“It is only a few days since I had the pleasure of
knowing that a work I published some years ago—‘The Life of Lorenzo de’
Medici’—had been honoured by a translation into the German
language, to which I find prefixed your very respectable name. Accept my
thanks, Sir, not for the choice you made of the work,—for you were led to that
by higher motives than a personal consideration for its author,—but for the
abilities and learning you have shown in supplying my deficiencies, and
particularly for the beautiful parallel drawn in your dedication between the
character of Lorenzo and that of
Pericles; of the golden age of
Florence, with that of Athens,—a subject on which I knew my own deficiencies
too well to venture, and which I rejoice to find executed with a degree of
feeling, learning, and taste, which stamp a real value on the work. The
enthusiasm which I felt in the composition of my history, and in the
contemplation of the character of the great man who forms its principal
subject, is again revived by the just commendations you have bestowed upon him;
and in this similarity of sentiments, and of studies—this desire to diffuse and
to per-
| LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE. | 199 |
“I cannot help remarking it as a pleasing circumstance,
that in the course of last year I purchased, through the means of a mercantile
house here, the Herbarium of the late celebrated Dr. Forster, at Halle, with whom I perceive you have lived in
habits of friendship. The specification of this collection had been entrusted
to your judgment, and I again recognised you in another capacity. I mention
this circumstance to show that our pursuits have another similarity, and that
our dispositions (if I may be allowed the expression) touch at more points than
one. You will have a pleasure in hearing, that the Forsterian Herbarium is
arrived safe at Liverpool, and has given perfect satisfaction; and that its
utility will not be confined to an individual, as it is now destined to become
one of the chief ornaments of a museum belonging to a botanical garden, now
forming in this place by the aid of a public subscription, and which I
| 200 | LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE. |
