"nefcio quo exotico certat, non globulis * plumbeis, fed pilulis æque lethalibus in"terficit."This was certainly thought fine by the author, and is ftill admired by his biographer. In October 1702 he be came 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 excufed by Mr. Addison, that, for the fake of the vindication, it ought to he preferved.

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

He then undertook an edition of Ovid's Metamorphofes, tranflated by several hands; which he recommended by a Preface, writ

ten

ten with more oftentation than ability: his notions are half-formed, and his materials immethodically confufed. 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 fupposed to favour his principles. He was an early encourager of Pope, and was at once the friend of Addison and of Granville. He is accused of voluptuousness and irreligion; and Pope, who fays that "if ever there was a good Christian, without knowing him"felf 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 distance than is thought between

7

between 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 least equally to its merit. In the Difpenfary there is a ftrain of smooth and free verfification; but few lines are eminently elegant. No paffages fall below mediocrity, and few rise much above it. The plan feems formed without just proportion to the subject; the means and end have no neceffary connection. Refnel, in his Preface to Pope's Effay, remarks, that Garth exhibits no discrimination of characters; and that what any one fays might with equal propriety have been faid by another. The general defign is perhaps open to criticism; but the compofition can feldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never flumbers in felfindulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; fcarce a line is left unfinished, nor is it easy to find an expreffion used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expreffed. It was remarked by Pope, that the Dispensary had been corrected in every edition, and

that

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 scarcely able to support itself,

R O W

E.

NICH

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

In the Villare, Lamerton.

then