206 Memoir of William lioscoe, Esq. 



for twenty years tlie principal part of his time was occupied in 

 the management of that important establishment. 



While thus employed, the hours which he was now enabled 

 to devote to the history of Leo were abstracted from the period 

 usually dedicated to repose or recreation. Yet, with all these 

 demands on his application, the interest he always felt on great 

 political questions did not suffer him to view in silence the crisis 

 of 1802 ; but called forth his pamphlet entitled " Observations 

 on the relative situation of Great Britain and France ;" a tract 

 in which he has recorded his detestation of war, and his anxiety 

 to see the two foremost nations of Europe engaged in the less 

 guilty rivalry for pre-eminence in the arts of peace. 



In 1802 the Botanic Garden of Liverpool was established, 

 chiefly through the influence of Mr Roscoe, and, at its opening, 

 he delivered an address to the proprietors, which was printed. 

 In tliis establishment he always took the interest of a parent 

 in a favourite child. Under his auspices, and the consummate 

 skill of Mr John Shepherd, the Curator of the garden, it speedi- 

 ly became conspicuous among botanical establishments, and it still 

 ranks among the first in Europe. 



In 1805 he completed his history of" the Life and Pontificate 

 of Leo. JT." which appeared that year in four volumes 4to. 



This elaborate work had been the fruit of much research, of 

 intense previous study, and was always regarded by its author 

 as supei'ior to his Life of Lorenzo : yet it was not so favourably 

 received by the British public ; a circumstance with some truth 

 attributed to the violent attacks on it in several of our periodical 

 works. 



The hostiHty of some of the reviews was evidently produced 

 by political rancour toward Roscoe as an opponent of the minis- 

 terial measures of that eventful period ; in others it sprung 

 from anger at the manner in which he had treated the character 

 of Luther as the founder of a new church. 



It appears to me that Roscoe had sufficiently lauded the bold- 

 ness and constancy of the man to whom we owe the assertion of 

 private judgment in religious and civil matters; that he had given 

 thehistory of Luther with the impartiality of a searcher after truth, 

 admitting his faihngs and his errors, while he applauded his 

 courage and undoubted talents; that the early patrons of literature 



