8 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



gives a lively picture of Creevey's feelings towards 

 Mr. Roscoe. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord (his step-daughter) : 1 



DENBIES, 



July 15/^,1833. 



I am in the second volume of poor Roscoe's Lorenzo de y 

 Medici. I read his Leo three or four years ago with great 

 pleasure, and the present book with increased delight. I can 

 scarcely conceive a greater miracle than Roscoe's history 

 that a man whose dialect was that of a barbarian, and 

 from whom in years of familiar intercourse I never heard 

 above an average observation, whose parents were servants (I 

 well remember them keeping a public-house), whose profession 

 was that of an attorney, who had never been out of England 

 and scarcely out of Liverpool that such a man should under- 

 take to write the history of the I4th and I5th centuries, the 

 revival of Italian [illegible] that such a history should be to 

 the full as polished in style as that of Gibbon, and much more 

 simple and perspicuous that the facts of this history should 

 all be substantiated by references to authorities in other 

 languages, with frequent and beautiful translations from 

 them by himself is really too \ Then the subject is to my 

 mind the most captivating possible ; one's only regret is that 

 poor Roscoe, after writing this beautiful history of his brother 

 bankers the Medici, should not have imitated their prudence, 

 and by such means have escaped appearing in that profane 

 literary work, the Gazette \ Oh dear ! what a winding-up for 

 his fame at last ! 



Roscoe's life was a singularly fruitful and interesting 

 one, and he lived long enough to see the justice 

 of almost all the leading principles he had advo- 

 cated acknowledged. Thus he was permitted to 

 partake of the triumph which the friends of liberty 

 obtained in the abolition of the slave-trade. He saw 

 the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and of 

 the laws of Roman Catholic disability. His views 

 respecting penal jurisdiction were becoming generally 

 acknowledged ; and, lastly, he survived to witness all 



1 The Creevey Papers^ Vol. II. p. 256. 



