds, less, perhaps, for its poetry than for its passionate protest against the iniquities of “that execrable sum of all villainies commonly called the African slave trade”—at that time one of the sources of the commercial prosperity of Liverpool. The courage of the struggling young lawyer in thus inveighing against this vicious traffic roused the anger of some of the wealthiest and most influential of his fellow-citizens. He followed up his attack by another poem on the “Wrongs of Africa,” and he had a fierce controversy with an apostate Roman Catholic priest who had published a sermon on the “Licitness of the Slave Trade” as proved from the Bible, for which he had been formally thanked by the Liverpool Corporation.

The coming of the French Revolution was received with enthusiasm by all eager lovers of civil and political liberty in England. Roscoe, who welcomed its advent with inspiriting songs and odes, championed its cause in pamphlets, one of them directed against Burke, who had bitterly attacked the Jacobins. The ardent young Liberal was now identified with the Whig party in Liverpool, and was in frequent communication with its Parliamentary chiefs.

But he was not at heart a politician, and had but little liking for the turmoil and violence of party strife. “Party,” he had declared with Pope, “is the madness of many for the gain of a few.” His strongest inclinations were intellectual, and as his means increased and he was able to procure books he became more and more drawn to the study of Italian literature and history. The story of the rise of the Medici family, and especially the character and achievements of one of its ablest members, Lorenzo, surnamed the Magnificent, strongly interested and eventually fascinated him. These studies bore fruit in his well-known “Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” published in 1796. The work was received with a chorus of approval. The critics declared there had been nothing like it since Gibbon. Horace Walpole was delighted with it. Men of taste like Lord Lansdowne and Lord Bristol were equally charmed. It even became fashionable, and new editions were speedily called for. The book has been frequently reprinted, and was translated into French, German, and Italian. In Italy it was received with especial favour as a noble tribute to the national genius.

Its literary quality has gained for it an assured place in our literature. As a permanent contribution to Italian history it has less merit. It must be admitted it lacks features demanded by modern and more scientific methods of historical treatment. Roscoe, we may assume, made the best possible use of the material that was available to him. His business prevented him from visiting Italy, but his friend William Clarke, who had access to Florentine libraries, supplied him with such information as he asked for or could obtain. It is obvious from the work that what mainly interested him was the literary and artistic side of Lorenzo’s career, and in particular his influence on Italian art and learning. He had apparently less sympathy with, because he had less knowledge of, his social and political activities. He was imperfectly acquainted with the influences which affected him, or which at times he sought to control. He was sometimes uncritical in his use of authorities, and his judgment was occasionally at fault. But whatever may be its value as a serious contribution to history, there is no doubt of its merit as a piece of literary craftsmanship. It was written under the influence of an enthusiastic sympathy with and admiration for its subject, to which no reader could be wholly insensible, and there is much in Roscoe’s subsequent career, both in his pursuits and in his civic activities, to show that he was largely inspired by the example of his hero.

In 1798 appeared his translation of Tansillo’s “Nurse,” with a dedication to his wife; and in 1805 his “Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth”—the son of Lorenzo, and the Pope who saw the rise of the Reformation. Although this latter book brought its author more money, it was less favourably received than his “Life of Lorenzo,” mainly on account of his treatment of the Reformation. But apart from this it is less satisfactory as a historical work. His knowledge of the contemporary state of intellectual Europe was too limited to enable him to deal adequately with a subject of so wide a scope. Nevertheless the book had a large sale, in spite of, or possibly in consequence of, the fact that the Italian translation was placed in the “Index.”

Shortly after the publication of his first great work Roscoe renounced his practice as an attorney. Having a competent fortune, he purchased Allerton Hall, a fine old Jacobean house in a beautiful situation on the banks of the Mersey. He now turned his attention to agriculture, set up a model farm near his estate, cultivated the friendship of Coke of Holkham, read papers on agricultural subjects to local societies, and worked at the reclamation of Chat Moss. He also set in order the affairs of a banking house in which his friend Clarke, who lived in Italy, was a partner, and he thereby became involved in its direction and management. But he had still leisure for literary pursuits. He had one of the largest and most valuable private libraries in the district, especially rich in Italian history and literature. He interested himself in typography and induced John M’Creery—a well-known printer of his day—to settle in Liverpool, where his works were printed. He was a generous lover of the fine arts, and has the credit of discovering the genius of John Gibson, the sculptor, originally an apprentice to a marble mason in Liverpool, whom he sent to Rome. Gibson executed for Roscoe a basso-rilievo in terra-cotta, now in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, the patron in his turn making his protégé free of the treasures of his library at Allerton Hall. It was in this way that Gibson first became acquainted with the designs of the great Italian masters. The acquaintance thus formed with the Roscoe family was continued in the case of Mrs. Sandbach, a granddaughter of the Italian historian, who possessed many of Gibson’s works, and was in frequent correspondence with him. Indeed most of the details of Gibson’s life were only to be gleaned from his letters to Mrs. Sandbach, who was a very accomplished woman of considerable literary ability.

Mr. William Roscoe was fond of horticulture, and interested in botanical pursuits generally. In the words of the late Professor Asa Gray, he was one of the Patres conscripti of the botany of his time, as the author of a monograph on the monandrian plants, and of other contributions on botanical subjects to the Transactions of the Linnean Society. Roscoe’s influence on the intellectual life of his native town may be seen in the various educational and artistic institutions which he created or with which he was concerned in founding. In 1773, when only twenty years of age, he was one of the projectors of a Society for the Encouragement of the Arts of Painting and Design, the first public artistic society in Liverpool. It had only a short existence, but was revived ten years later, and ultimately developed into the Liverpool Academy, of which Roscoe became President. He designed and etched the admission card to its exhibitions, contributed drawings and read papers to its members. It was the first organization of its kind in the provinces. It not only encouraged local talent, but served to familiarize Liverpool with the work of Reynolds, Gainsborough, and other notable painters of the period. He was a founder and President of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society; an active member of the Liverpool Library, afterwards known as the Lyceum, and the first public collection of books in the town. He was the means of establishing the Liverpool Atheneum, an institution more especially concerned with the interests of learning and scholarship. His love of horticulture led him to take an active part in the creation of a public Botanic Garden; he drew up the plan of its administration, and at its opening in 1802 gave a thoughtful address on the obligation which rests upon a commercial community to encourage the study of abstract science.