pursuits, which began in his boyhood. With this view, he purchased half the estate of Allerton, from the trustees of Mrs. Hardman, and became, in the best sense of the word, a country gentleman. His pleasant anticipations from this change are happily expressed in a comic letter to Fuseli the painter. It is much to be regretted that he was ever induced to depart from this rational scheme of happiness and usefulness, and to launch into the world again. But yet the alteration of his course redounded to his honour; for it arose neither from restlessness, infirmity of purpose, avarice, nor ambition, but was a sacrifice of his own leisure and wishes, for the benefit of his friends. About 1800, a period of general calamity and threatened famine, the affairs of Messrs. J. and W. Clarke, bankers, fell into considerable disorder. Mr. Roscoe was requested to lend his professional aid to their arrangement, and in conducting this business he was brought in contact with Sir Benjamin Hammet, banker, of London, a man who knew the power of money, and whose uneasy assumption of dignity, under the honours of knighthood, was the theme of much small wit. Sir Benjamin was so much struck with Mr. Roscoe's adroitness in unravelling the perplexed accounts of the embarrassed concern, that he insisted on that gentleman's becoming a partner of the bank, and threatened to make it bankrupt in case of refusal. Perhaps Sir Benjamin had an eye to Mr. Roscoe's property, as well as to his skill, but at all events, as he held acceptances to the amount of £200,000, he was able to put his threat in execution, and Mr. Roscoe reluctantly consented to avert it, having previously satisfied himself of Messrs. Clarke's ability to meet all demands, if proper time were given. Thenceforth he devoted the hours of business to attendance at the bank, and the hours of relaxation to the studies necessary to perfect his "Leo.” In 1802, he succeeded in establishing a Botanic Garden at Liverpool, which, under the superintendence of its able curator, Mr. John Shepherd, has prospered exceedingly, to the great advantage of botanical science. His interest in politics never slumbered. In the same year, 1802, he put forth a pamphlet "On the Relative Situation of France and England." His earnest endeavours for peace exposed him for many years of his life to considerable obloquy, and made some good men, who loved and esteemed him, esteem his judgment the less. He certainly, like Cicero, was disposed to think the worst peace better than the best war; and knowing that the government could not long carry on the war if the people firmly demanded peace, and that the people were stimulated to battle chiefly by their indignation against the atrocities, and by their alarm at the ambition, of the enemy, he naturally sought to soften the national animosity, by palliating the conduct of the French, and representing the danger of the conflict as greater than the danger of a compromise. Perhaps he did not sufficiently observe how completely the war changed its character and object in its progress; but continued to contemplate it as an interference with the right of the French to constitute their own government, long after all thought of such interference had been abandoned. The year 1805 brought forth the "Life and Pontificate of Leo X." in four volumes quarto. This Roscoe esteemed his great work, but it was by no means so favourably received in England as its predecessor. The partiality which had found a ready sympathy when directed to the Florentine merchant, was harshly censured when it devolved on the more questionable character of his son; and it was argued, that no patronage of art, or liberality to genius, should have been allowed to expiate the many offences of the dissolute free-thinking Pope, whose sale of indulgences roused the wrath of Luther. Yet harder measure was dealt to Roscoe's alleged palliation of the crimes of Alexander VI. and his family, nor was he supposed to have done justice to the virtues of Luther. It is impossible to examine these objections in this place, but as far as regards Pope Alexander and his daughter,* we may observe, that there is a considerable difference between palliating crimes, and doubting whether they had ever been committed; that to believe in monstrous wickedness, on insufficient evidence, indicates anything but a healthy moral sense; and that Roscoe had probably consulted more authorities, and weighed them more carefully, * Lucretia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI. and Vanozza, sister to Cæsar Borgia. The charges against this lady are comprised in the following epitaph, written by an author whom she survived twenty years, which we shall give without translation: Hic jacet in tumulo Lucretia nomine, sed re Sannazarius also thus addresses her: PONTANUS. Ergo te semper cupiet, Lucretia, Sextus. a conceit, which hinging on an equivoque between Sextus Tarquinius and Alexander Sextus, i.e. the Sixth, is impossible as it is unworthy to be translated. Mr. Roscoe, in a dissertation subjoined to the first volume of his "Leo," has elaborately, and in our opinion convincingly, exposed the no-evidence on which accusations so abhorrent have been repeated from age to age. Like all men of good hearts and innocent lives, he was averse to admit the existence of monstrous depravity in any, most of all in woman. than any of his reviewers. As for Luther, he was not a man after Roscoe's own heart: there was little sympathy between them. Luther, though above his time, was still a man of his time, and it was not, even in the sunny realms of art and poesy, an age of soft speaking. Roscoe would have made as bad a reformer as Erasmus. These objections fell not unawares on our author. He had both anticipated and provided against them in his preface. His occasional deviations from received opinions of persons and things, he defends with spirit, eloquence, and a just sense of an historian's duty. "With respect to the execution of the following work, I cannot but be well aware, that many circumstances and characters will be found represented in a light somewhat different from that in which they have generally been viewed, and that I may probably be accused of having suffered myself to be induced by the force of prejudice, or the affectation of novelty, to remove what have hitherto been considered as the land-marks of history. To imputations of this kind I feel the most perfect indifference. Truth alone has been my guide, and whenever she has steadily diffused her light, I have endeavoured to delineate the objects in their real form and colour. History is the record of the experience of mankind in their most important concerns. If it be impossible for human sagacity to estimate the consequences of a falsehood in private life, it is equally impossible to estimate the consequences of false or partial representation of the events of former times. The conduct of the present is regulated by the experience of the past. * * * * * If those in high authority be better informed than others, it is from this source that their information must be drawn; and to pollute it is, therefore, to poison the only channel through which we can derive that knowledge, which, if it can be obtained pure and unadulterated, cannot fail in time to purify. the intellect, expand the powers, and improve the condition of the human race. "As in speaking of the natural world, there are some persons who are disposed to attribute its creation to chance, so, in speaking of the moral world, there are some who are inclined to refer the events and fluctuations in human affairs to accident, and are satisfied with accounting for them from the common course of things, or the spirit of the times. But as chance and accident, if they have any meaning whatever, can only mean the operation of causes not hitherto fully investigated, or distinctly understood, so the spirit of the times is only another phrase for causes and circumstances which have not hitherto been sufficiently explained. It is the province of the historian to trace and to discover these causes; and it is only in proportion as he accomplishes this object, that his labours are of any utility. An assent to the former opinion may indeed gratify our indolence, but it is only from the latter method that we can expect to acquire true knowledge, or to be able to apply to future conduct the information derived from past events." Some of the attacks of the censors were of a truly nibbling character. Yet these also he had foreseen, and hoped to crush them in the egg. He was found fault with for spelling Italian names as they were spelt in Italy, not as they had come to England in a Frenchified or Latinised form. This he ably justifies. "The practice which I have heretofore adopted, of designating the scholars of Italy by their national appellations, has given rise to some animadversions, in answer to which I must beg to remark, that who |