William Roscoe

“ In addition to the writings already named, Roscoe wrote tracts on penal jurisprudence, and contributed to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Linnean Society. The first collected edition of his Poetical Works was published in 1857, and is sadly incomplete, omitting, with other verses known to be from his pen, the Butterfly's Ball, a fantasy, which has charmed thousands of children since it appeared in 1807. Other verses are in Poems for Youth, by a Family Circle (1820) . ”

“ Roscoe, Sir Henry, chemist, born in London, grandson of succeeding, professor at Owens College, Manchester; author of treatises on chemistry; b. 1834.
Roscoe, William, historian, born in Liverpool; distinguished as the author of the “Life of Lorenzo de' Medici” and of “Leo X.,” as well as of “Handbooks of the Italian Renaissance” and a collection of poems (1753-1831) .
Roscommon (114) , an inland county of Connaught, SW. Ireland; is poorly developed; one-half is in grass, and a sixth mere waste land ”

“ Even those rushing seraphim, whose majestic pinions seem to beat melody from air in their rhythmic flight, suggest a certain grand repose begotten of motion itself,—a repose akin to that produced by the sight of the sea, whose myriad little waves dance and glisten, or of Niagara, whose falling flood seems stationary. ”

“ The original conception looms up beautiful and grand from amid the wreck of time and neglect, like a mutilated, earth-stained Greek statue, and your imagination exerts itself to see the work as it must have appeared when the colors were fresh. ”

“ He spoke like a man who had felt as much as he had reflected, more than he had spoken; like one who had looked upon society rather in the mass than in detail, and who regarded the happiness of America but as the first link in a series of universal victories ”

“ Think not to preserve them by locking them in an iron safe; write them not on stone, which crumbles, but on the human soul, and they shall be indestructible. Have we not daily proof that against remorse, love, hate, ambition, all the powers of the material world—fire or frost, hunger, disease, persecution—dash as harmless as vapor against adamant? ”

“ Nobody need forego the inestimable delights of biography from fear of being the dupe of some devious biographer. It requires no long practice to train yourself to sift the genuine from the false a branch of intellectual detective work which possesses the zest of mystery, abounds in surprises, and can be carried on at your own fireside. ”

“ Washington itself was becoming one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with its broad avenues, seldom thronged, its circles and squares, whose frequenters seemed never busy, its spirit of leisure, its suggestion of opulence and amplitude, and of a not too zealous or disturbing hold on reality. ”

“ They arouse in some beholders a mood akin to that which a joyous theme in one of Beethoven’s symphonies can arouse,—a mood sweeter than hope itself, or the brightest afterglow of memory; for, while it lasts, the present, flooded with peace and beauty and a nameless ecstacy, satisfies the soul. ”

“ They comfort us in our distress, they clarify our doubts, they give fresh impetus and straight aim to our hopes, they whisper to us the mystic word which unfolds the meaning of life; above all—they teach us by example how to live. ”

“ Biography, as by a short cut, admits us to the fellowship of the choice spirits of the past four thousand years, among whom we shall find entertainment in endless variety. And not entertainment only; for entertainment is not the end of life, but its sweetener and strengthener. ”

“ I have not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk, and tread the paths of private life, with heartful satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all ”

“ Paris, France, seemed to exist merely to be the monument of one man. And wherever the young Frenchman traveled—in Spain, in Italy, along the Rhine or the Danube, to Vienna, or Cairo, or Moscow—he saw the footprints of French valor and French audacity, reminders that Napoleon had made France the mistress of Europe. No Frenchman, were he Bourbon or Republican, but felt proud to think that his countrymen had humbled Prussia and Austria. ”

“ Could the loudest protestations explain the existence of great, gaunt, brutalized masses, beyond the pale of human charity; every horse sleek, well lodged, and well fed, but innumerable men dying of hunger or lodged in the almshouse? ”

“ Yet there are many of Tintoret’s pictures, each of them as precious in its way as a page of Hamlet, which we raise no voice to save. In our selfishness, we forget that the treasures which we have inherited from the past are not ours to dissipate and destroy; we hold them in trust for the future, and woe unto us if, unmindful of our responsibility, we prove careless stewards. ”

“ He lived in exile at Turin, a forlorn old man, forlorn but inflexible, amid the memories of exploits which once had amazed the world. There he died on March 20, 1894, having survived all his contemporaries, friends and foes alike, who had beheld the rise and splendor and eclipse of his astonishing career. To be the mouthpiece of a haughty and valiant people at one of the heroic crises of their history was his mission. His genius, his defects, mirror the genius and defects of his countrymen; his glory, being a part of the glory of a whole race, is secure. ”

“ To develop our talents for good, to build up character, to fit ourselves, like the cutwater of a ship, to cleave whatever seas of experience Fate may steer us into, to set ourselves a high, far goal and always consciously, through storm or shine, to seek that goal that is the real concern of life. On this quest biography shows the way by example. ”

“ Well may we exclaim, "Oh, for the courage of Roosevelt!" And whenever the country shall be in great anxiety or in direct peril from the cowardice of those who have sworn to defend its welfare and its integrity, that cry shall rise to the lips of true Americans. ”

“ No matter what the cares and torments of your day, at evening you can enter their magic city, forget your present, and follow in imagination those careers which closed in time so long ago, but live on with undimmed luster in the timeless domain of the imagination. ”

“ With the hauling down of the red-white-and-green flag from the citadel of Comorn vanished the last symbol of that revolution which, bursting forth at Palermo in January, 1848, had spread through Europe, shaking the thrones of monarchs, and kindling in down-trodden people the belief that a new epoch, a Golden Age of Liberty, had come. Hopes as splendid as men ever cherished had now been shattered, and in their stead only the bitterest memories remained ”

“ Only through the Family can come the deepest joys of life and can the most intimate duties be transmuted into joys. As son, as husband, as father, as brother, he fulfilled the ideals of each of those relations, and, so strong was his family affection, that, while still a comparatively young man, he drew to him as a patriarch might, not only his own children, but his kindred in many degrees. ”

“ With Boon, hunting and exploration were passions, and the lonely life of the wilderness, with its bold, wild freedom, the only existence for which he really cared. He was a tall, spare, sinewy man, with eyes like an eagle's, and muscles that never tired ”

“ Since Labor is, or should be, common to all men, Roosevelt believed that every laborer, whether farmer or mechanic, employer or employee, merchant or financier, should stand erect and look every other man straight in the eyes, and neither look up nor down, but with level gaze, fearless, uncringing, uncondescending. ”

“ Not less appropriate was it that the genius of Tintoret and of Venetian art should culminate in the representation of Paradise. Of all commonwealths, Venice had enjoyed the longest prosperity; of all peoples, hers had been the most sensitive to the joy of life. Even at the end of the sixteenth century, when her power abroad had been curtailed, and when luxury at home was slowly enervating the integrity of her citizens, she was still outwardly imposing, magnificent. No pope had ever succeeded, either by guile or by force, in ravishing her independence. ”

“ The embodiment and essence of Love, which is the author of all good, they are enthroned amid the serenity of the highest heaven. Round them wheels the inner circle of the archangels and the angels, the symbols of divine Power. Then, in ever-widening circles, the saints and apostles and prophets, and the elect of every clime and condition, all children of Faith and exemplars of Charity, float and revolve in bliss forevermore. ”

“ Majority rule substitutes mere numbers, bulk, and quantity for quality. Putting a saddle on Intelligence, it bids Ignorance mount and ride whither it will,—even to the devil. It is the dupe of its own folly; for the politicians whom it chooses turn out to be, not the representatives of the people, but the attorneys of some mill or mine or railway. ”

“ BIOGRAPHY is the key to the best society the world has ever had. By the best society I do not mean those exclusive circles, based on wealth, privilege, or heredity, which have flourished at all times and in every place. I mean the men and women who, by the richness of their talents or the significance of their careers, or, it may be, by some special deed, have emerged from the throng. One of the strongest instincts planted in us is our aversion to bores. ”

“ To make every citizen a soldier, and to make every soldier a most effective fighting machine by the scientific application of diet, drill, discipline, and leadership, was Prussia’s achievement, whereby she prepared for Bismarck an irresistible weapon. In this application of science to control with greater exactness than ever before the movements of large masses of men in war, and to regulate their actions in peace, consists Prussia’s contribution to government; in knowing how to use the engine thus constructed lies Bismarck’s fame. ”

“ There he spent most of his time,—a grave man ordinarily, as must ever be the case with genius which ranges the utmost abysses and sublimities; at heart a solitary man, so far as the absence of flesh-and-blood companions constitutes solitude, but forever attended by the great associates of his imagination. ”

“ During the days of suspense before the Chicago Convention met, the proposed nomination of Blaine weighed upon me like a nightmare. I would not admit to myself that so great a crime against American ideals could be committed by delegates who represented the standard of any political party, and were drawn from all over the country. I cherished, what seems to me now the sadly foolish dream, that with Roosevelt in the convention the abomination could not be done. ”

“ Strip off Garibaldi’s eccentricities, look into his heart, contemplate his achievements,—we behold a hero of the Homeric brood. Again we enter the presence of a man of a few elemental traits, whose habit it was to exhibit his passions without that reserve which belongs to our sophisticated age. ”

“ Then again a political combat with tongues and arguments seldom conveys the impression that through it irrevocable Fate gives its decision to the same extent that a contest by swords and volleys does. ”

“ Slavs, sending forth four different shoots, Slovaks in the North, Croats in the Southwest, Serbs in the South, and Wallachs in the East; imagine this motley population holding various creeds,—Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Unitarian: imagine not merely each race, but each people, cherishing its own language, its own customs, its own ambitions, which inevitably clashed with those of its neighbors: and having imagined all this, you have not yet come to the end of Hungary’s complex organism. ”

“ Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice? ”

“ Although the King had packed Parliament, not all the oratory poured out at Westminster favored the King. On the contrary, the three chief masters of British eloquence at that time, and in all time—Edmund Burke, William Pitt, and Charles James Fox—spoke on the side of the Colonists. Reading the magnificent arguments of Burke to-day, we ask ourselves how any group in Parliament could have withstood them. But there comes a moment in every vital discussion when arguments and logic fail to convince. Passions deeper than logic controlled motives and actions. ”

“ Those who had courage and clear vision, who loved justice, who were patient and humble and unflagging, and who believed with an ineluctable conviction that righteousness exalteth a nation; they were the simple fishermen who in the little church at Torcello predicted the splendor and power of Venice; they were the stern pioneers of Plymouth and Boston who laid the foundations of an empire greater than that of Rome. ”

“ For they knew that they were living in a time of flux, when old standards were melting away like snow images in the sun, when new ideals, untried and based on the negation of some of the oldest principles in our civilization, were being pushed forward. They instinctively rallied to uphold Law, the slow product of centuries of growth, the sheet anchor of Society in a time of change. ”

“ The letter is unexpected and yet it bears every mark of sincerity and reveals a genuine vein in his nature. We must always think of Nelly as one of the refreshments of his older life and as one of its great delights. He considered himself an old man now. ”