i CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7 



be deprived of all the advantages derived from scientific 

 discovery, and stated that many of those occupations 

 which, within our recollection, were carried on empiri- 

 cally, without knowledge of cause and effect, are now 

 practised on scientific principles. These have in 

 their turn become the best schools of information and 

 experiment for those now engaged in carrying the 

 improvements of the present day to a still greater 

 extent. He added that education was not only the 

 proper employment of our early years but of our 

 whole lives. Thus, in 1817, William Roscoe struck 

 the chord which has been vibrating ever since, but 

 which has only in these latter days given out its 

 true tone and evoked a response which all may 

 now hear. 



I have never been able to ascertain the original 

 birthplace of the Roscoes. The name, although a very 

 uncommon one in the South of England, is not in- 

 frequently met with in Lancashire. Thus our family 

 is one of the many who cannot trace back their origin 

 for more than three or four generations. On this 

 subject my grandfather writes : " Amongst my new 

 acquaintances is Sir Isaac Heard, Garter Principal 

 King-at-Arms, who has been extremely civil to me and 

 is desirous of tracing the pedigree of the noble family 

 of the Roscoes, which has hitherto, I find, baffled all 

 his researches. I told him I was a good patriarch and 

 the proper person to begin a family, as I had six sons, 

 &c. Accordingly the whole descent is registered, and 

 the Roscoes and Daulbys may now go on in scecula 

 sceculorum, Amen." * My father made the seventh. 



The following extract from The Creevey Papers 

 (John Murray, 1903), respecting my grandfather, 



1 See Life of William Roscoe^ by his son, Henry Roscoe (T. Cadell, 

 Strand, 1833), Vol. I, p. 3. 



