Page images
PDF
EPUB

ADDRESS.

THE period is now arrived, at which the Proprietors of the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE promised to commence their improvements, and they invite their Readers to compare the present Number with any which has preceded it, more especially with those published previously to the commencement of the last Volume. While they endeavour to direct the attention of their Readers to what they consider the more prominent improvements, they are anxious to assure them, that they aim at much higher excellence. The superior manner in which their Engravings are executed, of which the PSYCHE in the present Number is a faithful specimen, justifies the Proprietors in asserting that, considering the low price at which this Magazine is sold, it is superior to any other Periodical Publication.

The Review department has undergone a considerable alteration. Instead of only three or four, the present Number contains notices of twenty publications, Foreign and Domestic. This alteration, it is hoped, will be particularly acceptable; as it supplies a void constantly experienced by those who are skilled in foreign languages, and who wish to enlarge the circle of their acquaintance with the living authors of the European Continent. Many Readers, perfectly familiar with the works of Klopstock, Ariosto, Voltaire, Camöens, Cervantes, and other early modern authors, are wholly ignorant of the writings of contemporaries, who are shedding the lustre of genius over the countries that produced those illustrious men. A knowledge of the excellent works daily issuing from the continental press will, it is hoped, not only be a source of pure and elegant pleasure, but will tend to remove that selfish egotism too often apparent in those, who exclusively confine their attention to the productions of their own country. The Portraits, in future, will be confined to characters, whose names will descend with honour to posterity; the aim of the present Proprietors being a general encouragement to great actions, by paying a just homage to extraordinary virtue, or transcendent genius.

The Frontispieces will also be more worthy of attention: they will not be confined to Engravings of Buildings and Landscapes, which appear in a thousand shapes and places, but will frequently present to the public those higher works of Art, that not only immortalize the artist and the patron, but raise man higher in the scale of intellectual excellence. By these exertions, added to improvements in the literary department, the present Proprietors of the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE hope to be instrumental in disseminating more widely a refined and correct taste for the Fine Arts, and elegant Literature in general; well knowing that, the more the public mind is embued with genuine taste, the more it is susceptible of real happiness and the blessings of rational liberty.

dedicisse fideliter artes

Emollet mores, nec sinit esse ferés.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A Subscriber, who wishes the dates to be placed to the Marriages and Deaths, should calculate the space they would occupy; he would then see the impossibility of being obliged, without the sacrifice of more important matter. A Letter from a Gentleman near Pocklington is received.

We are sorry we cannot insert "Sketches by Sea and Land."

The Note from W. T. W. shall be attended to.

Under consideration,-A Fragment from Adolescens.-Lines, &c. from A Constant Reader.—On the Advantages of Literary Correction.-&c, &c.

[graphic][merged small][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors]

EUROPEAN MAGAZINE,

AND

LONDON REVIEW.

JULY 1822.

MEMOIR

OF

WILLIAM ROSCOE, Esq.

WITH A PORTRAIT, DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY J. THOMPSON

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear."

[ocr errors]

THESE lines are peculiarly applicable to the birth and parentage, of Mr. Roscoe. He was a 66 gem," produced in obscurity, whose lustre did not seem intended for the gaze and admiration of mankind; but, happily, he was destined to emerge from the lowliness of his situation, and to surmount the difficulties, which the humility of his birth had opposed to his advancement and literary fame. He was born at Liverpool, of obscure parents. Both his father and mother were engaged in the service of a batchelor, a gentleman of the most amiable and generous disposition, in whose service it is probable they first became acquainted. A mutual attachment became the consequence of this acquaintance, and it was approved of by their master, to whom their fidelity had strongly recommended them. They were, consequently, married with his consent, and young Roscoe, their first-born, was brought up at his expense.Having died without an heir, he left the greater part, if not the entire of his property, to the subject of

our memoir.

[ocr errors]

It does not appear that his patron paid any attention to his early education, and his father had no higher ambition than of making him ac

quainted with writing and arithmetic. Through an obstinacy of temper, however, which, in many minds, is the forerunner of genius, Roscoe could not be prevailed upon to submit to the tame drudgery of scholastic discipline; and, consequently, he did not avail himself even of the small advantages of education, which his parents were able to afford him. Indolence, however, was not the character of his mind; and though he would not attend school, he studied assiduously at home. He began early to perceive the advantages of thinking for himself, on every occasion, and the habits of thought and mental application soon gave evidence of that genius, which has since shone forth with so pure a lustre. At this period, however, he studied things, not words. He endeavoured to resolve into their individual elements, all his general conceptions, and to form general theories from an aggregate of individual principles. He pursued nature through her mazy march, and the wizard perplexity of her course was not more unaccountable to him, than the variety of appearances and dresses which she assumed, at every deviation from her direct course. But

« PreviousContinue »