Memoir of William Jioscoe, Esq. 211 



some were injured by damp and time. The whole were some 

 time afterwards consigned to Mr Roscoe's care, who put them into 

 the hands of our eminent binder the late Mr John Jones, who, 

 by great industry and skill, succeeded in restoring crumpled vel- 

 lum to its original smoothness, in pasting torn leaves with won- 

 derful neatness, tmd who bound the whole collection in a du- 

 rable and elegant manner. An ancient and admirable Hebrew 

 manuscript of the Pentateuch *, written in a beautiful hand, on 

 deer-skins, forming a roll thirty-eight feet in length, was mount- 

 ed, by the same ingenious artist, on rollers ornamented with sil- 

 ver bells, under the direction of a learned Rabbi, who believed 

 the manuscript to be an eastern transcript of great antiquity. 



Toward the close of 1815, by one of our too frequent com- 

 mercial convulsions, and by the extent of their accommodations 

 to persons engaged in business, the affairs of the bank in which 

 Mr Roscoe was a partner became involved, and the house found 

 it necessary to suspend payments. For four years Mr Roscoe 

 devoted himself to the arrangement of their affairs ; entertaining 

 throughout the most sanguine hopes of being able finally to 

 discharge all their engagements, as the joint property of the 

 partners was valued, at the time of the suspension of payments, 

 at considerably more than the amount of their debts. The de- 

 preciation, however, of that property, combined with other cir- 

 cumstances over which Mr Roscoe had no control, prevented 

 the accomplishment of his most earnest wishes, and in 1820 he 

 became a bankrupt. Previous to this (in the year 1816), his 

 noble library, his fine collection of prints and drawings, and his 

 curious collection of paintings, were dispersed, and the proceeds 

 of the sale were applied to the payment of the debts of the 

 house. It will convey some idea of the collection to state, that 

 the books, consisting of about 2000 works, sold for no less a 

 sum than L. 5150 ; the prints for L. 1886 ; the drawings for 

 L.750; and the pictures for L. 3239 ; making a total of 

 L. 11,025. 



The beautiful sonnet written by Mr Roscoe on parting with 

 his library, was given to a friend, and handed about in manu- 

 script ; but the Reverend William Beloe has since inserted it, 



• Believed to be more than 1000 years old. 

 o 2 



