Roscoe - Prose Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEF G H A F I J K L M N F L O P A Q R QBBQ QBBQ GSTGST| In the service of mankind to be | A |
| A guardian god below still to employ | B |
| The mind's brave ardor in heroic aims | C |
| Such as may raise us o'er the grovelling herd | D |
| And make us shine for ever that is life | E |
| THOMSON | F |
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| One of the first places to which a stranger is taken in Liverpool is the Athen um It is established on a liberal and judicious plan it contains a good library and spacious reading room and is the great literary resort of the place Go there at what hour you may you are sure to find it filled with grave looking personages deeply absorbed in the study of newspapers | G |
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| As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned my attention was attracted to a person just entering the room He was advanced in life tall and of a form that might once have been commanding but it was a little bowed by time perhaps by care He had a noble Roman style of countenance a head that would have pleased a painter and though some slight furrows on his brow showed that wasting thought had been busy there yet his eye beamed with the fire of a poetic soul There was something in his whole appearance that indicated a being of a different order from the bustling race round him | H |
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| I inquired his name and was informed that it was ROSCOE I drew back with an involuntary feeling of veneration This then was an author of celebrity this was one of those men whose voices have gone forth to the ends of the earth with whose minds I have communed even in the solitudes of America Accustomed as we are in our country to know European writers only by their works we cannot conceive of them as of other men engrossed by trivial or sordid pursuits and jostling with the crowd of common minds in the dusty paths of life They pass before our imaginations like superior beings radiant with the emanations of their genius and surrounded by a halo of literary glory | A |
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| To find therefore the elegant historian of the Medici mingling among the busy sons of traffic at first shocked my poetical ideas but it is from the very circumstances and situation in which he has been placed that Mr Roscoe derives his highest claims to admiration It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art with which it would rear legitimate dulness to maturity and to glory in the vigor and luxuriance of her chance productions She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds and though some may perish among the stony places of the world and some be choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity yet others will now and then strike root even in the clefts of the rock struggle bravely up into sunshine and spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties of vegetation | F |
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| Such has been the case with Mr Roscoe Born in a place apparently ungenial to the growth of literary talent in the very market place of trade without fortune family connections or patronage self prompted self sustained and almost self taught he has conquered every obstacle achieved his way to eminence and having become one of the ornaments of the nation has turned the whole force of his talents and influence to advance and embellish his native town | I |
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| Indeed it is this last trait in his character which has given him the greatest interest in my eyes and induced me particularly to point him out to my countrymen Eminent as are his literary merits he is but one among the many distinguished authors of this intellectual nation They however in general live but for their own fame or their own pleasures Their private history presents no lesson to the world or perhaps a humiliating one of human frailty or inconsistency At best they are prone to steal away from the bustle and commonplace of busy existence to indulge in the selfishness of lettered ease and to revel in scenes of mental but exclusive enjoyment | J |
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| Mr Roscoe on the contrary has claimed none of the accorded privileges of talent He has shut himself up in no garden of thought nor elysium of fancy but has gone forth into the highways and thoroughfares of life he has planted bowers by the wayside for the refreshment of the pilgrim and the sojourner and has opened pure fountains where the laboring man may turn aside from the dust and heat of the day and drink of the living streams of knowledge There is a daily beauty in his life on which mankind may meditate and grow better It exhibits no lofty and almost useless because inimitable example of excellence but presents a picture of active yet simple and imitable virtues which are within every man's reach but which unfortunately are not exercised by many or this world would be a paradise | K |
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| But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of the citizens of our young and busy country where literature and the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser plants of daily necessity and must depend for their culture not on the exclusive devotion of time and wealth nor the quickening rays of titled patronage but on hours and seasons snatched from the purest of worldly interests by intelligent and public spirited individuals | L |
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| He has shown how much may be done for a place in hours of leisure by one master spirit and how completely it can give its own impress to surrounding objects Like his own Lorenzo De Medici on whom he seems to have fixed his eye as on a pure model of antiquity he has interwoven the history of his life with the history of his native town and has made the foundations of his fame the monuments of his virtues Wherever you go in Liverpool you perceive traces of his footsteps in all that is elegant and liberal He found the tide of wealth flowing merely in the channels of traffic he has diverted from it invigorating rills to refresh the garden of literature By his own example and constant exertions he has effected that union of commerce and the intellectual pursuits so eloquently recommended in one of his latest writings and has practically proved how beautifully they may be brought to harmonize and to benefit each other The noble institutions for literary and scientific purposes which reflect such credit on Liverpool and are giving such an impulse to the public mind have mostly been originated and have all been effectively promoted by Mr Roscoe and when we consider the rapidly increasing opulence and magnitude of that town which promises to vie in commercial importance with the metropolis it will be perceived that in awakening an ambition of mental improvement among its inhabitants he has effected a great benefit to the cause of British literature | M |
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| In America we know Mr Roscoe only as the author in Liverpool he is spoken of as the banker and I was told of his having been unfortunate in business I could not pity him as I heard some rich men do I considered him far above the reach of pity Those who live only for the world and in the world may be cast down by the frowns of adversity but a man like Roscoe is not to be overcome by the reverses of fortune They do but drive him in upon the resources of his own mind to the superior society of his own thoughts which the best of men are apt sometimes to neglect and to roam abroad in search of less worthy associates He is independent of the world around him He lives with antiquity and with posterity with antiquity in the sweet communion of studious retirement and with posterity in the generous aspirings after future renown The solitude of such a mind is its state of highest enjoyment It is then visited by those elevated meditations which are the proper aliment of noble souls and are like manna sent from heaven in the wilderness of this world | N |
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| While my feelings were yet alive on the subject it was my fortune to light on further traces of Mr Roscoe I was riding out with a gentleman to view the environs of Liverpool when he turned off through a gate into some ornamented grounds After riding a short distance we came to a spacious mansion of freestone built in the Grecian style It was not in the purest style yet it had an air of elegance and the situation was delightful A fine lawn sloped away from it studded with clumps of trees so disposed as to break a soft fertile country into a variety of landscapes The Mersey was seen winding a broad quiet sheet of water through an expanse of green meadow land while the Welsh mountains blended with clouds and melting into distance bordered the horizon | F |
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| This was Roscoe's favorite residence during the days of his prosperity It had been the seat of elegant hospitality and literary retirement The house was now silent and deserted I saw the windows of the study which looked out upon the soft scenery I have mentioned The windows were closed the library was gone Two or three ill favored beings were loitering about the place whom my fancy pictured into retainers of the law It was like visiting some classic fountain that had once welled its pure waters in a sacred shade but finding it dry and dusty with the lizard and the toad brooding over the shattered marbles | L |
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| I inquired after the fate of Mr Roscoe's library which had consisted of scarce and foreign books from many of which he had drawn the materials for his Italian histories It had passed under the hammer of the auctioneer and was dispersed about the country The good people of the vicinity thronged liked wreckers to get some part of the noble vessel that had been driven on shore Did such a scene admit of ludicrous associations we might imagine something whimsical in this strange irruption in the regions of learning Pigmies rummaging the armory of a giant and contending for the possession of weapons which they could not wield We might picture to ourselves some knot of speculators debating with calculating brow over the quaint binding and illuminated margin of an obsolete author of the air of intense but baffled sagacity with which some successful purchaser attempted to dive into the black letter bargain he had secured | O |
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| It is a beautiful incident in the story of Mr Roscoe's misfortunes and one which cannot fail to interest the studious mind that the parting with his books seems to have touched upon his tenderest feelings and to have been the only circumstance that could provoke the notice of his muse The scholar only knows how dear these silent yet eloquent companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity When all that is worldly turns to dross around us these only retain their steady value When friends grow cold and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow | P |
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| I do not wish to censure but surely if the people of Liverpool had been properly sensible of what was due to Mr Roscoe and themselves his library would never have been sold Good worldly reasons may doubtless be given for the circumstance which it would be difficult to combat with others that might seem merely fanciful but it certainly appears to me such an opportunity as seldom occurs of cheering a noble mind struggling under misfortunes by one of the most delicate but most expressive tokens of public sympathy It is difficult however to estimate a man of genius properly who is daily before our eyes He becomes mingled and confounded with other men His great qualities lose their novelty we become too familiar with the common materials which form the basis even of the loftiest character Some of Mr Roscoe's townsmen may regard him merely as a man of business others as a politician all find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations and surpassed perhaps by themselves on some points of worldly wisdom Even that amiable and unostentatious simplicity of character which gives the nameless grace to real excellence may cause him to be undervalued by some coarse minds who do not know that true worth is always void of glare and pretension But the man of letters who speaks of Liverpool speaks of it as the residence of Roscoe The intelligent traveller who visits it inquires where Roscoe is to be seen He is the literary landmark of the place indicating its existence to the distant scholar He is like Pompey's column at Alexandria towering alone in classic dignity | A |
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| The following sonnet addressed by Mr Roscoe to his books on parting with them has already been alluded to If anything can add effect to the pure feeling and elevated thought here displayed it is the conviction that the whole is no effusion of fancy but a faithful transcript from the writer's heart | Q |
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| TO MY BOOKS | R |
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| As one who destined from his friends to part | Q |
| Regrets his loss but hopes again erewhile | B |
| To share their converse and enjoy their smile | B |
| And tempers as he may affliction's dart | Q |
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| Thus loved associates chiefs of elder art | Q |
| Teachers of wisdom who could once beguile | B |
| My tedious hours and lighten every toil | B |
| I now resign you nor with fainting heart | Q |
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| For pass a few short years or days or hours | G |
| And happier seasons may their dawn unfold | S |
| And all your sacred fellowship restore | T |
| When freed from earth unlimited its powers | G |
| Mind shall with mind direct communion hold | S |
| And kindred spirits meet to part no more | T |
Washington Irving
(1)
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