The Life of William Roscoe
Chapter V. 1795
Samuel Parr to William Roscoe, 4 October 1797
“For the liberty I am going to take with a gentleman whom
I have not the honour personally to know, I have no other, and probably I could
find no better apology, than the frankness which ought to subsist between
literary men upon subjects of literature. Your ‘Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici’
had been often mentioned to me by critics whose approbation every writer would
be proud to obtain; and, as the course of reading which I pursued about thirty
years ago had made me familiar with the works of Poggius, Pico of
Mirandola, Politian, and
other illustrious
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contemporaries of Lorenzo, I eagerly seized the
opportunity of borrowing your celebrated publication from a learned friend at
Oxford. You will pardon my zeal, Sir, and you may confide in my sincerity, when
I declare to you, that the contents of your book far surpassed my expectation,
and amply rewarded the attention with which I perused them. You have thrown the
clearest and fullest light upon a period most interesting to every scholar. You
have produced much that was unknown, and, to that which was known, you have
given perspicuity, order, and grace. You have shown the greatest diligence in
your researches, and the purest taste in your selection; and, upon the
characters and events which passed in review before your inquisitive and
discriminating mind, you have united sagacity of observation, with correctness,
elegance, and vigour of style. For the credit of our national curiosity and
national learning, I trust that the work will soon reach a second edition; and,
if this should be the case, I will, with your permission, send you a list of
mistakes which I have found in some Latin passages, and which, upon seeing
them, you will certainly think worthy of consideration. Perhaps I shall proceed
a little further, in pointing out two or three expressions which seem to me
capable of improvement, and in stating my reasons for dissenting from you upon
a very few facts of very little importance.”
Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459)
An Italian humanist who wrote fables, essays, and a history of Florence.
William Field (1768-1851)
Unitarian clergyman at High Street Chapel, Warwick; he was the biographer of Samuel
Parr.
