The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 15 July 1833
“Denbies, 15th.
“. . . This spot is one of the most beautiful I
know. . . . I am in the second volume of poor Roscoe’s Lorenzo de Medici. I read his Leo three
or four years ago with great pleasure, and the present book with encreased
delight. I can scarcely conceive a greater miracle than
Roscoe’s history—that a man whose dialect
was that of a barbarian, and from whom, in years of familiar intercourse, I
never heard above an average observation, whose parents were servants (whom I
well remember keeping a public house), whose profession was that of an
attorney, who had ![]()
| 1832-33.] | ROSCOE AS HISTORIAN. | 257 |
![]()
never been out
of England and scarcely out of Liverpool—that such a man should undertake
to write the history of the 14th and 15th centuries, the revival of Greek and
Roman learning and the formation of the Italian [illegible]—that such a history should be to the full as
polished in style as that of Gibbon, and
much more simple and perspicuous—that the facts of this history should be
all substantiated by references to authorities in other languages, with
frequent and beautiful translations from them by himself—is really too! Then the subject is to my mind the most captivating
possible: one’s only regret is that poor Roscoe,
after writing this beautiful history of his brother bankers the
Medici, should not have imitated their prudence, and
by such means have escaped appearing in that profane literary work, the Gazette! Oh
dear! what a winding up for his fame at last!”
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
Author of
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(1776-1788).
William Roscoe (1753-1831)
Historian, poet, and man of letters; author of
Life of Lorenzo di
Medici (1795) and
Life and Pontificate of Leo X (1805). He
was Whig MP for Liverpool (1806-1807) and edited the
Works of Pope,
10 vols (1824).
The London Gazette. (1665-). The official organ of the British government, published twice weekly.
