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yet never stopping at their point , or ceasing to pursue a just principle to its legitimate consequences ,, through fear or favour . Against the delusions of a temperament somewhat sanguine , he was not perhaps wholly proof . The principles and the feeling of Hope and Faith were strong within him , and he did probably too often c think the world without like that within / His imagination also sometimes brought before him shadows ,, on which he vainly
expended a portion of his strength ; but every failing was frankly exhibited—no sophistry darkens the pages of Roscoe . As a writer on elegant literature , we are disposed to regard him rather as a most useful auxiliary , and as a striking example of perseverance , and of the happiness which accrues to individuals
from the cultivation of pure tastes , than as the producer of any thing intrinsically splendid . His style is neither brilliant nor very much calculated , by its strength and nervousness , to leave a powerful impression on the mind . In a few of his shorter poems , particularly in his Songs on the French Revolution , he rises to a degree of animation which was not common in his printed compositions , his translations from the Italian are also highly poetical and spirited , and his private letters are delightful : but , generally
speaking , Mr . Roscoe is content to be sensible and correct ; and though all he writes bespeaks an intimate acquaintance with elegant literature , the flow of his language is placid and even . That he always took the side of what he considered true liberty , in all he wrote and said , no one can question . We are not so certain however , that in his contest with M . Sismondi , respecting the
Medicis , he was on the right side—the probability is , from the too uniform strain of panegyric which pervades the memoirs of Lorenzo , that Mr . Koscoe ' s imagination was in a degree dazzled by the congenial splendours of his hero . He saw in him a man truly extraordinary in his time , endowed with the most noble and
useful tastes , and exercising his political power in a manner highly calculated to improve the human race ; but still we are afraid M . Sismondi is right ; ' * the means by which Lorenzo acquired and endeavoured to perpetuate power savour strongly of craft and statesmanlike absence of sound principle .
Some have thought Mr . Roscoe disposed to severity towards Luther and his brother reformers , and undoubtedly he may be charged with occasional forgetfulness of their sources of irritation ; but , as he well says , in his own defence , — 4 adverting to the persecutions of which Protestants Lave been
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guilty , iny only object has been to excite that abhorrence of persecution , under every shape and pretext , which is the surest safeguard against its return . If it should appear , as has been imputed to me , that I have animadverted witli more severity on the Protestants than on the Papists , it is because better things were to have been expected from them : because they who asserted the right of private judgment ia themselves , ought not to have denied it to others : because they who
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On the Life and Character of the late Mr . Roscoe * 673
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 673, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/13/
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