THE HOUSE IN WHICH ROSCOE WAS BORN.
A lowly roof, an English farm-house roof—
What is the train of thought that it should wake?
Why cheerful evenings, when the winter cold
Grows glad beside the hearth; or summer days,
When round the shady porch the woodbine clings;
Some aged man beneath, to hear whose words
The children leave off play; for he can tell
Of the wild sea, a sailor in his youth.
Yet here the mind's eye pictures other scenes—
A fair Italian city, in a vale,
The sanctuary of summer, where the air
Grows sweet in passing over myrtle groves.
Glides the blue Arno, in whose tide are glassed
Armed palaces, with marble battlements.
Forth ride a band of princely chivalry,
And at their head a gallant chieftain—he,
Lorenzo the magnificent.
Within this house was thy historian born,
Florence, thou pictured city; and his name
Calls up thy rich romance of history;
And this calm English dwelling fills the mind
With memories of Medici—
It is scarcely necessary to state that Mr. Roscoe's principal work was the Life of Lorenzo di Medicis.
