given him the greatest interest in my eyes, and induced me
particularly to point him out to my countrymen. Eminent
as are his literary merits, he is but one among the many dis-
tinguished authors of this intellectual nation. They, however
in general, live but for their own fame, or their own pleasures'
Their private history presents no lesson to the world, or, per-
haps, a humiliating one of human frailty and inconsistency.
At best, they are prone to steal away from the bustle and com-
monplace of busy existence, to indulge in the selfishness of
lettered ease; and to revel in scenes of mental, but exclusive
enjoyment.

Mr. Roscoe, on the contrary, has claimed none of the
accorded privileges of talent. He has shut himself up in no
garden of thought, nor elysium of fancy; but has gone forth
into the highways and thoroughfares of life, he has planted
bowers by the way-side, for the refreshment of the pilgrim
and the sojourner, and has opened pure fountains, where the
laboring man may turn aside from the dust and heat of the
day, and drink of the living streams of knowledge. There is
a "daily beauty in his life," on which mankind may meditate,
and grow better. It exhibits no lofty and almost useless, be-
cause inimitable, example of excellence; but presents a pic-
ture of active, yet simple and imitable virtues, which are within
every man's reach, but which, unfortunately, are not exercised
by many, or this world would be a paradise.

But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of
the citizens of our young and busy country, where literature
and the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the
coarser plants of daily necessity; and must depend for their
culture, not on the exclusive devotion of time and wealth;
nor the quickening rays of titled patronage; but on hours
and seasons snatched from the pursuit of worldly interests,
by intelligent and public-spirited individuals.

He has shown how much may be done for a place in
hours of leisure by one master spirit, and how completely it
can give its own impress to surrounding objects. Like his

-22-