NATURE 



289 



THURSDAY, JULY 26, 1Q06. 



s]U IIKSRV ROSCOES liEMINlSCENCES. 



The l.ijc and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield 

 Roscoe, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. Writlcii by llim- 

 sflf. Pp. xii + 420. (London: M.K-niillan rind Co., 

 Ltd., 1906.) Price 12s. ml. 



SIR HENRY ROSCOE, who is linown to us all 

 as one of the most genial fijjures among the band 

 of great discoverers who gave a peculiar distinction 

 to the reign of Queen Victoria, has been persuaded 

 bv his friends to give to the world a charming book 

 of memories, which were written originally, as he 

 tells us, for the use of his family. Now .Sir Henry 

 Roscoe is, it appears, a " Sport " among the 

 Roscoes in his taste for science, and the result is 

 lliat we get from him, on this occasion, not a mere 

 history of chemistry, nor even a mere record of scien- 

 lilic affairs in his own times, but something which 

 will appeal, and appeal strongly, to a far wider 

 • uidiencc than that provided by his scientific friends 

 .uid admirers, numerous, indeed, though these 

 mu>t be. 



We suppose inany of our readers are aware that 

 whether .Sir Henry Roscoe is or is not a " Sport," 

 as 111- puts it, in his taste for science, he comes of a 

 f.'imilv which for a century and a half has been dis- 

 tinguished for the literary [xiwer and for the 

 c'ljiacitv for affairs exhibited by many of its members, 

 and that in spite of his joke upon the subject, even 

 -..cientific power has not been altogether unknown 

 among them, his grandfather, Williain Roscoe the 

 historian, being still so well remembered among 

 botanists that Sir Henry had the odd experience, only 

 .1 few years ago, when on a visit to Egypt, of being 

 mistaken for the former, by a professor, who thought 

 he recognised in the great chemist the author of a 

 monograph on the Monandrean plants published so 

 long ago as the year 1826. 



The William Roscoe alluded to above, Sir Henry's 

 g^randfather and the founder of the reputation of the 

 f.imily, is, however, far more widely remembered as 

 a historian than as a botanist. In the former capacity 

 h' achieved a European reputation by laying the 

 foundations of a new era in the history of the 

 Renaissance, and will long be remembered for his 

 " Lives of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X." He was 

 the first man of real mark in literature produced by 

 the city of Liverpool, and his unique position in 

 that city led Washington Irving to describe him 

 in the " Sketch-book " as the literary land- 

 mark of the place, where, " like Pompey's 

 ColuiTin at Alexandria," he towered " alone in 

 classic dignity." Sir Henry Roscoe 's father w-as also 

 a man of great powers ; he became Judge of the Court 

 of Passage at Liverpool, but died young, leaving his 

 'son at the age of -three to the sole care of his mother. 

 This lady, like her son's father and grandfather, 

 evidently possessed not a little literary ability, as is 

 shown by hfr " Life of Vittoria Colonna," which was 

 published in 1S68 by Messrs. Macmillan and Co., and 

 NO. 191 7, VOL. 74] 



with it a capacity for affairs which enabled her to 

 preside over the early education of her son with 

 singular judgment and success. 



Most of those who h.ive read Lord Roberts's 

 " Forty-one Years in India," must have been struck, 

 as they perused its pages, by his singular good fortune 

 in meeting interesting people and making delightful 

 friends at every turn — a feature of his life which was 

 due, no doubt, to his possessing the happy gift of 

 a quick eye for what is best and brightest in those 

 with whom he is thrown in contact. As one reads 

 Sir Henrv Roscoe's experiences, one cannot but 

 conclude that he too was born under a 

 happy star; for not only does he appear to have 

 met " good fellows " at every stage of his life, 

 a fact which we may venture to ascribe to his own 

 genial temperament, but some good fairy seems to 

 have presided over his affairs, with the express 

 object of making him a chemis.t, and to have 

 taken care that at every stage he should be 

 flung against real chemists, makers of dis- 

 coveries, and enthusiastic teachers, just the men, 

 in short, who were best calculated to keep alive in 

 him that capacity for asking " foolish " questions, 

 which often worried his maternal grandfather, and to 

 excite in him the secret desire — which we suspect 

 every discoverer of Sir Henry's rank has hugged to 

 his heart at an early age — to make, some day, just one- 

 discover)-, at least, in his favourite science. But, how- 

 ever that may be, it is clear that from Balmain, the 

 discoverer of boron nitride, Roscoe " picked up his 

 love of chemistry " in the laboratory of the High School 

 of the Liverpool Institute, and that his scientific tastes 

 could not have been fostered by better guides than 

 Thomas Graham and W. C. \\'iIliamson, whom he 

 found at University College a few years later, and 

 Bunsen, his life-long friend, with whom he worked and 

 did great things at Heidelberg, when he betook him- 

 self in due course to that beautiful home of science to 

 be soaked in research in the splendid German manner. 

 .\t Heidelberg Sir Henry Roscoe's progress was 

 rapid; after si.x months' work he passed the examina- 

 tion for the doctorate " summa cum laude," this bring 

 the first time this highest degree was granted to an 

 Englishman, and it was here, partly in 1855 and 

 partly in later years during vacations, that he carried 

 out his well-known work on the chemical action of 

 light. In 1857 he became professor of chemistry at 

 the Owens College, and thereafter, as everyone knows, 

 he played a leading part, for well-nigh half a centurv, 

 in English science, and in not a few departments of 

 public life connected therewith, helping on pure 

 science by his researches and by his books, promoting 

 the usefulness of chemistry in education by his " Little 

 Roscoe," as it used to be called, which has been the 

 guide, philosopher and friend of thousands upon 

 thousands of English students, and advancing gener- 

 ally national efficiency in a dozen different directions 

 b)' his public labours both in and out of Parliament. 



But considerations of space forbid us from pursuing 

 the attractive theme provided by .Sir Henry Roscoe's 

 manifold activities, and compel us to return to the 

 subject of his latest book. Briefly, we may say that 



O 



