attacked and his horse stabbed. Roscoe was nominated at the ensuing election, but was not again returned.
At the beginning of 1816 there was a run on Roscoe's bank, and on 25 Jan. it suspended payment. Considerable sums were locked up in mining and landed property, and, as the assets seemed ample, Roscoe, at the creditors' request, resumed the management. To satisfy part of the claims, he in 1816 sold his library, rich in Italian literature and early printed books. His friends purchased a selection of Italian and other books at the sale, to the amount of 600l., and offered them to him as a gift, which he refused. They were thereupon presented in 1817 to the Liverpool Athenæum to form a ‘Roscoe Collection.’ The sale (of about two thousand works) realised 5,150l. Roscoe's prints were sold after the books, and realised 1,915l. 1s., and his drawings and paintings 2,825l. 19s.
In 1817 Roscoe was chosen the first president of the Liverpool Royal Institution, of which he was a promoter. In 1819 he published ‘Observations on Penal Jurisprudence,’ advocating milder punishments as efficacious in reforming the criminal. Meanwhile he had succeeded in making large reimbursements to the creditors of his bank; but the estate had been overvalued, and in 1820, when the remaining creditors pressed for payment, Roscoe and his partners were declared bankrupt. The allowance of Roscoe's ‘certificate of conformity’ was petitioned against by two of the creditors, and to avoid arrest he had to confine himself indoors at his farm at Chat Moss. After some months the certificate was allowed, and he returned to Liverpool, his connection with the bank being then finally withdrawn. At this time a sum of 2,500l. was raised by Dr. Traill and other friends for the benefit of Roscoe and his family.
Roscoe was once more released from business cares, and in 1820 he began to prepare for his friend, Mr. Coke, a catalogue of the manuscripts at Holkham, Norfolk. In 1822 he published ‘Illustrations, Historical and Critical, of the Life of Lorenzo,’ in which he defended his hero from the attacks of Sismondi. In 1824 he was elected an honorary associate of the Royal Society of Literature, and was afterwards awarded its gold medal. In the same year he published a new edition of Pope's works, undertaken (in 1821) for the London booksellers. A controversy ensued between Roscoe and W. L. Bowles, who closed his case by publishing ‘Lessons in Criticism to William Roscoe, Esq. … with further Lessons in Criticism to a “Quarterly Reviewer.”’ The latest editors of Pope (Elwin and Courthope, Pope, iii. 16) regard Roscoe as an injudicious panegyrist of the poet's career, and his annotations (wherever they add to those of Warburton, Warton, and Bowles) as tending to mislead.
In December 1827 Roscoe was attacked with paralysis; he recovered, but was confined to his study with his small collection of books and prints. In June 1831 he was prostrated by influenza, and died on the 30th of the month at his house in Lodge Lane, Toxteth Park, Liverpool. He was buried in the ground attached to the chapel in Renshaw Street, Liverpool, at the services of which he had been accustomed to attend.
Roscoe married, on 22 Feb. 1781, Jane (d. 1824), second daughter of William Griffies, a tradesman of Liverpool, by whom he had a family of seven sons and three daughters. His fifth son Thomas, the author and translator (1791–1871), and his youngest son Henry, the legal writer (1800–1836), are noticed separately. His eldest daughter, Mary Anne, the verse-writer, married Thomas Jevons of Liverpool [see Jevons, Mary Anne]. His daughter Jane Elizabeth, born in 1797, married the Rev. F. Hornblower, and published several volumes of verse between 1820 and 1843; she died at Liverpool in September 1853 (Gent. Mag. 1853, ii. 326; Brit. Mus. Cat.)
Roscoe's writings had the effect of stimulating a European interest in Italian literature and history, and his zeal for culture and art in his native place deserved the tribute that was paid to his memory by the celebration at Liverpool, on 8 March 1853, of the Roscoe Centenary Festival. Dr. Traill, the friend and physician of Roscoe, describes him as simple and upright in character, and as possessing much charm of manner. In person he was tall, with clear and mild grey eyes, and an ‘expressive and cheerful face.’ De Quincey (Works, ed. Masson, ii. 127), who rather disparages the Liverpool literary coterie to which Roscoe belonged, describes him about 1801 as ‘simple and manly in his demeanour,’ but adds that, in spite of his boldness as a politician, there was ‘the feebleness of the mere belles-lettrist’ in his views on many subjects. Washington Irving in his ‘Sketch Book’ has recorded his impressions of Roscoe as he appeared shortly before 1820; Mrs. Hemans, who saw Roscoe in his latest years, speaks of him as ‘a delightful old man, with a fine Roman style of head,’ sitting in the study of his small house surrounded by busts, books, and flowers.
