ROSCOE 



ROSE 



805 



tively the orator by his diction, or the comedian 

 by his gesticulation. So sensible was Koscius of 

 the distinction he enjoyed in sharing the intimacy, 

 and even the friendly emulation of the great orator, 

 that he came to look upon his art as one of no 

 small importance and dignity, and wrote a treatise 

 on the comparative methods and merits of eloquence 

 and acting. Cicero's friendship was of use to him 

 in another way, for on his being sued at law by 

 C. Fannius Chjerea for the sum of 50,000 sesterces, 

 Cicero defended him before the judex Piso (prob- 

 ably 68 B.C.) in his extant oration, Pro Q. Roscio 

 Comasdo. He died 62 B.C., having attained such 

 perfection in his peculiar art that to be a ' Koscius ' 

 became synonymous with pre-eminence in every 

 profession, and leaving, like his famous contem- 

 porary, ^Esopus the tragedian, an immense fortune, 

 realised upon the stage. See Ribbeck, Die Romische 

 Tragodie (Leip. 1875). For the 'Young Roscius,' 

 see BETTY. 



Roscoe, WILLIAM, historian, was born at 

 Liverpool on 8th March 1753, his father being a 

 market-gardener. In 1769 he was articled to an 

 attorney at Liverpool, and began to practise there 

 on his own account in 1774. During this period 

 he assiduously cultivated his mental powers, turn- 

 ing his attention especially to the Italian language 

 and literature. In 1773 he first appeared in print 

 as the author of a poem, Mount Pleasant, now 

 forgotten ; and in 1787-88 published Wrongs of 

 Africa, a courageous protest against the slave- 

 trade. But it was his Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, 

 called the Magnificent ( 1796), which established his 

 literary reputation ; it went through several edi- 

 tions, and was translated into German, French, 

 and Italian. In 1805 appeared his second im- 

 portant book, Life and Pontificate of Leo X. 

 This, like the former, appeared in German, French, 

 and Italian, and was received with much commen- 

 dation, though its tone and spirit, especially witli 

 reference to the Reformation, were severely criti- 

 cised. About the year 1800 he became partner in 

 a Liverpool bank, a step which involved him even- 

 tually in great pecuniary embarrassment. From 

 his pen came, besides the above-mentioned books, 

 a collection of Poems (1857), of which by far the 

 best known was the Butterfly's Ball ; also a Memoir 

 of R. R. Jones (1822 ). He issued an edition of Pope 

 in 1825. Roscoe died at Liverpool, June 30, 1831. 

 During the later years of his life he gave much 

 attention to the study of botany, and wrote a 

 monograph on Monandrian plants. See Life by 

 his son Henry Roscoe ( 1833), and Espinasse's Lan- 

 cashire Worthies (2d series, 1877). 



SIR HENRY ENFIELD ROSCOE, chemist, born in 

 London 7th January 1833, was a grandson of the 

 above, and the son of Henry Roscoe, barrister. 

 He was educated at the Liverpool High School, 

 and later at University College, London, and at the 

 university of Heidelberg. He was appointed pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry in Owens College, Manchester, 

 in 1858, and rendered valuable services towards the 

 organisation of this institution. He was returned 

 member of parliament for the south division of 

 Manchester in 1885, was- re-elected in 1886, and in 

 the latter year he resigned his professorship. He 

 has served'on the Royal Commissions on Noxious 

 Vapours and on Technical Education, and is a 

 member of the Scottish Universities Commission. 

 He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 in 1863. He was president of the Chemical Society 

 in 1880, of the Society of Chemical Industry in 

 1881, and of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science at the Manchester meet- 

 ing in 1887. Of his original contributions to chem- 

 ical science the most important are researches on 

 the measurement of the chemical activity of light, 

 and on vanadium and its compounds. His pub- 



lished works include Spectrum Analysis, a course 

 of lectures (1868) on the subject; his well-known 

 Lessons in Elementary Chemistry (1870); and his 

 Treatise on Chemistry (written in conjunction with 

 Schorlemmer), in 3 vols. (1878-89; new ed. 1894 

 et seq.). He lost his seat in parliament in 1895. 



Roscoff, a seaport on the north coast of the 

 French department of Finistere (long the head- 

 quarters of smuggling into England), 33 miles NE. 

 of Brest. The men are all sailors ; the women grow 

 vegetables. The place is resorted to for sea- 

 bathing, and here is a marine zoological station. 

 The garden of the Capuchin monastery contains 

 a fig-tree whose branches, trained ever scaffolding, 

 could give shelter to 200 people. Pop. 1751. Here 

 Mary Queen of Scots landed in 1548, and the 

 Young Pretender after his escape from Scotland. 



Roscominon, an inland county of Connaught, 

 Ireland, is bounded on the E. by the Shannon, and 

 on the W., in part, by the Suck ; it is 62 miles 

 long from north to south, by 35 miles from east to 

 west. Area, 607,691 acres, of which barely one- 

 fifth is under crops (hay, potatoes, oats); more 

 than one-half is permanent grass ; one-sixth is 

 waste. It belongs to the central plain of Ireland, 

 but rises in the north into the Curlew (800 feet) 

 and Braulieve (1377 feet) Mountains. Several 

 lakes occur, as Allen, Boderg, and Ree, expansions 

 of the Shannon, and Key, Gara, and Glinn in the 

 north-west. The soil in the central districts is in 

 general light, but fertile, and affords some of the^ 

 finest sheep-pasture in Ireland in the ' Plain of 

 Boyle.' The chief industry is the feeding of 

 sheep and cattle, especially the former. Coal ami 

 iron exist, but are not worked ; there are no 

 manufactures. The cTiief towns are Roscommon, 

 Boyle, Castlerea, Elphin, and Strokestown. Pop. 

 (1841) 254,55!; (1861) 157,272; (1881) 132,490; 

 (1891) 114,194, of whom 110,147 were Roman 

 Catholics. Roscommon sends two members to 

 parliament, one for each of the divisions. IS 

 possesses a number of Celtic antiquities, ratha, 

 &c., several remains of strong castles, and gomd 

 fine ecclesiastical ruins. 



ROSCOMMON, the county town, 96 miles W. by 

 N. of Dublin, dates from the 13th century, when it 

 arose around a Dominican abbey, founded by the 

 O'Conor in 1257, and a castle built ten years later 

 by Sir Robert de Ufford ; the remains of both still 

 exist. Roscommon, pop. 2117, has an important 

 cattle-market. 



Roscrea* a market-town of Tipperary, Ireland, 

 77 miles S\V. of Dublin, is a very ancient town ; 

 here St Cronan built a church, and "had a celebrated 

 school in the 7th century. Considerable remains 

 of a castle, a lofty round tower 80 feet high), and 

 ruins of two abbeys exist. Pop. 2801. 



Rose. The rose, the most lovely and fragrant 

 of flowers, the favourite of poets and the national 

 emblem of England, is a shrub or sometimes a tree, 

 very widely distributed, and giving name to the 

 large and comprehensive order Rosacese, to which 

 some of our choicest fruits belong. Restricting 

 ourselves to the genus Rosa, which alone we 

 acknowledge as the rose, we find the characteris- 

 tics thus : shrubby growth, stems generally prickly, 

 leaves alternate, stipulate, flowers terminal, 

 often corymbose, spreading with five petals, in 

 colour white, yellow, pink, or red, stamens numer- 

 ous, styles exserted, seeds (achenes) numerous, 

 enclosed in a fleshy berry, globular or ovate, which 

 is known as the hip or hep, and is in some sort 

 edible. The calyx is generally five-lobed, and the 

 lobes are more or less pinnatised, and sometimes 

 (as in the moss rose) furnished with a beautiful 

 process of filament. 



(1) The wild rose is a native of the northern 



