The Life of William Roscoe
William Roscoe to Earl St. Vincent, [April? 1805]
“Your Lordship’s repeated kindness encourages me to
mention that a work on which I have been employed for several years, the
‘Life and Pontificate of Leo
X.,’ is now nearly printed, and will, I expect, make its
appearance in the course of two months. On referring to this period it will
immediately occur to your Lordship, that a publication on this subject must
comprise some topics of considerable delicacy, as well in religion and
politics, as in morals and literature; or, in other words, must involve those
questions which have given rise to dissension and persecution in all
subsequent, times. In the account of the Reformation, I am well aware that my
book will give satisfaction neither to the Catholics nor the Protestants; yet,
of the two, I apprehend most the displeasure of the latter. The former have
been so accustomed to be abused, that they will receive with patience any
tolerable
* His Lordship was an enthusiastic admirer of the
“Life of
Leo.” “A friend of Lord
St. Vincent’s,” say Mr. Roscoe’s publishers,
“told us, two or three weeks ago, that the old hero was
getting up every morning at five o’clock to read Leo X.” |
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| LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE. | 331 |
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degree of castigation; but the latter, who conceive their
principles and conduct to be above all censure, will be surprised to find their
early leaders accused of a spirit of intolerance and uncharitableness, which
has, unfortunately, continued with but little diminution to the present day.
Should your Lordship ever honour the work by a perusal, I shall hope for a
liberal and candid construction of my opinions, both on this and other
subjects; assuring your Lordship that, however contradictory some of them may
appear to the received notions, both of characters and of events, they have not
been hastily adopted, nor are they now delivered to the world without the most
serious and deliberate conviction that, if they attract any notice whatever,
they cannot but be favourable to the cause of civil and religious liberty, and
have a tendency to soothe those animosities between nation and nation, and sect
and sect, which have so long afflicted our quarter of the world.”
John Jervis, earl of St. Vincent (1735-1823)
English Naval officer who defeated the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent in 1797 and was
first lord of the Admiralty 1801-04.
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).
