textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/IRVING/irving-roscoe-587.txt

                                    1819-20

                                THE SKETCH BOOK

                                     ROSCOE

                              by Washington Irving
ROSCOE

                 - In the service of mankind to be

           A guardian god below; still to employ

           The mind's brave ardor in heroic aims,

           Such as may raise us o'er the grovelling herd,

           And make us shine for ever- that is life.

                                                     THOMSON.

  ONE of the first places to which a stranger is taken in Liverpool is
the Athenaeum. It is established on a liberal and judicious plan; it
contains a good library, and spacious reading-room, and is the great
literary resort of the place. Go there at what hour you may, you are
sure to find it filled with grave-looking personages, deeply
absorbed in the study of newspapers.

  As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned, my attention was
attracted to a person just entering the room. He was advanced in life,
tall, and of a form that might once have been commanding, but it was a
little bowed by time- perhaps by care. He had a noble Roman style of
countenance; a head that would have pleased a painter; and though some
slight furrows on his brow showed that wasting thought had been busy
there, yet his eye still beamed with the fire of a poetic soul.
There was something in his whole appearance that indicated a being
of a different order from the bustling race around him.

  I inquired his name, and was informed that it was Roscoe. I drew
back with an involuntary feeling of veneration. This, then, was an
author of celebrity; this was one of those men, whose voices have gone
forth to the ends of the earth; with whose minds I have communed
even in the solitudes of America. Accustomed, as we are in our
country, to know European writers only by their works, we cannot
conceive of them, as of other men, engrossed by trivial or sordid
pursuits, and jostling with the crowd of common minds in the dusty
paths of life. They pass before our imaginations like superior beings,
radiant with the emanations of their genius, and surrounded by a
halo of literary glory.

  To find, therefore, the elegant historian of the Medici, mingling
among the busy sons of traffic, at first shocked my poetical ideas;
but it is from the very circumstances and situation in which he has
been placed, that Mr. Roscoe derives his highest claims to admiration.
It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create
themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their
solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. Nature
seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which
it would rear legitimate dulness to maturity; and to glory in the
vigor and luxuriance of her chance productions. She scatters the seeds
of genius to the winds, and though some may perish among the stony
places of the world, and some be choked by the thorns and brambles
of early adversity, yet others will now and then strike root even in
the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and
spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties of vegetation.

  Such has been the case with Mr. Roscoe. Born in a place apparently
ungenial to the growth of literary talent; in the very market-place of
trade; without fortune, family connections, or patronage;
self-prompted, self-sustained, and almost self-taught, he has
conquered every obstacle, achieved his way to eminence, and, having
become one of the ornaments of the nation, has turned the whole
force of his talents and influence to advance and embellish his native
town.

  Indeed, it is this last trait in his character which has given him
the greatest interest in my eyes, and induced me particularly to point
him out to my countrymen. Eminent as are his literary merits, he is
but one among the many distinguished authors of this intellectual
nation. They, however, in general, live but for their own fame, or
their own pleasures. Their private history presents no lesson to the
world, or, perhaps, a humiliating one of human frailty and
inconsistency. At best, they are prone to steal away from the bustle
and commonplace of busy existence; to indulge in the selfishness of
lettered ease, and to revel in scenes of mental, but exclusive
enjoyment.

  Mr. Roscoe, on the contrary, has claimed none of the accorded
privileges of talent. He has shut himself up in no garden of
thought, nor elysium of fancy; but has gone forth into the highways
and thoroughfares of life; he has planted bowers by the way-side,
for the refreshment of the pilgrim and the sojourner, and has opened
pure fountains, where the laboring man may turn aside from the dust
and heat of the day, and drink of the living streams of knowledge.
There is a "daily beauty in his life," on which mankind may meditate
and grow better. It exhibits no lofty and almost useless, because
inimitable, example of excellence; but presents a picture of active,
yet simple and imitable virtues, which are within every man's reach,
but which, unfortunately, are not exercised by many, or this world
would be a paradise.

  But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of the
citizens of our young and busy country, where literature and the
elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser plants of
daily necessity; and must depend for their culture, not on the
exclusive devotion of time and wealth, nor the quickening rays of
titled patronage, but on hours and seasons snatched from the pursuit
of worldly interests, by intelligent and public-spirited individuals.

  He has shown how much may be done for a place in hours of leisure by
one master spirit, and how completely it can give its own impress to
surrounding objects. Like his own Lorenzo De' Medici, on whom he seems
to have fixed his eye as on a pure model of antiquity, he has
interwoven the history of his life with the history of his native
town, and has made the foundations of its fame the monuments of his
virtues. Wherever you go in Liverpool, you perceive traces of his
footsteps in all that is elegant and liberal. He found the tide of
wealth flowing merely in the channels of traffic; he has diverted from
it invigorating rills to refresh the garden of literature. By his
own example and constant exertions he has effected that union of
commerce and the intellectual pursuits, so eloquently recommended in
one of his latest writings:* and has practically proved how
beautifully they may be brought to harmonize, and to benefit each
other. The noble institutions for literary and scientific purposes,
which reflect such credit on Liverpool, and are giving such an impulse
to the public mind, have mostly been originated, and have all been
effectively promoted, by Mr. Roscoe; and when we consider the
rapidly increasing opulence and magnitude of that town, which promises
to vie in commercial importance with the metropolis, it will be
perceived that in awakening an ambition of mental improvement among
its inhabitants, he has effected a great benefit to the cause of
British literature.

  * Address on the opening of the Liverpool Institution.

  In America, we know Mr. Roscoe only as the author- in Liverpool he
is spoken of as the banker; and I was told of his having been
unfortunate in business. I could not pity him, as I heard some rich
men do. I considered him far above the reach of pity. Those who live
only for the world, and in the world, may be cast down by the frowns
of adversity; but a man like Roscoe is not to be overcome by the
reverses of fortune. They do but drive him in upon the resources of
his own mind; to the superior society of his own thoughts; which the
best of men are apt sometimes to neglect, and to roam abroad in search
of less worthy associates. He is independent of the world around
him. He lives with antiquity and posterity; with antiquity, in the
sweet communion of studious retirement; and with posterity, in the
generous aspirings after future renown. The solitude of such a mind is
its state of highest enjoyment. It is then visited by those elevated
meditations which are the proper aliment of noble souls, and are, like
manna, sent from heaven, in the wilderness of this world.

  While my feelings were yet alive on the subject, it was my fortune
to light on further traces of Mr. Roscoe. I was riding out with a
gentleman, to view the environs of Liverpool, when he turned off,
through a gate, into some ornamented grounds. After riding a short
distance, we came to a spacious mansion of freestone, built in the
Grecian style. It was not in the purest taste, yet it had an air of
elegance, and the situation was delightful. A fine lawn sloped away
from it, studded with clumps of trees, so disposed as to break a
soft fertile country into a variety of landscapes. The Mersey was seen
winding a broad quiet sheet of water through an expanse of green
meadow-land; while the Welsh mountains, blended with clouds, and
melting into distance, bordered the horizon.

  This was Roscoe's favorite residence during the days of his
prosperity. It had been the seat of elegant hospitality and literary
retirement. The house was now silent and deserted. I saw the windows
of the study, which looked out upon the soft scenery I have mentioned.
The windows were closed- the library was gone. Two or three
ill-favored beings were loitering about the place, whom my fancy
pictured into retainers of the law. It was like visiting some
classic fountain, that had once welled its pure waters in a sacred
shade, but finding it dry and dusty, with the lizard and the toad
brooding over the shattered marbles.

  I inquired after the fate of Mr. Roscoe's library, which had
consisted of scarce and foreign books, from many of which he had drawn
the materials for his Italian histories. It had passed under the
hammer of the auctioneer, and was dispersed about the country. The
good people of the vicinity thronged like wreckers to get some part of
the noble vessel that had been driven on shore. Did such a scene admit
of ludicrous associations, we might imagine something whimsical in
this strange irruption in the regions of learning. Pigmies rummaging
the armory of a giant, and contending for the possession of weapons
which they could not wield. We might picture to ourselves some knot of
speculators, debating with calculating brow over the quaint binding
and illuminated margin of an obsolete author; of the air of intense,
but baffled sagacity, with which some successful purchaser attempted
to dive into the black-letter bargain he had secured.

  It is a beautiful incident in the story of Mr. Roscoe's misfortunes,
and one which cannot fail to interest the studious mind, that the
parting with his books seems to have touched upon his tenderest
feelings, and to have been the only circumstance that could provoke
the notice of his muse. The scholar only knows how dear these
silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours
become in the seasons of adversity. When all that is worldly turns
to dross around us, these only retain their steady value. When friends
grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid
civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered
countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship
which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.

  I do not wish to censure; but, surely, if the people of Liverpool
had been properly sensible of what was due to Mr. Roscoe and
themselves, his library would never have been sold. Good worldly
reasons may, doubtless, be given for the circumstance, which it
would be difficult to combat with others that might seem merely
fanciful; but it certainly appears to me such an opportunity as seldom
occurs, of cheering a noble mind struggling under misfortunes, by
one of the most delicate, but most expressive tokens of public
sympathy. It is difficult, however, to estimate a man of genius
properly who is daily before our eyes. He becomes mingled and
confounded with other men. His great qualities lose their novelty,
we become too familiar with the common materials which form the
basis even of the loftiest character. Some of Mr. Roscoe's townsmen
may regard him merely as a man of business; others as a politician;
all find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and
surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly wisdom.
Even that amiable and unostentatious simplicity of character, which
gives the nameless grace to real excellence, may cause him to be
undervalued by some coarse minds, who do not know that true worth is
always void of glare and pretension. But the man of letters, who
speaks of Liverpool, speaks of it as the residence of Roscoe.- The
intelligent traveller who visits it inquires where Roscoe is to be
seen.- He is the literary landmark of the place, indicating its
existence to the distant scholar.- He is, like Pompey's column at
Alexandria, towering alone in classic dignity.

  The following sonnet, addressed by Mr. Roscoe to his books on
parting with them, is alluded to in the preceding article. If any
thing can add effect to the pure feeling and elevated thought here
displayed, it is the conviction, that the whole is no effusion of
fancy, but a faithful transcript from the writer's heart.

                       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.

                        THE END
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