prefent and popular, cooperated with paffions and prejudices then prevalent, and, with fuch auxiliaries to its intrinfick merit, was univerfally and liberally applauded. It was on the fide of charity against the intrigues of intereft, and of regular learning against licentious ufurpation of medical authority, and was therefore naturally favoured by thofe who read and can judge of poetry.

In 1697, Garth fpoke that which is now called the Harveian Oration; which the authors of the Biographia mention with more praife than the paffage quoted in their notes will fully juftify. Garth, speaking of the mifchiefs done by quacks, has thefe expreffions: "Non

tamen telis vulnerat ifta agyrtarum coluvies, fed "theriacâ quadam magis perniciofa, non pyrio, fed "pulvere nefcio quo exotico certat, non globulis "plumbeis, fed pilulis æque lethalibus interficit." This was certainly thought fine by the author, and is ftill admired by his biographer. In October 1702 he became one of the cenfors of the College.

Garth, being an active and zealous Whig, was a member of the Kit-cat club, and by confequence familiarly known to all the great men of that denomination. In 1710, when the government fell into other hands, he writ to lord Godolphin, on his difmiffion, a fhort poem, which was criticised in the Examiner, and fo fuccefsfully either defended or excused by Mr. Addison, that, for the sake of the vindication, it ought to be preserved.

At the acceffion of the prefent Family his merits were acknowledged and rewarded. He was knighted with the fword of his hero, Malborough; and was made physician in ordinary to the king, and physician-general to the army.

He

He then undertook an edition of Ovid's Metamor phofes, tranflated by several hands; which he recom mended by a Preface, written with more oftentation than ability: his notions are half-formed, and his materials immethodically confused. This was his laft work. He died Jan. 18, 1717-18, and was buried at Harrow-on-the-Hill,

His perfonal character feems to have been focial and liberal. He communicated himself through a very wide extent of acquaintance; and though firm in a party, at a time when firmness included virulence, yet he imparted his kindness to those who were not fuppofed to favour his principles. He was an early encourager of Pope, and was at once the friend of Addifon and of Granville. He is accufed of voluptuoufness and irreligion; and Pope, who fays that "if ever there was a good Chriftian, without knowing himself to be fo, it was Dr. Garth," feems not able to deny what he is angry to hear and loth to confefs.

Pope afterwards declared himself convinced that Garth died in the communion of the Church of Rome, having been privately reconciled. It is obferved by Lowth, that there is lefs diftance than is thought be tween scepticism and popery, and that a mind, wearied with perpetual doubt, willingly feeks repofe in the bofom of an infallible church,

His poetry has been praised at leaft equally to its merit. In the Difpenfary there is a strain of fmooth and free verfification; but few lines are eminently elegant. No paffages fall below mediocrity, and few rife much above it. The plan feems formed without just proportion to the fubject; the means and end have no neceffary connection. Refnel, in his Preface

to

to Pope's Effay, remarks, that Garth exhibits no difgrimination of characters; and that what any one says might with equal propriety have been faid by another, The general design is perhaps open to criticism; bur the compofition can feldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never flumbers in felf-indulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; fcarce a line is left unfinished, por is it easy to find an expreffion used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expreffed. It was remarked by Pope, that the Difpenfary had been corrected in every edition, and that every change was an improvement. It appears,

however, to want fomething of poetical ardour, and fomething of general delectation; and therefore, fince it has been no longer supported by accidental and extrinfick popularity, it has been fcarcely able to fupport itself.

ROWE

RO W

E.

N

ICHOLAS ROWE was born at Little

Beckford in Bedfordshire, in 1673. His family had long poffeffed a confiderable estate, with a good house, at Lambertoun in Devonshire. The ancestor from whom he defcended in a direct line received the arms borne by his defcendants for his bravery in the Holy War. His father, John Rowe, who was the first that quitted his paternal acres to practise any art of profit, profeffed the law, and published Benlow's and Dallifon's Reports in the Reign of James the Second, when, in oppofition to the notions then diligently propagated, of dispensing power, he ventured to remark how low his authors rated the prerogative. He was made a ferjeant, and died April 30, 1692. He was buried in the Temple Church.

Nicholas was first sent to a private school at Highgate; and being afterward removed to Westminster,

In the Villare, Lamerton. Orig. Edit.

was

It was in the free-school at Highgate that Rowe received his education, concerning which Newcourt, in his Repertorium, thus

speaks:

was at twelve years chofen one of the King's fcholars. His master was Bufby, who fuffered none of his fcholars to let their powers lie ufelefs; and his exercises in feveral languages are faid to have been written with uncommon degrees of excellence, and yet to have coft him very little labour.

At fixteen he had, in his father's opinion, made advances in learning fufficient to qualify him for the study of law, and was entered a student of the Middle Temple, where, for fome time he read ftatutes and reports with proficiency proportionate to the force of his mind, which was already fuch that he endeavoured to comprehend law, not as a series of precedents, or collection of pofitive precepts, but as a fyftem of rational governinent, and impartial juftice.

When he was nineteen, he was by the death of his father left more to his own direction, and probably from that time fuffered law gradually to give way to poetry. At twenty-five he produced The Ambitious Stepmother, which was received with fo much favour, that he devoted himself from that time wholly to elegant literature.

His next tragedy (1702) was Tamerlane, in which, under the name of Tamerlane, he intended to charac

Speaks: "Near adjoining to the chapel is a free-fchool built by "Sir Roger Cholmondely, or Cholmly, lord chief baron of the ex"chequer (and after that lord chief justice of the king's bench), in "the year 1562, at his own charges; and he procured the fame to "be established and confirmed by Queen Elizabeth, by her letters "patents and endowed the fame with yearly maintenance, which "fchool Edwyn Sandys, bishop of London, enlarged in 1570, by "addition of a chapel for divine fervice, fince which the chapel hath "been enlarged by the piety and bounty of divers honourable and "worthy perfons, all which appears by an infcription over the 61 gate."

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