Manchester Mc/noirs, Vol. xliv. (1900), No. 14. 3 



touch of t^ood-humoured irony, Thilips charitable at 

 heart, but blunter spoken, and at times irascible. 



The intercourse between Manchester and Liverpool at 



the time of which we write seems to have been constant 



and stimulating, and as a young man Philips was a frequent 



visitor to Liverpool, and had his literary, artistic, and 



natural history tastes strengthened by the cultivated 



Liverpool circle, of which William Roscoe, the " elegant 



historian of the Medici," to quote Washington Irving's 



description of him, was the acknowledged head. The letters 



teem with references to Roscoe, and also, among others, 



to Dr. James Currie, the biographer of Burns ; Mr. Daniel 



Daulby (who married Roscoe's sister), the author of the 



" Descriptive Catalogue of the Works of Rembrandt and 



of his Scholars— Bol, Livens, and Van Vliet," published in 



Liverpool in 1796, and an amateur artist of repute ; and 



William Faulet Carey, who brought Chantrey, the sculptor, 



and James Montgomery, the poet, to public notice. It 



was in Liverpool that Leigh Philips found his wife, 



Caroline Penny ; and it was to Liverpool that his sons 



and widow retired after his death. Of the pleasant social 



relations existing between the two towns the following 



letters give us some idea ; they also show us the healthiness 



of the general spirit at that time, of which the natural 



result was the golden age of English science and 



philosophy. 



The present selections may be suitably introduced by 

 the following tracing, which was sent to my predecessor by 

 the late venerable Mr. James Radford, of Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, and formerly of Manchester. 



It is taken from the title page of a duodecimo copy of 

 Pope's translation of the Iliad. The first signature with 

 the date is that of Philips when he was about 17 years of 

 age ; the others agree with specimens of his handwriting 



