Indeed, it is this last trait in his character which has 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 distinguished 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, perhaps, a humiliating one
of human frailty or inconsistency. At best, they are prone to
steal away from the bustle and commonplace of busy existence; to
indulge in the selfishness of lettered eas; 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
wayside, 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.
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