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LIBRARY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY; 
 
 OB, 
 
 OLD BOOKS AND OLD TIMES. 
 
 REV. JAMES (JLSPINALL, M.A., 
 
 RECTOR OF ALTHORPE, LINCOLNSHIRE; 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "SERMONS DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL," "OCCASIONAL 
 
 SERMONS," " LIVERPOOL A FEW YEARS SINCE/' 
 
 &C. &C. (fee. 
 
 Made virtute, puer: sic ITUR AD ASTRA. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA-LANE. 
 
 LIVERPOOL : 
 
 DEIGHTON AND LAUGHTON, CHURCH-STREET. 
 1853. 
 
PRINTED AT THE ALBION-OFFICE, CASTLE-STREET, LIVERPOOL. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 SCHOOL 
 
at 
 
 LIBRARY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 ftltf, $arl nf Carlisle, 
 
 AT ONCE 
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE, 
 
 OF 
 THE INTELLECT OF THE ARISTOCRACY 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ARISTOCRACY OF INTELLECT, 
 A LOVER AND PATRON OF LITERATURE 
 
 AND 
 
 A WORKER IN ITS CAUSE AND FIELD, 
 
 IB, 
 WITH HIS PERMISSION, 
 
 RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BT HIS OBEDIENT SERVANT, 
 
 ftp Stoljnr. 
 
 M8S5602 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 LIVERPOOL has lately been celebrating the Cen- 
 tenary of Roscoe. At a time when attention is fixed 
 upon the name and memory of that illustrious man, 
 it may not be uninteresting to the public to hear a 
 few words about his valuable Library. It is ever 
 to be regretted that the treasures which it contained 
 were again dispersed, and that we cannot still, 
 picturing him in the midst of them, exultingly 
 exclaim : 
 
 Hrc ittius arma, 
 Hie currns fuit. 
 
 But it was not to be so. All that is left for us to 
 do, is to rescue and revive its memory before it has 
 quite receded, as a dissolving view, into oblivion. 
 
 Moreover, the writer of these pages had a further 
 object to subserve when he took up his pen, namely, 
 to set a great example, and that of Roscoe is one of 
 
VI. PREFACE. 
 
 the greatest which could be adduced, of a self-taught 
 man, to point the way and teach them how to climb 
 the steep ascent to eminence and distinction, before 
 the young members of the Mechanics' and Literary 
 Institutes throughout the country. For the sake of 
 the same class of readers, for whom he feels a pro- 
 found interest, he has here and there, taking the 
 dates of certain of the old books in the catalogue as 
 a kind of text, branched off into a sort of outline or 
 skeleton essay on history for his young friends to 
 enlarge and fill up. In the first instance, his 
 thought was to have delivered the whole in a series 
 of lectures at some of the institutes in his own 
 neighbourhood during the ensuing season. But 
 increasing years shrunk from such a winter's cam- 
 paign, and he finally determined to publish the 
 volume in its present form, and to speak, in this 
 instance, from his easy chair, instead of in the 
 institute ; although, in the one as well as from the 
 other, he hopes, again and again, as long as life and 
 health are spared to him, to express his sympathy 
 with, and give his co-operation to, the great educa- 
 tional movement of the times, believing, as he does, 
 that it is only by rescuing the masses from the 
 thraldom of ignorance that we can hope to make 
 
PREFACE. V1J, 
 
 them good men, good citizens, good subjects, and 
 GOOD CHRISTIANS. If this little volume is thought 
 to help on so excellent a work in the smallest degree, 
 the writer of it will feel both happy and grateful 
 beyond anything which words can describe. And, 
 at all events, he would fain hope that its title, like 
 Charity, may hold a broad shield before any faults 
 which it may contain. With these remarks, he 
 launches it to its fate, as a mite contributed to a 
 great cause, and feeling thankful that that cause 
 itself cannot suffer from the mistakes or weakness 
 of its friends. 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRA 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE Present owes debts to the Past which the 
 men of this proud age rarely acknowledge, and, 
 perhaps, seldom feel. When we stand in the midst 
 of some valuable library, we are surrounded by the 
 speaking dead : teachers who, from the grave, still 
 instruct us in virtue, in wisdom, in art, in literature, 
 and science. But shall our thoughts rest here ? Is 
 not the library itself a preacher of charity to us ? 
 Whence come the ancient treasures which it con- 
 tains? How and by whom were they preserved 
 for our use, amusement, or improvement? For 
 instance, how much is to be attributed, on this 
 head, to the Middle Ages, upon which so many 
 flippantly bestow contempt instead of the gratitude 
 which should really be expressed ? Because we 
 repose under the shadow of the oak, shall we despisr 
 the acorn or the sapling ? Let us consider whether 
 the historical microscope cannot then discover the 
 germs of the civilization of which we now so loudly 
 
10 EOSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 boast, and which we so happily enjoy. Let us see 
 what the men of those old times, some of them, 
 perhaps, unwittingly, but, certainly, not all of them, 
 accomplished, towards the intellectual enlighten- 
 ment of the future. The Crusaders went forth to 
 give and take hard blows in their holy warfare ; but 
 they brought back with them the seeds of art and 
 science from the East, only glimmerings, tendencies, 
 and rudiments, it is true, but still a beginning, a 
 something to prepare the intellectual soil for after 
 culture. The monasteries, moreover, in those days 
 were the citadels and fortresses in which the litera- 
 ture of antiquity found a refuge, and so escaped 
 from the darkness and barbarism which reigned 
 beyond their walls. Even Gibbon admits this, 
 where, with a sneer worthy of his impartial hatred 
 of all creeds alike, he speaks of "the dusty manu- 
 scripts of the writers of antiquity collected from the 
 darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain." But 
 this is not quite a fair way of stating the case. The 
 care with which the monks guarded these treasures 
 of ancient literature, and the pride which they felt 
 in their possession, if they are not evidences of the 
 exact amount of their knowledge, at least declare a 
 great appreciation of the value, of their contents. 
 And, further, from the monks and their pens, with 
 very little assistance, we derive our acquaintance 
 with the history and literature of the middle ages 
 themselves ; and, if we sometimes smile at their 
 productions, it should be with the kindly smile with 
 which manhood regards infancy, of which it is 
 
Eton "i's I 11:1: M;\. 11 
 
 itself only the development. Sucli thoughts and 
 recollections as these are worth pondering over. If 
 frequently communed with, they might act as a 
 dragchain upon the full indulgence of the polemical 
 animosities by which the world is so distracted. 
 We consider, therefore, that we are only paying a 
 debt of justice when, in these prefatory remarks, we 
 try to awaken them in the minds of our readers. 
 The student and scholar cannot but be grateful to 
 those through whom, as the faithful guardians and 
 trustees with whom they were deposited, so many 
 intellectual gems have been preserved and handed 
 down to us. 
 
 The inimitable Topsy, in Mrs. Beecher Stowe's 
 magnificent book, assures her new mistress that 
 " she never was born, -but that she was raised." 
 In this country, however, the converse of this 
 original view of the matter prevails. Here men are 
 born, but have to raise themselves. And the order 
 of self-elevated giants is never without its represen- 
 tatives amongst us. The Church, the Senate, the 
 Bar, the Army and Navy, all have their examples. 
 By application, and industry, and sagacity, some 
 force their way from poverty to an eminent position 
 in the commercial world. Some leap to sudden 
 fortune by an invention for, or an improvement in, 
 the machinery used in our manufactories. Others 
 ride to distinction and wealth in the express train of 
 their own railways. Many and various, indeed, are 
 the paths by which men mount from the base to the 
 pinnacles of the social pillar. But it has seldom 
 
12 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 happened, as in the case of him whose name will so 
 frequently occur in these pages, that a man, born in 
 the humbler walks of life and without any advan- 
 tages of education, has, by the force of his own 
 genius, and in the might of his own energy and 
 application, taken, as it were, by storm, the whole 
 circle of art and literature, become inspired with 
 a love of book-collecting and a passion for book- 
 reading, distinguished as a scholar, eminent as an 
 author, and elevated, in himself, into a Court of 
 Appeal, for whose verdict others, the most distin- 
 guished men of the day, have asked on subjects the 
 most opposite and unconnected, Botany and Politics, 
 Jurisprudence and Agriculture, Prison Discipline 
 and Literature, the Fine Arts and History. Of 
 such a phenomenon, however, we are now about to 
 speak, not to be his panegyrists, but that we may 
 set his bright example before the youth of the 
 present generation. His name and memory will 
 take care of themselves. 
 
 But let us plunge into the work which we have to 
 perform. There are some subjects on which the 
 calmest and the coldest find it impossible to write 
 without feeling irritable, volcanic, and explosive. 
 We may start with the best of resolutions, deter- 
 mined to keep ourselves unruffled and to preserve 
 our equanimity of temper throughout, let what will 
 happen to disturb it. But presently something 
 occurs to throw us off the even tenor of our way, 
 and, like a horse shying at some unexpected object 
 in a sudden turn of the road and running away with 
 
i.iititAuv. 
 
 his rider, our feelings are wanned in an instant, and 
 carry us off at a pace which we never contemplated 
 at starting. So it is whenever we begin to speak of 
 Liverpool and Roscoe, and so, therefore, it will be 
 in the course of these few chapters which we are 
 about to pen. We have a way of thinking aloud, 
 and, when we do so, we give utterance to our 
 thoughts boldly and freely, in defiance of all 
 listeners, critics, cavillers, and censors. We shall 
 do so now, and all squalls and storms thereby excited 
 will pass harmlessly by us. But we may be told that 
 such plain speaking as we contemplate may not be 
 agreeable. We know that ; but what are we to do ? 
 We can neither hide nor pervert the truth. If we 
 wished to praise the people of Liverpool, there are 
 themes enough on which we might expatiate, and 
 rest an ample eulogy. We might point to the many 
 noble institutions which they have founded, and sup- 
 port, for the relief of misery in every form, to their 
 public spirit, to their undying charity prompt to 
 answer every appeal, or to their hospitality and libe- 
 rality in every shape. We concede all these things, 
 and love to tell of them. But still it cannot be denied 
 that Liverpool has always been slow in recognizing 
 and appreciating the intellectual merits of her living 
 sons. She has been the hard stepmother where she 
 ought to have been the fond and proud parent. She 
 has ever preferred the smallest importation from 
 Lilliput to the most magnificent specimen of the 
 Brobdignag race of home growth. It is to be 
 regretted, but it is not to be denied. Let us go on. 
 
14 ROSOOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 Well, then, we said, " Liverpool and Roscoe!" 
 Let us enlarge upon those two names, the man and 
 the place. William Roscoe was born in Liverpool, 
 but he belonged to the world. The world claimed 
 him, fondled him, cherished him, appreciated and 
 idolized him, before he was even acknowledged to 
 be a man above the common mark in Liverpool. 
 He knew little about rums and sugars, less about 
 cotton, and nothing at all about barilla and logwood, 
 and, therefore, a in this region of commerce and 
 . s. d., he was nobody. He was lost, thrown 
 away, misunderstood. His name was soon famous 
 on the banks of the Tiber and the Po : it was 
 whispered in Rome ; magnified in Venice ; wor- 
 shipped in Florence. It even grew into a household 
 word in the Western Hemisphere, and was familiar 
 to the dwellers on the Mississippi and the Missouri. 
 But it was long before it became, even if it has yet 
 become, a name to conjure with on the banks of the 
 Mersey. The truth is, let who will deny it, that 
 we are not a literary people in this town of Liver- 
 pool. Our young men are taken from school before 
 they have had time to travel beyond the rudiments 
 in any branch of learning. And we fear that, with 
 few exceptions, all cultivation of the mind ceases 
 when the removal from school has taken place. 
 Nor can we wonder at this after a glance at 
 Liverpool life. After the hours devoted to business 
 and given to society, there is little time left for 
 study with the many. But this want of self- 
 improvement is accompanied by a grievous fault 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 15 
 
 which we shall not hesitate to point out and pro- 
 claim. We not only do not cultivate, generally 
 speaking, our own talents in Liverpool, but, as we 
 have already more than hinted, we are positively 
 smitten with a dislike and envy of those rare 
 exceptions amongst us who do improve the intel- 
 lectual gifts with which they have been endowed. 
 To no place is the proverb of " a prophet being no 
 prophet in his own country" so applicable ; and 
 Roscoe, while alive, was a martyr and a victim to 
 this feeling. It is true that he had his circle of 
 friends who loved and adored him. But our 
 condemnation is of the "discerning public," so 
 called, we presume, like lucus a non lucendo, on, 
 account of the small portion of discernment which 
 it possesses. Moreover, it is not improbable that a 
 political feeling worked against the recognition of 
 Roscoe in his native town. He was not only a 
 superior mind to those about him, an oasis in the 
 desert, but he was to the West India planters of 
 those days what Harriet Beecher Stowe is to the 
 American cotton-grower now. He was the friend 
 of the slave and the enemy of slavery. . Down with 
 him ! Down with him ! Away with such a pesti- 
 lent fellow from the face of the earth I What care 
 we for the Author of Leo the Tenth ? What want 
 we with Lorenzo de Medici ? Our business is with 
 the production of coffee. One hogshead of sugar 
 more surpasses in value all the Italian literature on 
 the face of the earth. But even that might have 
 been endured but for the meddling disposition 
 
16 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 which made him thrust himself between the lash of 
 the overseer and his human chattel. He might 
 with impunity have translated Italian into English. 
 But what right had he to translate slaves into free 
 men ? We are aware that, in answer to our remarks 
 on the neglect of such native talent, it may be said 
 that the same complaint has been alleged against all 
 places in all ages. But we have yet to learn that 
 the multiplication of the offenders either justifies or 
 lessens the offence. An error does not cease to be 
 an error because it can be proved to have existed 
 semper et ubique. We see no reason, therefore, for 
 recalling the opinion which we have given. The 
 expression of it may not be palatable. We cannot 
 help it. Fiat justitia mat ccelum* 
 
KOsroK's LIBRARY. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONTEMPORARIES are hard-hearted aiid cold- 
 hearted, blind and unjust, envious and jealous. 
 They fear to elevate others, lest, by so doing, they 
 should lower themselves. They seldom recognize 
 merit in each other ; more seldom do they concede 
 praise. The converse of the maxim, De mortuis 
 nil nisi bonum, is the rule too often acted upon as 
 long as life endures. Fame, therefore, while with- 
 holding the ready coin of immortality as with a 
 miser's grasp, satisfies herself with giving to the 
 illustrious in literature and art a promissory note 
 of a post mortem reputation to be paid by succeeding 
 generations. But, when a man has descended into 
 the grave, then comes a thaw upon the long frozen 
 conduits of applause. Epitaphs and eulogies abound. 
 When the world's good opinion can no more comfort 
 him in his solitude, cheer him in his toils, soothe 
 him in his trials, he has it to overflowing. When 
 his ears can no longer listen to the voice of congra- 
 tulation, when his sightless eyes can no longer read, 
 when his once tongue of eloquence can no longer 
 
18 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 acknowledge the plaudits of mankind, then those 
 who were his fellows begin to wonder and to 
 reproach themselves for not having appreciated the 
 merits and glory of the departed, while he was 
 yet alive and moved and breathed among them. 
 They would themselves revel in the dazzling splen- 
 dours of the man whom they so recently disowned. 
 Or, if we may use such a form of comparison on 
 such an occasion, fearing, or hating, or hunting 
 the lion while he was alive, they would yet, when 
 dead, stuff and preserve his skin in their museum. 
 This is probably a feature in human nature ; at all 
 events, it is no new charge now urged against it for 
 the first time. Long ago it was written of the 
 the glorious old poet, whom the world will never 
 tire of admiring : 
 
 " Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodos, Argos, Athence, 
 Orbis de patriA certat, Homere tud ;" 
 
 lines which have been freely translated thus : 
 
 " Seven mighty cities contend for Homer dead, 
 Through which the living Homer begged his bread." 
 
 It was the same with Milton. Death came first, 
 fame afterwards. Shakspeare was only a successful 
 theatrical manager in his own lifetime. The world's 
 idolatry and worship, still spreading and to spread, 
 were fruits of later growth. And so it has been 
 with a host of others, whose very names would fill 
 a catalogue as long as that of Homer's ships. And 
 Roscoe was no exception. Liverpool has only 
 recently, in celebrating the Centenary of the most 
 illustrious of her sons, at once proclaimed, and 
 
1. 1 lilt A ICY. 19 
 
 sought to compensate for, the long neglect with 
 which she had treated his name and fame, by his 
 tardy elevation into the number of her demigods, 
 Mid a place in her intellectual Pantheon. It is, 
 indeed, even in such matters, "better late than 
 never." But still, this kind of posthumous apo- 
 theosis, if we may so phrase it, is a cold tribute to 
 the hero who is its object. It does not seem to be 
 done so much to honour him as to please and gratify 
 the survivors themselves, who are willing to revel in 
 riches which they did not help to accumulate, and 
 to connect themselves with and bask in the impe- 
 rishable lustre of a mighty name, which, filling the 
 world with its brilliancy and glory, yet seems to 
 shine with a more especial and dazzling brightness 
 over the locality from which it originally sprung. 
 
 But we took up our pen to speak of Roscoe's 
 Library, and as yet we have not said a single word 
 about it. Roscoe's Library ! Imagination runs 
 riot at the very thought of it. There we can 
 fancy "the old man eloquent," during the summer 
 and sunshine of his life, surrounded by troops of 
 allies, in his happy home, 
 
 " The resort 
 
 Of love, of joy, of peace, and plenty, where, 
 Supporting and supported, polish'd friends 
 And dear relations mingle into bliss." 
 
 There, with the mind's eye, we can see him, sitting, 
 in all the luxury of enjoyment, in the midst of the 
 books, and manuscripts, and statues, and prints, 
 and pictures accumulated, through so many years, 
 
20 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 by his unerring taste and judgment. There were 
 mines of intellectual wealth brought together ; not 
 for mere show and vanity, but for daily use, to 
 be continually explored, turned over, sifted, and 
 applied for the benefit of others. There were the 
 tomes of many ages, rich and rare, specimens of 
 printing from the first invention of the art, classics, 
 philosophy, poetry, mathematics, metaphysics, his- 
 tory, biography, science ; and there was the owner 
 of all, and, in every sense, the master of all, not 
 in the pride, but in the humility, of learning; 
 knowing, feeling, and confessing, that, however far 
 man may advance into the realms of knowledge, 
 he is still only a scholar, discovering at every step 
 the immensity of the distance between human 
 wisdom and perfection. This humility belonged 
 equally to the characters of Roscoe and of Newton ; 
 to the former as much as to the latter. But we 
 are drawing a sketch, not a life, and must, there- 
 fore, return to our purpose. Roscoe's Library with 
 Roscoe in it ! What a subject for the artist ! 
 Why has it not been attempted ? Who will impress 
 these pen-and-ink dottings upon the immortal, life- 
 breathing canvass ? 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BUT it may be that there are incredulous persons 
 among the younger generation grown up around us 
 who will say, " You tell us, indeed, of Roscoe's 
 Library ! But where is it ? " And then, with 
 something between a smile and a sneer, they will 
 whisper, "An echo answers, 'Where?' Is it a 
 tradition, a legend, a myth? or had it ever an 
 existence ? Was it ever a substantial reality ? Show 
 it to us. ' Seeing is believing.' As that glorious 
 old spirit of antiquity, Horace, who is everlastingly 
 knocking some right nail on the head with the great 
 sledge-hammer of truth, writes for our instruction, 
 
 Segnius irritant animos demised per aurem 
 Quam quce aunt oculis subjecta Jidelibus, et quce 
 Ipse sibi tradit spectator" 
 
 Well, this is very true, or, at all events, very 
 plausible, we grant, and, therefore, thus appealed 
 to, we must make a plain confession, in plain words. 
 The Caliph Omar, at the capture of Alexandria, 
 
22 ROSOOB'B LIBRARY. 
 
 condemned its splendid library, the accumulation of 
 many ages, to the flames, and, 
 
 " Perchance the second as guilty as the first," 
 Liverpool allowed that of Roscoe to be consigned to 
 the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer. We are not 
 going to say what Deus ex machind should have 
 stepped in and prevented such an act of Vandalism. 
 Various judgments have been pronounced upon 
 it. Some think that the Corporation should have 
 purchased this magnificent collection of books in 
 behalf of the public. Some affirm that the public 
 should have stimulated the Corporation so to do. 
 Others allege that the public should have averted 
 the shame by a subscription. But we give no 
 opinion. We make no accusations. We offer no 
 apologies. We attempt no apportionment of the 
 blame. We only record that the thing was done. 
 The sacrilege was perpetrated. The guilt was 
 incurred. 
 
 "'Tis time, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true." 
 
 And here we seem to be carried naturally and 
 irresistibly, upon the wings of memory and sympa- 
 thy to the pages of that immortal volume, so full of 
 dainties and delicacies for every taste, the Curiosities 
 of Literature, by Disraeli the elder, in which he 
 tells of the dispersion and destruction of books and 
 libraries which the world has unhappily been so 
 often called upon to witness and lament. After 
 enumerating five ever-active enemies with whom the 
 book-collector has to maintain a perpetual conflict, 
 
ROSCOU'S LIBRARY. 23 
 
 namely, " the damp, the worms, the rats, the 
 borrower, aiid the purloiner," he proceeds to chro- 
 nicle the names of some of the enemies of literature 
 and destroyers of its triumphs, trophies, victories, 
 and monuments. The ancient Persians gave to the 
 furnace the books of the Phoenicians and Egyptians. 
 The Romans burnt the books of the Jews, the 
 Christians, and the philosophers ; the Jews burnt 
 the books of the Christians and the Pagans ; and 
 the Christians burnt the books of the Pagans and 
 the Jews. The earlier library of Alexandria suffered 
 dreadfully at the hands of these rival fire-kindlers. 
 
 At a later period the Turks, who were book- 
 destroyers as well as iconoclasts, made tremendous 
 havoc with the libraries of Constantinople when 
 that Queen of the East fell into their hands. Other 
 barbarians, however, had anticipated them in this 
 work of mischief. The Latin conquerors of the 
 same city at the beginning of the thirteenth century 
 had either carefully or carelessly consigned the 
 stores of literature which they found there to the 
 fires. " Of the writings," says Gibbon, (vol. 7, 
 chap. 60,) bewailing this loss to the learned world, 
 " of antiquity, many that still existed in the twelfth 
 century are now lost. But the pilgrims were not 
 solicitous to save or tran sport the volumes of an 
 unknown tongue : the perishable substance of paper 
 or parchment can only be preserved by the multi- 
 plicity of copies ; the literature of the Greeks had 
 almost centred in the metropolis ; and," he adds, in 
 more than a form and figure of speech, "without 
 
24 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a 
 tear over the libraries that have perished in the 
 triple fire of Constantinople." The same charge is 
 urged against the Latin conquerors by a Greek 
 writer of that age, Nicetas Choniates, with bitter 
 lamentations over the injury inflicted. 
 
 The Emperor Justinian, and subsequently many 
 of the French and Spanish princes, were engaged in 
 a continual war of bigotry against the books of the 
 Jews. 
 
 The English conquerors of Ireland are said to 
 have destroyed the ancient national records of that 
 country, while the victorious Spaniards, as ignorant 
 as valiant, mercilessly and barbarously burnt the 
 painted histories of Mexico. 
 
 At the taking of Buda by the Turks, the great 
 library of that lover and patron of literature, 
 Matthew Oorvini, rich in Greek and Hebrew lore, 
 suffered immense loss, the books having been nearly 
 all destroyed. At the taking of Granada by the 
 Spaniards, ignorance enjoyed another holocaust of 
 the same kind. 
 
 At the period of the Reformation, when men's 
 minds were in an unusual state of excitement, awful 
 were the ravages perpetrated among the literary 
 treasures of the world. The Roman Catholic emis- 
 saries, in their anxiety to root out Lutheranism in 
 Bohemia, destroyed every book, no matter what 
 might be its kind and character, upon which they 
 could lay their hands, until they had reduced the 
 country to the condition of an intellectual desert. 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 The Puritans in England carried on the same war 
 of destruction, both con amore and con spirito, 
 burning the libraries of the monasteries with all the 
 literary treasures which they contained, without 
 inercy and discrimination. Henry the Eighth, 
 indeed, had already led the way in this direction 
 and greatly diminished the work of mischief which 
 his imitators had to perform. 
 
 Nor has the spirit of Jack Cade been wanting in 
 modern times, as witness the destruction of the 
 libraries of Lord Mansfield and Dr. Priestly, by 
 infuriated mobs in 1780. 
 
 Moreover, literature has had its perils by sea as 
 well as by land. Water has helped to destroy what 
 the flames had spared. Disraeli tells us of Guarino 
 Veronese, a learned Italian, who, returning from 
 Greece with a valuable collection of M.SS., was 
 shipwrecked, and lost all his treasures. The same 
 misfortune happened to Hudde, a wealthy burgo- 
 master of Middleburgh, who was returning from 
 China with the results of his thirty years' observa- 
 tions in that country. Of three vessels containing 
 the great Pinellian library, one, while on its voyage 
 to Naples, was taken by pirates, who, indignant at 
 only finding books where they anticipated gold, 
 threw them all into the sea. In short, it is impos- 
 sible to calculate how much the learned have 
 suffered, although, perhaps, they have been spared 
 something by the operation of accident, bigotry, 
 barbarism, and blockheadism. Let us be thankful, 
 however, that, when so much has been lost, so 
 
26' ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 much has been saved. We seem, after reviewing 
 all the dangers to which our literary treasures have 
 been exposed, only to possess what remains to us of 
 them by the interposition of a positive miracle. 
 
 But it is time that we should return from a 
 digression which, we trust, has not been uninte- 
 resting to our readers. We speak again, then, of 
 Boscoe's Library. The time had come, by the 
 pinch and pressure of adverse circumstances, some 
 thunderclap in the monetary world, that its illus- 
 trious possessor was compelled to part with his 
 darling treasure. His books, had been a solace, 
 pleasure, enjoyment, luxury to him. They had 
 been his companions, associates, friends. He had, 
 as it were, identified himself and his nature with 
 them. He considered and felt them to be part and 
 parcel of himself, spirit of his spirit, soul of his soul, 
 the very breath of life to him. And now the word 
 had gone forth that they were to be scattered from 
 his grasp and possession. Under the agony of this 
 terrible affliction, for to such a man and such a mind 
 we can call it nothing less, it was that he wrote the 
 following exquisite sonnet, addressed to his Library 
 about to be taken from him, which was at the time, 
 and still is, greatly and deservedly admired. The 
 heart, indeed, must be trebly "seared with a hot 
 iron" which is not stirred to the very depths of 
 sympathy and sorrow by the perusal of these 
 thrilling and affecting lines : 
 
 " As one who destined from his friends to part, 
 Regrets their loss, yet hopes again erewhile 
 
ROSCOE's LIBRARY. 27 
 
 To share their converse, and enjoy their smile, 
 And tempera as he may Affliction's dart, 
 Thus, lov'd associates ! chiefs of elder art 1 
 Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile 
 My tedious hours, and brighten ev'ry 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 fellowships restore ; 
 When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers, 
 Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, 
 And kindred spirits meet to part no more !" 
 
28 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE very Catalogue of this famous Library is in 
 itself a curious and interesting study in the history 
 of literature. We are fortunate enough to possess 
 one, upon which we set a great value, with the 
 names of the buyers of the various lots, and the 
 prices at which they were sold. The books were 
 disposed of in 1,813 lots, and the sum obtained for 
 them amounted to 5,150. The sale occupied 
 fourteen days. A general view of each day's pro- 
 ceedings will exhibit at one glance the many 
 branches of study to which Mr. Roscoe devoted 
 himself, while it cannot fail to be highly interesting 
 to the book-collector and lover of literature, and, 
 we hope, also instructive to the general reader. We 
 would especially impress it upon the young, as an 
 important and encouraging lesson and example, 
 that the mighty Alchymist who presided over this 
 intellectual laboratory, extracting intellectual gold 
 from the huge mine in his possession, and purifying, 
 coining, and re-issuing it for the benefit of the world, 
 
IJ..S.OF/S LIBRARY. '_". 
 
 with the stamp of his own mind imprinted on it, 
 was a self-taught and self-raised man. There is a 
 moral attached to this great fact. What is it? 
 What has been accomplished once may be accom- 
 plished again. " Go, therefore, and do ye likewise." 
 But now for our promised index of the days of sale : 
 
 FIRST DAT, MONDAY, August 19th, 1816. 
 
 Art of Decyphering M.SS., &c. 
 
 Typography. 
 
 Bibliography. 
 
 Languages, Grammars, Dictionaries, <fec. 
 SECOND DAY, TUESDAY, August 20th. 
 
 Criticisms, Literary Journals, &c. 
 
 Literary History and Biography. 
 THIRD DAY, WEDNESDAY, August 21st. 
 
 History and Chronology. 
 
 Grecian History. 
 
 Roman Histoiy. 
 
 Italian Histoiy. 
 FOURTH DAY, THURSDAY, August 22d. 
 
 Italian Histoiy, continued. 
 
 French History. 
 
 English History. 
 
 History of various Nations. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Histoiy. 
 FIFTH DAY, FRIDAY, August 23d. 
 
 Theology and Controversial Divinity. 
 
 Moral Philosophy, &c. 
 SIXTH DAY, SATURDAY, August 24th. 
 
 Philosophy, Metaphysics, &c. 
 
 Letters, Orations, &c. 
 SEVENTH DAY, MONDAY, August 26th. 
 
 Greek Poets. 
 
 Latin Poets. 
 EIGHTH DAY, TUESDAY. August 2Hh. 
 
 Modern L itin Poets. 
 
 Italian Poets. 
 NINTH DAY, WEDNESDAY, August 28th. 
 
 Italian Poets, continued. 
 
30 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 TENTH DAY, THURSDAY, August 29th. 
 
 Italian Poets, continued. 
 
 French Poets. 
 ELEVENTH DAY, FRIDAY, August 30th. 
 
 English Poets. 
 TWELFTH DAY, SATURDAY, August 31st. 
 
 Romances, Facetiae, Fables, &c. 
 THIRTEENTH DAY, MONDAY, September 2d. 
 
 Ancient Art. 
 
 Didactic and Critical Works on Art. 
 
 Lives of Painters, &c. 
 
 Collections and Catalogues of Pictures. 
 
 Drawings and Prints. 
 FOURTEENTH DAY, TUESDAY, September 3d. 
 
 Natural History. 
 
 Manuscripts. 
 
 M.SS. of the Sacred Writings. 
 
 Block Books. 
 
 Such were the treasures contained in this magni- 
 ficent Library. They had been collected by their 
 possessor, to whom they had been as the sweet 
 music and poetry of life for many years, only to be 
 dispersed again in all directions. There were 
 among them many rare and valuable gems of 
 literature and art, quaint old type suited to the 
 quaint old phraseology which it recorded, splendid 
 trophies and monuments of early and late typo- 
 graphy, books from the press of John Guttemberg, 
 the Columbus of the art of printing, that glorious 
 art which has given words, and wings, and vitality 
 to thought, and secured its fruits from the corroding 
 power of time and oblivion from that of John 
 Faust, whose name, as Dr. Faustus, was interwoven 
 with so many wild and startling legends by the 
 superstition of the age and from that of Peter 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 31 
 
 Schoiffer, who added the improvement of casting 
 types in moulds to the discovery already made. 
 Moreover, there were volumes from the workshops 
 of Sweynheim, John de Spires, Husner, Creuzner, 
 Drach, Wynkin de Worde, Richard Pynson, Aldus 
 Manutius Romanus, and countless others dear to, 
 and prized by, the curious in typography. There 
 were also specimens of block-printing by its 
 inventor, Laurence Coster, and many rich and 
 scarce manuscripts coeval with a much earlier period 
 in the world's history. 
 
 But from this general outline we shall proceed to 
 display some of the particular jewels selected from 
 it in the next and following chapters. We cannot, 
 however, lay down our pen without first giving 
 utterance to a thought which often rises before our 
 mind in connexion with the art of printing. Long 
 ago was it written by Horace, 
 
 " Vix&re fortes ante Agamemnona, mutti" <bc. 
 But they had no Homer to celebrate their praises 
 and surround their memory with a halo of immor- 
 tality. But may not the poet's argument be carried 
 further ? May not there have been other Homers 
 before the Homer who has come down to us, even 
 as there are stars beyond the stars which the 
 telescope has not yet revealed to us ? Before the 
 invention of the printing-press had drawn the teeth 
 of time, and accident, and oblivion, authors, as well 
 as heroes, could hardly hope for anything beyond 
 ephemeral and passing fame and glory. Their chance 
 of a place in the temple of history and immortality 
 
32 KOSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 depended, it may be, upon a single manuscript or 
 a few copies. What mighty intellects and their 
 productions may not have thus foundered in the 
 ocean of time, when trusted, not like "Csesar and 
 his fortunes," even to a fragile boat, but attempting 
 the rough and boisterous voyage, as it were, upon a 
 plank which might sink with them at any moment ! 
 And the printing-press has achieved yet greater 
 things than embalming the names of heroes and of 
 authors. Look at it in its infancy, and look at it 
 again with the power and influence which it now 
 wields over the destinies of the world. It has 
 helped to spread the illumination of knowledge, and 
 has grown up with it. It has battled with and 
 scattered the gloom of ignorance. It has been 
 nurtured, rather than overthrown, by the storms 
 of centuries, and,, like the sturdy oak, shooting out 
 its branches upwards and striking root more deeply 
 downwards, it has continually gathered strength in 
 face of the hurricanes which were intended to 
 destroy it. Its triumphs in former and latter days 
 cannot be enumerated. It speaks clearly to the 
 civilized of all -nations. It is the trumpet of liberty, 
 the comfort and hope of the oppressed, the terror of 
 the tyrant. It has uprooted despotisms, overturned 
 dynasties, and changed the course of the world's 
 history. Kings and their subjects alike appeal to 
 it, and hang upon its judgments. And so it has 
 grown, and grown, and grown, its reign becoming 
 every ye'ar greater and more extensive and undis- 
 puted, until, mutatis mutandis, we are driven to 
 
ROMOOJfi'g LIBRARY. 
 
 claim for it, as the best picture of its character, 
 Virgil's celebrated sketch of Fame, ending with the 
 lines, 
 
 " Tot vigils oculi nubter, (mirabiU dictuj 
 Tot linguas, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures." 
 
 And what will be the end of this mighty influence, 
 equally potent for good and evil ? We cannot but 
 watch it with some degree of anxiety. Hope, 
 however, predominates over every other feeling. 
 We have faith in the future, and in the tremendous 
 power of the prass, which is beating it into shape. 
 Our belief, firm and resolute, is, that in art, in 
 science, in philosophy, in religion, Magna est veritas 
 ct prcKvalebit ; and then, turning back in memory to 
 the ingenious, and toiling, and ill-requited printer of 
 Mentz, the discoverer of the art, men will say, as 
 far as human agency can be recognized in accom- 
 plishing such a glorious consummation, " JOHN 
 
 GUTTEMBERG HAS DONE IT ALL." 
 
34 
 
 KOSUOK S LIBRARY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WE are now, indeed, in the midst of the gems, 
 and jewels, and fine gold, and brilliants of this 
 mighty storehouse of literature and science. Ha ! 
 what have we here ? 
 
 LOT 6. Modus legendi Abbreviaturas in utroque 
 jure. Fol. Sine notd Anni vel Typogr. 
 
 This early edition of the fifteenth century is 
 printed with the same type as the two tracts of 
 Thomas Aquinas, described by Braun, Notitia, 1, 
 116, and of which he has given a specimen, Tab. 8, 
 6. This lot was sold to Longman : price 4. 14s. 6d. 
 
 LOT 23. Fabricii, Bibliotheca Graeca. 4to, 14 
 torn. Hamburg, 1705 ? &c. Dr. Joseph Warton's 
 copy, with numerous remarks by him. Sold to Mr. 
 Simmons for 5. 
 
 LOT 41. Panzer, Anuaels Typographici. 4to, 11 
 torn. Norimb., 1793, <fec., fine copy. Sold for 21. 
 
 LOT 56. Bandinii, Catalogus Codicum M.SS. 
 Bibliathecse Medicese-Laurentianse, continens Codi- 
 ces grsecos. Fol. 3 torn. Flor., 1764, &c. 
 
 The first volume is extremely rare. The present 
 copy of it was obtained from the author. 
 
LIBRARY. ""> 
 
 Codices Latinos et Italos. Fol. 5 torn. Fhr., 
 1774, <fec. 
 
 Supplementum ad Catalogum. Fol. 3 torn. Flor., 
 1791, &c., in all 11 vols., half-bound. Sold for 
 38. 6s. 6d. 
 
 LOT 68. Laire, Index Librorum, ab invents, 
 Typographic ad An. 1500, 8vo. 2 torn. Senonsis, 1791. 
 
 These volumes contain the Catalogue of the 
 Library of the Cardinal Lomenie de Brienne. 
 
 LOT 95. Lanzi, Saggio di Lingua Etrusca e di 
 altre Antiche d' Italia, per servire alia Storia de 
 Popoli, delle Lingue, e delle belle Arte. 8vo. 2 
 torn, in 3 -Bom., 1789. Mr. Home Tooke's copy, 
 with his MS. notes. Sold for 3. 6s. 
 
 LOT 99. Thesaurus Cornucopias et Horti Adoni- 
 dis. Gr. fol. Ven. Aid., 1496. Russia, gilt leaves. 
 The only work from the Aldine press in this year. 
 Sold to Mr. Ford for 4. 15s. 
 
 LOT 100. Bolzanii Urbani Bellunensis, Institu- 
 tiones Grammaticae. 4to. Ven. Aid., 1497. " Livre 
 extremement rare." Ren. 1, 16. The Roxburgh 
 copy. Sold to Longman for 2. 12s. 6d. 
 
 LOT 115. M. T. Cicero de Proprietatibus Ter- 
 minorum. 4to. Impressum Augusta per Antonium 
 Sorg. 1488. 
 
 This early edition of a work on Latin Synonyms, 
 erroneously attributed to Cicero, is very rare and 
 curious. Sold to Longman for 6. 6s. 
 
 LOT 116. Balbi Johannis Summa, quse vocatur 
 Catholicon. Fol. MOGUNT. 1460. EDITIO PRIN- 
 CEPS. Yellow mor. gilt leaves. A beautiful copy, in 
 
36 ROSOOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 the most perfect condition, of this rare book, 
 PRINTED by JOHN GUTTEMBERG; formerly in the 
 Bibliotheca Faijana, afterwards in the collection of 
 Martin Folkes, Esq., whose autograph it bears, and 
 since in the library of Mr. Willett, at Merly. This 
 gem sold for 63. 
 
 The printing-press from which it was issued was, 
 we read a little further on, established by John 
 Guttemberg, at Mentz, circa, 1450, 1450 ! And 
 what was the world doing in 1450 ? The middle 
 ages were just expiring, and the era of modern 
 history about to dawn. America was undiscovered. 
 The road to ruin, that paradox in commerce and 
 history, through the mines of Mexico and Peru, had 
 not yet been travelled by their future conquerors. 
 Columbus was in the world, but a boy, an unrecog- 
 nized atom in the vast aggregate of humanity. The 
 Moorish Kingdom of Granada, although somewhat 
 shorn of its power, still survived in splendour and 
 magnificence, and comprised within its limits the 
 fairest and most fertile, the most cultivated and 
 civilized, portion of Spain. The glories of the 
 Alhambra had not yet been revealed to the prying 
 and peering eye of the intruding stranger. The 
 Hanseatic League was in the zenith of its power, 
 but about to decline from it. Russia, its coming 
 influence upon Western Europe unthought of and 
 undreamed of, was as much a terra incognita as the 
 Great Sahara of Africa is now, and struggling to 
 maintain itself against the pressure of the Tartars 
 on the east, and the Livonians and Lithuanians on 
 
KOSOOE'S LIBRARY. 37 
 
 the west. Prussia, as we now see it, was to be a 
 birth of the future. Poland was a mighty and 
 powerful kingdom. Hungary was the bulwark of 
 Christendom against the Turks. At the head of her 
 gallant chivalry John Huniades, and with him the 
 famous Scanderbeg, Prince of Albania, were fighting 
 to retard, although they could not avert, the ruin 
 of the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople itself, 
 but tottering to its fall, was still in the hands of its 
 Greek masters. Henry the Sixth was the King of 
 England. In his reign the tide of war in France 
 had, at first under the auspices and guidance of 
 the celebrated Joan of Arc, set in fiercely against 
 this country, and continued to do so until, happily 
 for future generations, it had deprived her not only 
 of all her recent conquests, but of her old posses- 
 sions, with the exception of Calais, which was to 
 remain for some time longer in her hand. The 
 struggle of the White and Red Roses, the Houses of 
 York and Lancaster, had not commenced, although 
 the cloud was gathering, and plainly to be seen 
 above the horizon, which was soon to burst in blood 
 upon so many thousands and tens of thousands of 
 victims. The old Norman nobility, those powerful 
 vassals of the Crown, often more powerful than the 
 wearer of the Crown himself, still flourished in their 
 ancient pomp and strength, although about to be 
 mown down and almost exterminated by the ruthless 
 scythe of war. Warwick, the King-maker, the last 
 of the great barons, and the greatest of them all, 
 knew and felt, doubtless, at this time, the extent of 
 
38 KOSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 his influence, but he had not. begun to display and 
 exert it. The hour had not quite come, but it was 
 at hand. Venice, with her dark and mysterious 
 government at home, was the grand emporium of 
 eastern commerce, the Queen and City of Waters, 
 the Bride and Mistress of the Sea, solemnly wedded 
 to it by her Doges. The men of the Rialto were 
 the Barings, and Crawfords, and Gladstones, and 
 William Browns of their day. How beautifully has 
 Shakspeare described them : 
 
 " Your mind is tossing on the ocean ; 
 There, where your argosies with portly sail, 
 Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood, 
 Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea, 
 Do over-peer the petty traffickers, 
 That curt'sy to them, do them reverence, 
 As they fly by them with their woven wings." 
 
 Or shall we contemplate Byron's picture of her ? 
 It is from a master-hand, and has all the power of 
 the artist in it : 
 
 " She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 
 
 Rising with her tiara of proud towers 
 At airy distance, with majestic motion, 
 
 A ruler of the waters and their powers : 
 And such she was : Her daughters had their dowers 
 
 From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
 Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 
 In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
 Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increas'd." 
 
 Florence, under the sway of the House of Medici, 
 at the time we speak of, was the great centre of 
 Italian civilization. To borrow the sonorous and 
 rounded periods of the historian of the Decline and 
 Fall : " Cosmo of Medicis was the father of a line of 
 princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous 
 
ROSCOK'S LIBRARY. 39 
 
 with the restoration of learning ; his credit was 
 ennobled into fame ; his riches were dedicated to 
 the service of mankind ; he corresponded at once 
 with Cairo and London ; and a cargo of Indian 
 spices and Greek books was often imported in the 
 same vessel. The genius and education of his 
 grandson Lorenzo rendered him not only a patron, 
 but a judge and candidate, in the literary race. In 
 his palace, distress was entitled to relief, and merit 
 to reward ; his leisure hours were delightfully spent 
 in the Platonic Academy ; he encouraged the 
 emulation of Demetrius Chalcondyles and Angelo 
 Politian ; and his active missionary, Janus Las- 
 caris, returned from the East with a treasure of 
 two hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which were 
 as yet unknown in the libraries of Europe. The 
 rest of Italy was animated by a similar spirit, and 
 the progress of the nation repaid the liberality of 
 her princes." 
 
 Such was the general aspect of the world when the 
 printing-press of Guttemberg was set up at Mentz. 
 What were the thoughts of the inventor ? Did he, 
 with quasi-propheiic vision, see into the future, and 
 anticipate the mighty results which his discovery 
 would accomplish when it had survived the storms 
 which rocked it in its cradle, and escaped the fangs 
 of the two serpents of ignorance and bigotry, which 
 sought to strangle the infant Hercules of innovation 
 as soon as it appeared ? Did he, in truth, draw his 
 bow at a venture, or with any sure hope and expec- 
 tation of what was to follow ? 
 
40 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WE recollect that, many years since, we once 
 flattered ourselves that we had very considerably 
 enlightened an inquisitive examining-niaster, in the 
 schools at Oxford, who asked us, " What, in our 
 opinion, would have been the state of the world now 
 if Hannibal had, immediately after the battle of 
 Cannoe, marched upon Borne and made himself 
 master of the great rival of Carthage ?" Our answer 
 was a respectful paraphrase of the cruelly-miserable 
 play upon the word, Cannoe. " Can he ? But could 
 he, with his army disorganized and demoralized, 
 after so fie"rce a conflict, and Rome still Rome, with 
 all the mighty prestige of her name yet remaining, 
 and still proud, and confident, and strong in the 
 resources which she had to draw upon even after so 
 terrible a defeat ?" But a much more interesting 
 discussion might, we think, be raised by the sugges- 
 tive question, " What would have been the state of 
 the world now if the printing-press had not been 
 invented ?" We, therefore, feel justified in saying 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 41 
 
 a few words more about this discovery, aiid especially 
 about the time when it took place. 
 
 There are unthinking men who ascribe every 
 event to. mere chance or coincidence, and look for 
 no higher solution of the government of the world's 
 affairs than a series of casualties and accidents. 
 But the Christian philosopher has far other notions. 
 He sees, and recognizes, and feels, in all which 
 happens, the hand of an overruling Providence, 
 guiding and directing all things to eventual good, 
 working, it may be, often inscrutably and mysteri- 
 ously to the finite intellect of man, but still with a 
 settled purpose in the end, 
 
 " A mighty maze, but not without a plan." 
 
 We shall presently see another proof of this in the 
 case which we are about to consider. 
 
 Twice has Greece given civilization to Italy and 
 Western Europe. In ancient days, when overcome 
 by the legions of Rome, and reduced into the 
 position of a province of the great and all-absorbing 
 republic, it was the boast, probably the comfort, of 
 her sons, that the vanquished had conquered the 
 conquerors and bound them in the chains of 
 philosophy, science, literature, and art. But time 
 rolled on. The republic ripened into an empire. 
 Luxury brought corruption, and then decay and 
 ruin followed. The deluge of northern barbarism 
 burst in upon Italy, and wave upon wave, like the 
 fire-flood of Vesuvius overwhelming Herculaneum 
 and Pompeii, Goth, Hun, and Vandal swept over 
 her plains, until the civilization which she had 
 
42 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 gained was utterly obliterated, and " chaos couie 
 again" reigned supreme. But this sad state of 
 things was not to last. It was paralysis, not 
 extinction, sleep, not death. The phoenix was to 
 rise from its ashes in all, and more than all, its 
 primeval splendours. In the early part of the 
 fourteenth century the revival of the love of 
 literature began with Petrarch : 
 
 "A star is trembling on the horizon's verge, 
 That star shall grow and broaden on the night, 
 Until it hangs divine and beautiful 
 In the proud zenith." 
 
 The good work went on. The intercourse between 
 the East, the seat of learning, and the West, 
 abounding in iron men, so long interrupted by 
 religious feuds, became more frequent, as calamity 
 drove the former to solicit the help and assistance 
 of the latter. Fugitives from Constantinople, many 
 of them learned men, passed from the doomed city 
 into Italy, carrying with them the treasures of 
 Greek literature, and themselves masters of the 
 language which could unfold and display them. A 
 Sovereign Pontiff was in Rome, who was not only a 
 patron and lover, but a very zealot in the cause of 
 the revival of learning. The House of Medicis, as 
 we said before, ruled in Florence, whence the 
 illumination of their example spread, far and wide, 
 through Italy and beyond. And, last of all, and 
 the consummation of all, the printing-press had 
 been discovered and was in readiness for the im- 
 pending crisis. Then came the fall of Constantinople 
 
ROSCHi! v | | |:i;\RY. 43 
 
 and the end of the Byzantine Empire. It was taken 
 by assault on the 29th of May, 1463, its Emperor, 
 Constantino Palseologus, worthy of a better fate, 
 preferring a glorious death in the final struggle to 
 either exile or captivity. The learned professors 
 who escaped fled into Italy, carrying with them all 
 the literary treasures which had survived the fire 
 and fanaticism of their enemies, and thus the revival 
 of learning was confirmed and assured in those 
 regions where it had already begun. Civilization 
 lost an empire in Eastern to gain another and more 
 extended one in Western Europe. " The arms of 
 the Turks," writes Gibbon, "undoubtedly pressed 
 the flight of the Muses ; yet we may tremble at the 
 thought that Greece might have been overwhelmed, 
 with her schools and libraries, before Europe had 
 emerged from the deluge of barbarism : that the 
 seeds of science might have been scattered by the 
 winds before the Italian soil was prepared for their 
 cultivation." And who will ascribe this chain of 
 events, so complete in every link, to mere chance or 
 coincidence ? We will not stop to quarrel or raise a 
 discussion with those who so think and maintain. 
 But we would not ourselves face the misery of such 
 a belief for all the wealth which the world contains. 
 It is true that the treasures of literature and science, 
 saved from the wreck of Constantinople and carried 
 to Italy, might have been multiplied by the pen in 
 sufficient numbers to supply the wants of the rich 
 or learned. They would still, however, have been 
 dependent, as heretofore, upon fire or accident in 
 
44 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 this narrow existence. But without the discovery 
 of the printing-press the light which gilded the 
 mountain-tops of society would never have pene- 
 trated to the valleys. Its " Open Sesame" intro- 
 duced the masses of the people into what was to 
 them the new world of knowledge. Without its 
 help the stunted intellectual growth of the multi- 
 tude would never have expanded, but would have 
 remained stunted still. When in these days we see 
 the working man with the Bible on his cottage table, 
 or paying for and enjoying his Shakspeare readings, 
 or celebrating the natal day of the immortal bard, 
 we cannot fail to recognize the fruits of the seed 
 sown in 1450. We are reapers of the harvest now. 
 The soil was prepared then. 
 
 But whither are we wandering with the eye of 
 memory ? Not long since we stood, lost in reverie, 
 amidst the beautiful, still exquisite ruins of St. 
 Mary's Abbey, in York. Our thoughts rushed back 
 into the dreamland of bygone centuries, and, in 
 imagination, we had reared again its aisles and 
 cloisters, and peopled them once more with cowled 
 monks, flitting to and fro in their vocation, when 
 suddenly, from the railway-station below, the shrill 
 whistle of a moving train screamed in our ears, 
 and recalled us, with its startling voice, from our 
 contemplations of the past into the realities of 
 the modern world around us. And, even so, as 
 our eye rests upon the book before us, are we now 
 reminded of the immediate work which we under- 
 took to do. 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBBABY. 46 
 
 We turn, then, to our Catalogue for a few m6re 
 gems from the scattered Library : 
 
 LOT 126. Tortellii, Common tarii de Orthogra- 
 phia Dictionum, <fcc. Fol. Per Nicolaum Jenson. 
 Venet. 1471. Fine copy, BARISS. gr. mor. gilt 
 leaves. Sold for 6. 15s. 
 
 LOT 137. Gigli Girolamo, Vocabolario Cateri- 
 niano. 4to. EDIZ. RABA. 
 
 The printing of this book was suspended by a 
 Papal Bull, an original copy of which is inserted at 
 the end of the volume. 
 
 Typis Rev. Cam. Apostolicce. 1727. 
 
 Sold to Mr. Heber for 1. 7s. 
 
 LOT 139. Alberti ab Eyb, Margarita Poetica. 
 Fol. Nuremb. per Joh. Sensenschmid. 1472. EDITIO 
 PBINOEPS Russ. RABISS. 
 
 This curious collection demonstrates the early 
 intercourse that took place, on the revival of learn- 
 ing, between the Italian and German scholars. 
 
 Sold for 7 to Mr. Yates, a gentleman of a family 
 remarkable for their love of literature and science. 
 
 LOT 160. Politiani, Miscellaneorum Centuria ad 
 Laurentium Medicem. Fol. Flor. ap. Miscominum. 
 1489. EDITIO PBINCEPS. RABISS. 
 
 Sold for 5. 5s. 
 
 LOT 212. Calogera, Raccolta d'Opuscoli Scienti- 
 fici e Philologici. 12mo. 51 torn. Ven. 1728, <fcc. 
 
 Sold to Mr. Heber for 7. 17s. 6d. 
 
 LOT 279. Strabo de situ Orbis, Latine, a Guarino 
 Veronesi et Gregorio Tiphernato. Fol. Venet. 
 Vindelin. de Spvra. 1472. 
 
46 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 It has been doubted whether this edition, or that 
 of Rome in the same year, be the first. De Bure 
 says, " Les deux Editions sont tres rare, et sont 
 GgaUnient recommendabks aux yeux des curieux." 
 (No. 4180, 4181.) Sold to Longman for 8. 
 
 LOT 286. The Nuremberg Chronicle. Nuremb. 
 Coberger. 1495. Fol. gr. FIRST ED. Fine copy. 
 
 This work is chiefly valuable for the designs of 
 Mich. Wolgemuth, the master of Alb. Durer, which 
 were the foundation of the style of painting preva- 
 lent in Germany during a great part of the ensuing 
 century. For a full account of this work, v. 
 Bibliotheca Spenceriana. Sold to Mr. Benson 
 for 9. 
 
 LOT 316. La Historia di Alexandro Magno, 
 figliolo di Filippo Re di Macedonia, scripta da 
 Quinto Curtio Ruffo, Historico Eloquentissimo, et 
 tradotta in vulgare da P. Candido. Fol. Impressum 
 Florentine apud sactum Jacobum de Ripoli. 1478. 
 PRIMA EDIZTONE. 
 
 This first and rare edition of the Translation of 
 Quintus Curtius was printed by Domenico da Pistoja 
 and Piero da Pisa, in the monastery of S. Jacopo di 
 Ripoli, near Florence, (two leaves wanting.) Sold 
 to Lord Spencer for 4. 6s. 
 
 LOT 413. Sabellici M. Ant. Rerum Venetarum 
 Historia in lib. 33. Fol. Mag. Venet. arte et 
 industrid optimi viri Andrew de Torresanis de Asula, 
 anno 1487. 
 
 " Ouvrage peu commun et recherch^." De Sure. 
 This splendid volume was printed by Andrea 
 
LIBRARY. 47 
 
 Asulani, before he associated his labours with those 
 of his son-in-law, Aldo Manutio. Sold for 3. 3s. 
 
 LOT 462. The Polychronicon of Banulph Hig- 
 den, Monk of Chester, translated from the Latin by 
 John Trevisa. Fol. Westm. by Wynkin Theworde. 
 1495. 
 
 The chronicle is perfect; but a few leaves are 
 wanting in the index. Sold to Longman for 8. 
 
 With these gems, picked haphazard from the 
 precious treasures before us, we shall conclude the 
 present chapter. 
 
48 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WE now come to two curious specimens, not of 
 the earliest, but still of very early, English printing : 
 
 LOT 463. The Cronycle of Englonde, with the 
 fruyte of tymes. Fol. Here endeth this present 
 Cronycle of Englonde with fruyte of tymes, copy led 
 in a boke, and also enprynted by one some time 
 scole Mayster of Saint Albons, upon whose soule 
 God have mercy. And newely in the yere of oure 
 Lorde God 1510. emprynted in flete strete, at the 
 sygne of the Gorge, by Rycharde Pynson, Printer 
 unto ye Kynges noble grace. 
 
 Two leaves wanting. 
 
 Sold to Longman for 8. 10s. 
 
 LOT 464. The Cronycle of Englonde, with the 
 fruyte of tymes. Fol. Here endeth this present 
 Cronycle of Englonde with the fruyte of tymes, 
 compyled in a booke ; and also newely enprinted in 
 the yere of oure Lorde God 1515 by me Julyan 
 Notary, dwellynge in Powlys Chyrche yarde, besyde 
 ye Westdore by my lordes Palyes. 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 49 
 
 Wants sheet A, except the first leaf. 
 
 Sold to Longman for 9. 9s. 
 
 And here we cannot resist the temptation which 
 invites us to take a wider glance at "the Chronicles 
 of the Times" in which these rare old books were 
 printed, and to include within it the whole of the 
 first half of the sixteenth century. It was, both as 
 to the actors and the things acted, a marvellous, 
 almost a miraculous, period. It was an age in 
 which history was romance and romance was history, 
 or rather in which, if we may mount to such a climax 
 of tautology, history out-romanced romance itself in 
 its wildest flights. What Alison calls " the mind- 
 quake of the nations" had then begun. The world 
 was in rapid motion, and drifting away from the 
 moorings of the past. Thus writes Hecker of the 
 opening of this remarkable century : "The darkness 
 of the Middle Ages had receded, as at the approach 
 of a sun still hidden behind a cloud. The mind 
 unconsciously expanded in the unwonted light of 
 day the whole earth was on the eve of renovation 
 new energies were to be called into action events 
 more stupendous had never occurred, nor had more 
 creative ideas ever aroused the spirit of man. The 
 invention of Gutteinberg burst through the bonds 
 of mental darkness, and gave to freedom of thought 
 imperishable wings ; unsuspected powers succes- 
 sively developed themselves ; and, while in Western 
 Europe an ardent desire arose boldly to overstep 
 the ancient limits of human activity, the hopes of 
 the more enlightened fell far short of the actual 
 
50 EOSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 result of such unexpected events. The discovery 
 of the New World, and the circumnavigation of 
 Africa, laid the foundation for great improvements ; 
 yet the events in Central Europe, though less 
 striking to contemporaries, were, in their conse- 
 quences, infinitely more important and beneficial. 
 The establishment of civil order among all the 
 nations of the West took place at this period, which 
 forms so important a boundary between the Middle 
 Ages and modern times. Regal power was fixed on 
 a firm basis, and when the castles had fallen before 
 the artillery of the princes and imperial cities, so 
 that the petty feudal barons were compelled to 
 swear obedience to the laws, an end was put to the 
 incessant predatory feuds which had so long desolated 
 Europe, and the establishment of internal peace 
 was followed by the security of life and property 
 the first essential of refinement in manners and of 
 the free development of human society." 
 
 At the time when these " Crony cles of Englonde" 
 were printed, Henry the Eighth was on the throne, 
 that royal Bluebeard who divorced his wives by 
 decrees of universities, acts of Parliament, and edge 
 of axe, according to his haste or leisure. Death had 
 recently called away his father, Henry the Seventh, 
 a prince for whom history, in the hands of a new 
 Plutarch, might find a parallel in the Roman 
 Emperor Vespasian, or more strikingly, perhaps, in 
 Louis Philippe of France, only that the Tudor was 
 blessed with better fortunes, more sagacity for 
 government, or a less fickle people. But let us 
 
ItosroK/s LIBRARY. 51 
 
 proceed. What giants were about to struggle in 
 the world's arena for the world's mastery ! Francis 
 the First, Charles the Fifth, Solyman the Magnifi- 
 cent, Maurice of Saxony ! And what other giants 
 were then taking or about to take a part in the 
 great drama, men whose influences yet act upon 
 the world and the echoes of whose ideas still strike 
 upon our ears ! Look at them in the picture-gallery 
 of history ! Gaston de Foix, that youthful and pre- 
 cocious Jupiter Tonans, to whom, as to Conde in 
 after days, the thunderbolts of war were toys and 
 playthings in his very boyhood, Bayard, U chevalier 
 sans penr et sans reproche, the glorious Swede, 
 Gustavus Vasa, Bourbon, whose soldiers stormed 
 Rome shouting the name of their dead leader, and 
 who, had he been as faithful to his king and country 
 as he was false and faithless to them, would have 
 been one of the greatest heroes of his own or any age, 
 Copernicus, Ximenes, Leo the Tenth, Luther, Calvin, 
 Zuinglius, Ignatius Loyola, Wolsey, not merely 
 the proud and ambitious Cardinal of the historical 
 portrait, but truly with better stuff in him, a man 
 of learning himself and the warm patron of learning 
 in others, Cranmer, Ridley, good, quaint, old 
 Latimer, yet in active life, Sir Thomas More, 
 Erasmus, Melancthon, Surrey, Machiavel, Ariosto, 
 Holbein, Raphael, Leonardo de Vinci, Corregio, 
 Michael Angelo, Palladio, and more and more, like 
 Banquo's line, " stretching out to the crack of 
 doom," if the roll of all of them were called over ! 
 What men ! What memories ! What contrasts ! 
 
52 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 Every one of them a name to have a history to 
 itself! Every one of them a theme to which 
 volumes might be devoted ! In 1513 the battle of 
 Flodden, that Bannockburn reversed, was fought. 
 A few years later Cortez, that man of prudence, 
 policy, courage, and cruelty combined, startled the 
 Old World by the conquest of Mexico, while the fell 
 Pizarro, whose dauntless valour was only equalled 
 by his terrible ferocity, made a charnel-house of 
 Peru. And here let us draw from our exhibition 
 another historical picture already mentioned, and 
 contemplate it as a fearful example of towering and 
 defeated ambition. It is that of Charles the Fifth. 
 The most powerful monarch of his time in virtue 
 of his hereditary dominions, subsequently elected 
 Emperor, and, with the treasures of America at his 
 command, he was smitten with a wild and insane 
 ambition to become the lord-paramount of Europe, 
 as if anxious to emulate the Charlemagne of the past 
 or to anticipate the Napoleon of the future, until 
 baffled and disappointed, sickened and disgusted, he 
 descended, like Diocletian, from his throne, and 
 retired from the scene into the gloom of a monastery, 
 while memory scoffed at the dreams which hope had 
 once indulged, and the mocking world inscribed 
 over his living death, the dotage of his power, if not 
 of his mind, the instructive epitaph, a warning, a 
 reproof, a moral most impressively united, "Vanity 
 of vanities ; all is vanity !" Alexander wept because 
 he could find no more worlds to conquer. The 
 mortification of Charles arose from the opposite fact 
 
LIBRARY. 53 
 
 that he could not conquer the world or that part of 
 it immediately before him. The one achieved 
 everything upon which he set his heart, while the 
 other was dissatisfied because he could achieve 
 nothing of the proud aims upon which his aspira- 
 tions were set. To the Macedonian all was nothing. 
 To his would-be imitator nothing was all. The 
 bubble was equally striking in both cases. 
 
54 KOSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OUR great poet has written of the man who 
 
 " Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 
 
 But this magnificent thought, worthy of inspiration, 
 may be carried yet further. As we turn over the 
 leaves of these old books, what eloquent, if silent, 
 preachers seem to address us from them ? Through 
 what hands may they not have passed ; to what 
 ears may they not have been read ; by what eyes 
 may they not have been studied ! Where, what, are 
 they now ? To this world DUST. For the next, 
 let us hope for the best. And here another thought, 
 not intruding, but welcome, will rise before the 
 mind. Not only do these old books connect us with 
 these old men, but there are other links which bind 
 us up with them in the same chain of one common 
 humanity. The same sun which shines so gloriously 
 upon us shone with equal splendour upon them. 
 The same moon which sheds its silvery light on 
 us was also their handmaid of the night. The same 
 
LIBRARY. 55 
 
 spangling stars which are ours were theirs. The 
 seasons came and went for them as they come and 
 go for us. They walked by the rivers' banks, and 
 saw them, as we see them now, gliding, gliding, 
 ever gliding on, in their unfailing streams, to the 
 thirsty, all-swallowing ocean. They, as we do, 
 listened to Nature's concerts, the humming of the 
 joyous and grateful insects, the birds in the groves 
 making sweet music for their Creator, and the 
 storms, and the waves, and the cataracts thundering 
 forth their anthems of thanksgiving to the Most 
 High. This you will, perhaps, say, is to grow 
 sentimental. It is solemn and serious truth which 
 we should do well to make both our closet and 
 walking companion more frequently than we do. 
 But let us proceed. 
 
 LOT 465. Nova Statuta. Fol. Without place, or 
 date, but printed by Wm. de Machlinia, circa 1482. 
 
 These statutes extend from the 1st Ed. 3 to the 
 22dofEd. 4. 
 
 " The most elaborate production of the press of 
 Machlinia." Dibd. Bib. Sp. 4. 386. Buss., gilt 
 leaves. 
 
 Sold for 11. 11s. 
 
 LOT 522. Labbei et Cossartii, Sacro-sancta Con- 
 cilia, ad regiam editionem exacta, cum Apparatu 
 primo et secundo. Fol. 18 torn. Par. 1671, &c. 
 The second Apparatus is often wanting in this col- 
 lection, being, as Debure informs us, "very rare 
 and very dear, and the want of it reduces the work 
 nearly half its value." 
 
56 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 Sold for 26. 5s. Tlie purchaser was Dr. Hodson, 
 Principal of Brazenose College, Oxford, and the 
 pride and ornament of the university to which he 
 belonged. He was an accomplished gentleman, a 
 ripe scholar, an ardent lover of literature, deeply 
 read in the classics, master of some of the more 
 abstruse sciences, and a profound theologian. The 
 void made by his death in his university has never 
 yet been filled up. It was hoped and believed by 
 his friends that the highest position in the Church 
 was within his grasp when his fatal illness carried 
 him off. When Liverpool chronicles her able and 
 brilliant sons, the name of Frodsham Hodson must 
 not be written far from the first place on the first 
 page. 
 
 LOT 553. Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, edidit Bryanus 
 Walton. Fol. 6 torn,. London : Thomas Roycroft, 
 1653, &c. With CastelTs Lexicon, 2 torn, in 1, and 
 the original dedication to Charles 2, which is so 
 seldom met with that its existence has been denied 
 by several bibliographers. 
 
 Sold for 41. 
 
 LOT 561. Codex Psalmorum. Fol. Mogunt. 
 per Johem Fust et Petru Schoeffer de Gernsheym. 
 Anno dni. MILLESSIMO 459. Printed on vellum. 
 One leaf MS. Bound in black morocco, gilt leaves, 
 from the Merly Library. 
 
 This very rare and early volume, the second book 
 known with a date, is seldom found even in the first 
 collections. Only seven copies, besides the present, 
 are known to exist. 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 57 
 
 Sold for 54. 12s. 
 
 LOT 571. A Booke of Christian Prayers, <fec. 
 8vo. Lond. By John Daye, 1581. Queen Eliza- 
 beth's Prayer Book, with her portrait, and decora- 
 tions from wood-prints on every page ; the Dance of 
 Death, <fec. 
 
 Sold to Lord Spencer for 10. 10s. 
 
 LOT 572. Durandi Gulielmi, Rationale Divino- 
 rum Officiorum. Fol. Per Johannem Fust civem 
 Maguntinum, et Petrum Gernzheym Clericum, 1459. 
 PRINTED ON VELLUM. 
 
 The third printed book known with a date. 
 
 " This is probably the most curious specimen 
 extant of ancient printing." Dibd. Bib. Sp. Vol. 
 3, p. 302. 
 
 In two vols., russia, from the Merly Library ; 
 fine copy, but wanting a few leaves at the beginning ; 
 it commences with the words, Legitur in Exo. c. 25. 
 
 Sold to Mr. Ford for 18. 7s. 6d. 
 
 LOT 589. Matthsei de Cracovia, Tractatus Raci- 
 onis et Consciencie. 4to. Mogunt. 
 
 Without date ; but from the press of JOHN 
 
 GUTTEMBERG ; PRINTED WITH THE SAME TYPE AS 
 
 THE CATHOLICON OF 1460, and PROBABLY BEFORE 
 IT ; as the letter appears to have been less used. 
 " A precious specimen of early printing." Dibd. 
 
 In purple mor. Gilt leaves. 
 
 Sold to Mr. Ford for 10. 10s. 
 
 LOT 695. Jamblici, Procli, Porphyrii, et aliorum 
 Philosophorum, Opera. Fol. Ten. Aid. 1503. 
 
 This volume was in the Vatican Library in the 
 
58 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 time of Leo. 10, where it was read by the celebrated 
 Lilio Gregoris Gyraldi, whose remarks appear in 
 the margin, and who has written at the close of the 
 volume, il Hcec ego L. Greg. Gyr. Komce in Vaticani 
 Palatio legebam, cum dies jejunis ex more ageretur. 
 Mense Martio 1514." 
 
 LOT 803. Homeri Opera. Greece, cum com- 
 mentariis Grsecis Eustathii. Fol. 4 torn. Romce, 
 Bladus, 1542, &c. 
 
 The privilege of Julius 3, dated 1550 ; that of 
 Charles 5, in 1554 ; and that of Henry 1 of France, 
 in 1548, could not have been published with the 
 first volume in 1542, as mentioned by Debure, but 
 are rightly placed in the fourth volume in this copy. 
 
 Sold for 16. 15s. The buyer was Rushton, a 
 name now endeared to us by the associations and 
 reminiscences of two generations. 
 
 LOT 1,244. Maffei Teatro Italiano, o sia scelta 
 di Tragedie per uso della scena. 12mo. 3 torn. 
 Verona, 1723. 
 
 Sold to William Wallace Currie, the literary sou 
 of a literary sire, the father well known as the 
 biographer of Burns ; the son, the author of the 
 memoirs of his father, a book which only inspires 
 one regret, namely, that the author of it gives us 
 too little of his own writing, but confines himself 
 too strictly to the work of a publisher. 
 
 LOT 1,438. Rump, or an exact collection of the 
 choycest Poems and Songs, relating to the late 
 times ; by the most eminent wits, from anno 1639, 
 to anno 1661. 8vo. Lond. 1662. 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 59 
 
 Sold to Mr. Rathbone, a name long known and 
 only known to be respected, for 5. 5s. 
 
 LOT 1,717. Linnsei Systema Naturae, cura Job. 
 Frid. Gmeliri. 8vo. 3 torn, in 6. Lips. 1788, <fec. 
 Riissia. 
 
 Sold for 7 to Dr. Rutter, a man greatly honoured 
 and respected in his day, and as eminent in his own 
 profession as remarkable for his love of literature 
 and science. 
 
 But now for another digression. Some people 
 study character with Lavater in the physiognomy ; 
 some, with Gall and Spurzheim, rely upon phre- 
 nology. Others affirm that the handwriting is the 
 index of the man. Others look to the dress as a 
 sure criterion, and allege that it is a truth-telling 
 confessor which never errs. Some, again, set up a 
 shorter standard, and say of a man, " nositur a 
 sociis." But, without entering the lists either for or 
 against any of these theories, we give it as our 
 opinion, that, let us go with any person to a book 
 sale, and we shall have the measure of him before 
 the day is over. Let us try this test in the case 
 before us. When we refer to the names of the 
 buyers attached to our Catalogue of "Roscoe's 
 Library," we find it wonderfully borne out and 
 confirmed. We cannot fail to recognize the omni- 
 vorous book-collector in the wholesale purchases of 
 rich and rare, curious, and ancient volumes made 
 by Lord Spencer and Mr. Heber. With equal 
 plainness do the books on natural history and so 
 forth bought by the amiable Lord Stanley, the father 
 
60 KOSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 of the present Earl of Derby, declare to us the tastes 
 to which he was devoted through life. The classical 
 works and specimens of Italian literature, knocked 
 down to Dr. Shepherd, speak, and speak correctly, 
 of the man who, the friend of Roscoe, had congenial 
 tastes with him, and although, perhaps, with not so 
 wide and universal a range, pushed many of his 
 studies in the same direction. Dazzled by his 
 brilliant wit, we must not forget that he was a first- 
 rate scholar. And so we might go on, testing what 
 we may call our book-palmistry in many more 
 instances. But we are satisfied to launch the theory 
 on these proofs. 
 
BOSCOB'S LIBRARY. 61 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THERE were some very rich and rare manuscripts 
 in the Library ; but the limits to which we have 
 determined to confine ourselves will only allow us 
 to mention one of them. It is a precious gem, we 
 may call it the "Koh-i-noor" of the collection. 
 
 LOT 1,810. Biblia Sacra, utrumque Testamen- 
 tum, vetus et novum, veteri translatione ad Hebrai- 
 cam, et Graeoam, veritatem, continens. Fol. MS* 
 on vellum, of the early part of the 14/i century. 
 
 This volume ia decorated with historical designs 
 from subjects of the Old and New Testament, sup- 
 posed to be executed by Giotto, or some artist of 
 his school ; he having been employed at Avignon 
 under Clement V., in 1305, about which time this 
 MS. was written. 
 
 It appears to have been considered at a subsequent 
 period as a present worthy of the supreme Pontiff, 
 on which occasion a new frontispiece and title-page 
 were added, illuminated with gold and colours. 
 
6'2 ROSOOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 Besides the historical miniatures, almost every 
 page is decorated with arabesque ornaments, por- 
 traits, letters, &c. 
 
 Independent of the value of this volume as exem- 
 plifying the state of art at a very early period, it is 
 certainly one of the finest and most highly-orna- 
 mented manuscripts of the Sacred Writings which 
 has been handed down to the present times. 
 
 Bound in blue velvet, in a morocco-case, by J. 
 Jones, of Liverpool, who had discovered a method 
 of restoring the foldings in vellum leaves of ancient 
 M.SS. to an equal surface, without injury to the 
 writing. 
 
 Sold for 178. 10s. to E. Rushton and G. 
 Robinson. 
 
 And now, young readers, let us plunge back, 
 through all the centuries of history and memory 
 which separate us from it, to the date of this rare 
 manuscript, 1305 ! Edward the First, sometimes 
 called the English Justinian for his amendment of 
 the laws, and much praised by Sir Mathew Hale on 
 this account, was then upon the throne. His life 
 had been a royal romance. In his youth he had 
 restored the tottering and almost fallen fortunes of 
 his father, Henry the Third, by rescuing him from 
 the power of the famous Simon de Montfort, Earl 
 of Leicester, to whom English liberty owes so much 
 as the first asserter of the dignity and rights of the 
 House of Commons. He planted the tree under 
 whose shadow we find a shelter. After the defeat of 
 the barons, and the firm establishment of his father's 
 
<E'S LIBRARY. 
 
 throne, Edward passed as a Crusader into the Holy 
 Land, where for a time he revived the name and 
 reputation of Richard Coeur de Lion. History tells 
 us of the wound which he there received from the 
 poisoned dagger of an assassin, and tradition delights 
 to add that he was saved from its effects by the 
 love and piety of his wife, who sucked the venom 
 from the wound. Contemporary writers, however, 
 say nothing of this pleasing legend, but speak of a 
 skilful surgeon to whom they ascribe the cure. Why 
 not give to both their share of praise ? We believe 
 in the surgeon, and wish to believe in the wife. 
 Upon the death of his father, Edward, whose name 
 kept the peace until his arrival, hastened home. His 
 reign was a long and eventful one. He conquered 
 Wales, but tarnished his laurels by his cruelty to its 
 princes and bards. He sought, also, to reduce 
 Scotland under his dominion, and at times appeared 
 to be on the verge of success. But the volcano ever 
 broke out again, and the work of conquest was 
 undone as soon as it seemed to be accomplished. 
 
 The polarity of the magnet had been known for 
 some little time in Europe, and the recent invention 
 of the mariner's compass was about to exert as great 
 and disturbing an influence upon navigation as, at a 
 later period, the discovery of the printing-press 
 worked upon literature, or, more recently, steam 
 upon travelling and manufactures. Hitherto the 
 sailor, in his coasting voyages, had hugged the shore, 
 and, as his eye turned ocean-ward, had mistaken 
 iynoturnpro terrijico, and trembled at the very 
 
64 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 thought of the dangers which awaited those who 
 should dare boldly to steer out into the boundless 
 expanse of waters. The superstitious feeling of the 
 ancients, as we find it expressed by Sophocles, 
 Theocritus, Juvenal, Persius, and Horace, was yet 
 entertained in all its force, as strong as when it was 
 written 
 
 " Itti robur et ces triplex 
 
 Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci 
 Commisit pelago ratem 
 
 Primus." 
 
 We all know with what ideal monsters and terrors 
 the Atlantic was still beset even in the days of 
 Columbus, nearly two centuries after the period of 
 which we are now speaking. 
 
 Within half a century of the date of this manu- 
 script, the Greek Emperors had recovered Constan- 
 tinople from the temporary rule of its Latin con- 
 querors, but only to linger, weak and impotent, 
 tottering and trembling, through the lease of a 
 galvanized, not a renewed, existence. 
 
 A little before the same period, too, flourished 
 Robin Hood, that real man, but almost idealized 
 into a myth by the halo of fabulous attributes 
 surrounding him. We find that Fordun, the Scot- 
 tish historian who wrote in the early part of the 
 fourteenth century, praises the celebrated outlaw 
 for his piety. This eulogy, so much at variance 
 with the generally received opinion of him, is taken 
 from an unmutilated copy of his Chronicle in the 
 Harleian Library. And for the benefit of those who 
 love to exalt a name so long popular in the ballads 
 
ROSC'OE's LIBRARY. 66 
 
 and legends of the country, we may further add, 
 that, in the first volume of Peck's intended supple- 
 ment to the Monasticon, consisting of collections for 
 the history of Prsernonstratensian monasteries, now 
 in the British Museum, there is a very curious 
 rhyming Latin poem, with the following title : 
 " Prioris Alnwicensis de bello Scotico apud Dwnbarr, 
 tempare rigis Edwardi I. dictamen sive rithmus 
 Latinus, quo de WILLIELMO WALLACE, Scotico illo 
 ROBIN WHOOD, plura sed invidiose canit ;" and, in 
 the margin, are the following date and reference : 
 "22, Julii 1304. 32. E. 1, Regist. Prem.fol 59. 
 a." This, it may be observed, is the first known 
 instance of our hero's name being mentioned by any 
 writer whatever, and affords a strong and respecta- 
 ble proof of his early popularity. 
 
 In 1305, the very year' in which this manuscript 
 was penned, William Wallace, himself the hero of 
 so many wonderful legends and romances, and the 
 hero of a history more wonderful than them all, was 
 traitorously delivered into the hands of the English, 
 and carried to London, where he was cruelly and 
 unjustly beheaded. Neither before nor since has 
 Scotland ever recognized "such a name to conjure 
 with." Will she ever forget him ? Quamdiu stabit 
 Coliseum, stabit et Roma ; quando cadet Coliseum, 
 cadet Roma ; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus. 
 Then, and not till then, shall the memory of the 
 patriot-martyr of Scotland pass from the heart and 
 affections of his countrymen. William Wallace ! 
 What a subject for the studio of that Canova of 
 
ROSCOES LIBRARY. 
 
 history, Macaulay ! We have often wished to see 
 his statue set forth in all its full and fair proportions 
 upon the pedestal of immortality by that master- 
 hand. But the liberty of Scotland was not buried 
 in the grave of Wallace. His place was instantly 
 occupied by one whose name is also dear to his 
 countrymen. In 1306 the death of the Red Comyn 
 took place, a tragedy from his part in which Kirk- 
 patrick of Closeburn, an ancestor of the Empress 
 Eugenia of France, derived his famous family motto, 
 "I make sicker." The great Robert Bruce was 
 crowned at Scone in the same year. But he had to 
 encounter a long and fierce struggle, fight many a 
 battle with various, and often adverse, issue, and 
 face many a frown of fortune, before Bannockburn 
 finally established his throne on a firm and sure 
 foundation. 
 
 Switzerland was about to throw oif the yoke of 
 Austria, and take her place among the nations. 
 The world was soon to wonder at the Papal Hegira 
 from Rome to Avignon, and to be shocked and 
 horrified at the fearful persecution of the Knights 
 Templars, the work of a conspiracy of kings, headed 
 by Philip the Fair of France. History, dictated or 
 written by their enemies, has been loud in pro- 
 claiming their crimes, but it has never adduced any 
 evidence of their guilt. So suspicious an omission 
 speaks for itself. The impartial inquirer will form 
 his own conclusions. The Templars in the Crusades, 
 where all were brave, were the bravest of the brave. 
 But they were no longer wanted. And there were 
 
other reasons to prompt the terrible consummation. 
 They were the best soldiers of the times, and, 
 therefore, feared. They were powerful : hence 
 jealousy was awakened. They were rich : hence 
 avarice was tempted to feign and urge offences of 
 which they were innocent. In truth, they were not 
 punished for their crimes. They were not arraigned 
 at the bar of justice and condemned by its voice. 
 They were the victims of a "foregone conclusion," 
 and even their enemies confess that the manner in 
 which they met death in all its cruel forms in which 
 it now came upon them was worthy of the fame 
 which their order had achieved in the fields of 
 Palestine. 
 
 Dante was now in his prime. Petrarch was a 
 child, but presently, under his auspices, with 
 Boccaccio for a co-worker, the revival of the love of 
 literature in Italy was to begin. In a few years 
 John Wickliffe was to be born. But he came into 
 the world before his time. The printing-press was 
 not yet. Rienzi, too, was soon, in his strange 
 career, to flash like a meteor athwart the sky of 
 history, dazzling and dazzled, and startling the 
 astonished nations by his rise, eclipse, and fall. 
 His character is a problem, often attempted, but 
 never satisfactorily solved. 
 
 Such are the times, and men, and events to which 
 the contemplation of this wonderful manuscript 
 carries us back as we trace it to its first existence. 
 We leave our young readers to push the inquiry 
 further, and, starting from the hints which we 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 have thrown together, to sift, to analyze, to test, 
 examine, and amplify for themselves. 
 
 One more chapter and we have done. In it our 
 purpose is to speak of Roscoe himself. We have 
 considered the tools with which he reared the fabric 
 of his celebrity. A glance at the architect may not 
 be unsatisfactory. 
 
ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AND now, young readers, for whom, indeed, we 
 have written the preceding chapters, we would 
 especially crave your attention for this 'the con- 
 cluding one. Picture to yourselves a tall, dignified, 
 almost majestic, looking man, in whose countenance 
 Intellect and Benevolence, those twins of heavenly 
 birth, are struggling for the mastery, both equally 
 developed and working with equal activity. It is 
 William Roscoe, of whose Library we have been 
 speaking to you, and whose example, as a self-taught 
 man, we are about to bring before you, and to rivet, 
 if possible, upon your memory. 
 
 Roscoe was the son of a market-gardener, in 
 Liverpool, and himself so far a gardener that he 
 tended and cherished the tree of knowledge, grew 
 his own laurels, and cultivated in his own large 
 heart the olive-branch of peace, which, with out- 
 stretched hands, he held forth to all mankind. 
 Whether his parents had no visions of the intellectual 
 
70 ROHCOB'S LIBRARY. 
 
 mine in their possession, or were without the means 
 fully to work it and display its riches, we are not 
 told. At all events, the education bestowed upon 
 their son was of the most meagre kind, consisting 
 of the plainest meats, with no second course, no 
 luxury, no dessert. But his own subsequent self- 
 instruction was immense. In industry, application, 
 and perseverance he reminds us of the great Anglo- 
 American, Benjamin Franklin ; but his tastes, and 
 studies, and pursuits were of a very different 
 character. We may define Franklin as the prince 
 of practical men : the mind of Roscoe delighted and 
 revelled in the classical, the beautiful, and the 
 lovely. The one would have been the Vulcan, the 
 other the Apollo, of the ancients. We often hear of 
 a man of one idea, one book, one speech, one taste, 
 one subject. But he seemed to have been positively 
 embarrassed by the various intellectual treasures 
 which he possessed, and hardly to have known 
 which to cultivate with the most decided devotion. 
 
 " The world was all before him, where to choose 
 His place of rest." 
 
 He appears to have had appetite for everything, and 
 to have attempted everything, and generally with 
 success. He went the tour of the arts, was at 
 home in the sciences, made great advances in the 
 classics, and was as profound as he was enthusiastic 
 in Italian history and literature. Had he confined 
 himself to poetry he would have had few competitors. 
 Had he devoted himself to painting, there is little 
 doubt that he would have climbed to eminence. 
 
KOSOOE'S UB&AKY. 71 
 
 at first were 
 indeed, univereaL With so 
 &DU soniiQEiiDff BOT 
 
 r, he knew not where to anchor. The love 
 of literature soon, however, triumphed over all Ha 
 rivals, and he is said at a very early period to have 
 perceived the mountain- tope of distinction outlined 
 or glimmering in the distance. Bat he knew that 
 he must force his way ad aUaperanhuu He felt 
 that he who slumbers, or idles, or lounges at their 
 foot wfll never scale the steeps of the Alps and 
 Andes. He, therefore, pressed on, already victorious 
 in the presentiment of suconm, buoyant with hope 
 and firm in resolution, until he stood triumphantly 
 on the mil But, world-famous as he at a 
 comparatively early age became, he was not towed 
 into celebrity by what Dr. Johnson indignantly 
 called " the cockboats" of patronage. He did not 
 float to land on the adventitious corks of any 
 yriyti*l influence, but, a stout and self-reliant 
 swimmer, buffeted and overcame the tide which 
 always sets e^"* a &>& new aspirant f or literary 
 
 He soon rose into a man of mark in the world of 
 
 great and the great inteflectnaL His 
 advice and assistance were sought by the learned ; 
 was courted by the noble; and the 
 convey letters to or from the late 
 Lord Lansdowne or I* Fayette, Horace Walpole or 
 Reynolds, Basil Montague or Fnseti, 
 
72 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 Lord Carlisle or Mr. Coke,* or a host of others, on 
 almost every subject, and in almost every country. 
 But he was not dazzled by this great and sudden 
 elevation. He remained unchanged in this change 
 of fortune no pride no pedantry no formality 
 no stilted phrase9logy no cold looks for early 
 friends. He mixed with the great, but was still as 
 simple as simplicity itself. He was accounted learned 
 even among the learned themselves, but was as far 
 removed from anything like the arrogance of supe- 
 riority as the east is from the west. He bore his 
 honours meekly, and they were the brighter for it. 
 
 Such a man could not fail to be " the observed of 
 all observers" in every company. JBut he did not, 
 therefore, as so many do without a tithe of his 
 pretensions, claim a right to be a privileged nuisance, 
 and to inflict interminable lectures ex eathedrd in 
 measured and stentorian language on every possible 
 occasion. And, on the other hand, he was not a 
 man to perpetrate or encourage the meras nugas 
 with which the flippant talker harasses society. He 
 never trifled with the trifler. He could relax he 
 could unbend he could bring himself down to the 
 level of any capacity, but his conversation was still 
 instructive, and taught wisdom in his lightest moods 
 and on every subject, just as the bee can extract 
 
 * We met only a few days since, while these pages were 
 being written, with a venerable clergyman, who looks back 
 with peculiar pleasure to the happy days which he spent in 
 the interesting and instructive society of Mr. Roscoe, at Hoik- 
 ham. Of the race of the giants himself, he could both take 
 his intellectual measure and appreciate it. 
 
ROSCX)E'S LIBBAEY. 73 
 
 honey from the simplest as well as the richest 
 flowers. 
 
 But with all his intellectual powers, all his fine 
 tastes, and all his literary pursuits, he was, we are 
 told, in business still the man of business, although, 
 doubtless, from the midst of it his heart would often 
 wander to his books and be revelling in his Library. 
 Of it we may almost say, 
 
 " That was his care, his hope, and his delight, 
 Most iu his thought, and ever in his sight." 
 
 His political opinions, and especially his views on 
 the slave-trade, had embittered many against him, 
 and he was at one time the mark for many a shaft 
 from the quiver of ill-nature. But all failed to 
 kindle any reciprocity of bitterness within him. 
 His heart had no place for such feelings in it. 
 Bather it abounded and was filled with that charity 
 which " endureth all things and never faileth." 
 He either outlived or lived down all his enemies. 
 And it is highly complimentary to his private worth 
 and character to know that malevolence, unable to 
 urge anything against the man, assumed the mask 
 of criticism, and attempted to wound him through 
 the feelings of the author. 
 
 He was what we so seldom see combined in the 
 same person, both a lover of literature and a literary 
 man, both an admirer of poetry and a poet, both a 
 devotee of art and an artist ; and he wooed nature 
 in every flower, and was one of the best practical 
 botanists of the day. His fame, as an author, with 
 posterity will rest upon his two great works, The 
 
74 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 Life of Lorenzo de Medici and The Life and 
 Pontificate of Leo X. But, besides these elaborate 
 works, his writings were multitudinous. He com- 
 posed and delivered lectures, sent from the press 
 letters on politics, published pamphlets on many 
 and various subjects, brought all the strength of his 
 vigorous pen to bear against the horrors of the 
 slave-trade, and was always ready to take the field 
 when good was to be accomplished or evil averted. 
 And his literary labours were not a mere multipli- 
 cation of commonplaces. The stamp of genius and 
 the impress of originality are upon them all. 
 
 Some writers have to speak of men more famous 
 than virtuous, while others take for their theme 
 those whose virtues surpass their fame. But, we 
 believe, it may be truly said in this instance that 
 his virtues did not lag behind his fame, nor his fame 
 give precedence to his virtues. The biographer has 
 not to hide the want of the latter behind the 
 dazzling brilliancy of the former ; nor, vice versd, is 
 he compelled to dwell perpetually upon the latter as 
 a compensation for the absence of the former. Both 
 were his, happily united in his rare and beautiful 
 character. 
 
 It might be almost thought that we were at- 
 tempting to delineate an "Admirable Crichton ;" 
 but we are not. We are stating facts, not approach- 
 ing mythology. We are exhibiting a likeness of 
 WILLIAM ROSCOE. 
 
 Hitherto we have spoken of what we may call the 
 Iliad of Mr. Roscoe's life. We now approach its 
 
tl'fi LIBRARY. 75 
 
 Odyssey, when the wave of commercial vicissitude 
 had submerged the bank in which he was a partner. 
 It was, doubtless, a severe blow, and he must have 
 been more or less than man not to have so felt it. 
 But, when fortune had stripped him of his wealth, 
 she had launched against him the only arrow with 
 which she could strike him, and the wound inflicted 
 thereby did not, we are assured, cause any very 
 deep or lasting pain to him. And she still left to 
 him the luxury of intellectual pleasures, the sweet 
 recreations of literature, the memory of a well-spent 
 life, the blessed reminiscences of one who had lived 
 more for others than for himself, the correspondence 
 and acquaintance of the scholar and the learned, and 
 the respect, and honour, and love, and society of 
 warm and attached friends. He had his tastes, his 
 pursuits, his accomplishments yet to rely upon. 
 They were now, as they had ever been, a labour of 
 love to him, and made his happiness. His employ- 
 ments were his enjoyments. Like the philosopher 
 of antiquity, he felt that he was never "less alone 
 than when alone." His study was his world. The 
 sunshine of his happiness was within not from 
 without. The storm, therefore, which had burst 
 upon him could not seriously hurt him. The lasso 
 of misfortune, if we may so speak, had failed to drag 
 him to the ground. He had passed through the 
 ordeal of both prosperous and adverse circumstances ; 
 and, as his elevation had not dazzled nor puffed hing 
 up, so neither did his depression cast him down. 
 His temper was not soured. His heart was not 
 
76 ROSCOE'S LIBRARY. 
 
 chilled. He rather dwelt gratefully on the past 
 than mourned gloomily over the present. The 
 autumn of his days was spent in tranquillity and 
 peace, and so he glided into a gentle winter, still to 
 the last hour of his life exercising, when health 
 would permit it, his powerful mind upon his 
 favourite pursuits, as one who held that it was 
 better to wear out than to rust out, to die in har- 
 ness than in idleness. 
 
 And now, young readers, we have set before you 
 the bow of Ulysses. Which of you can draw it ? 
 You can try, and, at all events, if you cannot equal, 
 you may strive to imitate this great example. You 
 have all need to do so. Consider the times. "The 
 schoolmaster" is busy. The leaven of instruction 
 is fermenting everywhere in the human brain. 
 Self-improvement is being largely cultivated in our 
 Mechanics' and Literary Institutes. Intelligence is 
 travelling by the express train. What is to become 
 of the owls and the bats ? What chance will there 
 presently be for ignorance when it has to play at 
 blindman's buff with the world all educated around 
 it? 
 
 But one word more of William Roscoe before we 
 lay down the pen which we took up, not to pro- 
 nounce an eulogy upon his memory, but, as we said 
 before, to preserve an example for the present and 
 coming generations. In truth, he wants no man's 
 praises. He has embalmed his name in his own 
 works, and, more fortunate than the Egyptian, has 
 erected for himself a pyramid, truly a great 
 
LIBRARY. 77 
 
 pyramid, in the page of history, in which his fame 
 will safely rest to the end of time itself. And we 
 may add, as we conclude, that our conviction is, 
 now that justice has been rendered to his memory, 
 that every day will elevate him more and more 
 highly in the roll of those who are "familiar in 
 men's mouths as household words," until, the last 
 trace of the mist of political prejudice scattered into 
 oblivion, future generations of his townsmen and 
 his countrymen will ratify the vow with which we 
 close this brief sketch of the most illustrious man 
 whom Liverpool has yet produced : 
 
 Dum juga mantis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit, 
 Dumque thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadas : 
 Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt. 
 
 PRINTED AT THE ALBION-OFFICE, CASTLE-STREET, LIVERPOOL. 
 
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