S16 Memoir of William Roscoe, Esq. 



pendent mind. He had steadily refused the proffered gift of a 

 valuable selection from his library, even after it had been for 

 that purpose bought by his friends at the sale ; and those who 

 had the pleasure of being intimate with him, well knew how 

 necessary it would be to keep him in ignorance of what was in- 

 tended, until it was accomplished. During a second visit which 

 he made to Holkham, a private fund was quickly subscribed 

 among his friends, for the purchase of an annuity on the lives of 

 Mr and Mrs Roscoe. The delicate task of communicating what 

 ■was done devolved on me ; and in the correspondence which en- 

 sued between us, though his pride of independence was at first 

 alarmed, the example of his friend Charles James Fox, under 

 similar circumstances, was successfully urged, to reconcile his 

 mind to receive this spontaneous homage to his talents and his 

 worth, from sincerely attached friends. 



We have already noticed Mr Roscoe's early attachment to 

 botany, and his critical labours on the order ScitaminecB, to 

 which he had long paid much attention, stimulated by the con- 

 tinual additions this order was receiving from the East and 

 West Indies. The number of new species which the judicious 

 care of Mr Shepherd, the skilful curator of our Botanic Gar- 

 den, had successfully cultivated, together with the dried speci- 

 mens which Mr Roscoe received from various quarters, deter- 

 mined him to publish a work containing coloured figures of 

 new or interesting species, with botanical descriptions. This 

 gave rise to the most splendid botanical work that ever issued 

 from the provincial press of any country ; which occupied much 

 of his time during the latter years of his life, and was only com- 

 pleted shortly before his death. Of this superb work, he print- 

 ed too few copies ; and before the second number came out, 

 there was a necessity of reprinting additional copies of the first. 

 The work is highly prized by botanists ; and is particularly 

 valued on the Continent, where, from the small number of im- 

 pressions which Mr Roscoe could be induced to throw off, it is 

 extremely scarce. Many of the beautiful figures in his work 

 are from his own spirited sketches ; but the majority of them 

 are the productions of the pencil of his daughter-in-law Mrs 

 Edward Roscoe, or of Miss R. Miller of this place. 



