There are numerous portraits of Roscoe: (1) Painting (æt. 38) by John Williamson is in the National Portrait Gallery, London; it was engraved in Henry Roscoe's ‘Life of W. Roscoe,’ vol. i. front.; (2) painting by Sir Martin Archer Shee (1813) for Mr. Coke of Holkham; (3) terra-cotta medallion made in 1813 by John Gibson (cf. H. Roscoe's Life, vol. ii. front.); (4) painting by J. Lonsdale (1825) presented to the Liverpool Royal Institution (engraved in Baines's ‘Lancaster,’ 1836, iii. 523); (5) bust by John Gibson presented by the sculptor to the Liverpool Royal Institution in 1827, in gratitude for the aid given to him in early life by Roscoe; (6) bronze medal (issued by Clements of Liverpool, 1806?) by Clint, after Gibson's terra-cotta medallion (this, and another portrait medal, rev. Mount Parnassus, are in the British Museum); (7) bust by Spence of Liverpool; (8) two miniatures by Haughton and Hargreaves; (9) marble statue by Chantrey, publicly subscribed for, and placed in 1841 in the Gallery of Art attached to the Liverpool Royal Institution.
The following are the chief of Roscoe's numerous publications:
- ‘Mount Pleasant,’ &c., Liverpool, 1777, 4to.
- ‘The Wrongs of Africa,’ 1787, 8vo.
- ‘A General View of the African Slave Trade,’ 1788, 8vo.
- ‘The Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent,’ 2 vols. Liverpool, 1795, 4to; 2nd ed. London, 1796, 4to; 6th ed. London, 1825, 8vo; 1846, 8vo, and later editions; German translation, by K. Sprengel, Berlin, 1797; French translation, Paris, 1799; Italian translation, Pisa, 1799; Greek translation, Athens, 1858.
- ‘The Nurse, a Poem translated [from the Italian of L. Tansillo] by W. R.,’ 1798, 4to; 1800, 8vo; 1804, 8vo.
- ‘The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth,’ 4 vols. Liverpool, 1805, 4to; 2nd ed. London, 1806; 3rd ed. London, 1827, 8vo; London, 1846, 8vo, and later editions; French translation, Paris, 1808; German translation, Vienna, 1818; Italian translation, by L. Bossi, Milan, 1816–17.
- ‘The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast,’ 1807, 16mo; 1808; London, 1883, 4to, ed. C. Welsh (facsimile of edition of 1808).
- ‘On the Origin and Vicissitudes of Literature, Science, and Art,’ &c. (lecture at the Liverpool Royal Institution, 1817).
- ‘Observations on Penal Jurisprudence,’ London, 1819–25, 8vo.
- ‘Illustrations, Historical and Critical, of the Life of Lorenzo de' Medici,’ London, 1822, 8vo and 4to; Italian translation, Florence, 1823, 8vo.
- ‘Memoir of Richard Roberts Jones’ (a Welsh fisher-lad of remarkable linguistic powers, befriended by Roscoe), 1822, 8vo.
- ‘The Works of Alexander Pope,’ edited by W. R., 1824, 8vo.
- ‘Monandrian Plants of the Order Scitamineæ’ (coloured plates, with descriptions by W. R.), Liverpool, 1828, fol.
- ‘The Poetical Books of William Roscoe’ (Roscoe Centenary edition), London, 1853, 8vo; also 1857, 8vo; 1891.
William Stanley Roscoe (1782–1843), the eldest son of William Roscoe, was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and became a partner in his father's bank. In his latter years he was serjeant-at-mace to the court of passage at Liverpool. He was well acquainted with Italian literature, and in 1834 published a volume of ‘Poems’ (London, 8vo), which was eulogised in ‘Blackwood's Magazine’ (February 1835, pp. 153–60), though the verse is for the most part commonplace in subject and treatment. He died at Liverpool on 31 Oct. 1843 (Gent. Mag. 1844, i. 96). He was the father of William Caldwell Roscoe [q. v.]
[The principal authorities are Henry Roscoe's Life of William Roscoe, 1833; Gent. Mag. 1831, i. 796; T. S. Traill's Memoir of Roscoe, 1853; art. in Encyclop. Brit. 9th ed.; Espinasse's Lancashire Worthies, 2nd ser. pp. 274 ff.; The Liverpool Tribute to Roscoe (report of Roscoe Centenary), 1853; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Memoir by Thomas Roscoe prefixed to Bohn's edition of the Lorenzo, 1846; Baines's Lancaster (1870), ed. Harland and Herford, ii. 377; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
ROSCOE, WILLIAM CALDWELL (1823–1859), poet and essayist, born at Liverpool on 20 Sept. 1823, was son of William Stanley Roscoe and grandson of William Roscoe [q. v.] His mother, daughter of James Caldwell of Linley Wood in Staffordshire, was sister of Mrs. Anne Marsh-Caldwell [q. v.], author of ‘Emilia Wyndham.’ He was educated at a parish school, St. Domingo House, near Liverpool, and afterwards at University College, London, graduating in the university of London in 1843. He was called to the bar in 1850, but after two years relinquished practice, partly from delicacy of health, partly from doubts of his qualifications for his profession. He married in 1855 Emily, daughter of William Malin of Derby, and afterwards lived principally in Wales, where he was interested in slate quarries and devoted much of his time to literary pursuits. He was a frequent contributor to the ‘National Review,’ of which his brother-in-law, Mr. R. H. Hutton, was editor. He died at Richmond in Surrey of typhoid fever on 30 July 1859. Roscoe published two tragedies, ‘Eliduc’ (1846) and ‘Violenzia’ (1851, anon.), a considerable amount of
