1 " nefcio quo exotico certat, non globulis " plumbeis, fed pilulis æque lethalibus in"terficit. This was certainly thought fine by the author, and is still admired by his biographer. In October 1702 he be came one of the cenfors of the College. L 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 dismiffion, a short poem, which was criticised in the Examiner, and so successfully either defended or excused by Mr. Addison, that, for the fake of the vindication, it ought to be preferved. At the accession 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, translated 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 confused. This was his last work. He died Jan. 18, 1717-18, and was buried at Harrow-on-the-Hill. His personal character seems 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 supposed 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 says that if ever there was a good Christian, without knowing him" felf to be so, it was Dr. Garth," seems 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 observed by Lowth, that there is less distance than is thought between 7 between scepticism and popery, and that a mind wearied with perpetual doubt, willingly seeks repose in the bosom of an infallible church.. His poetry has been praised at least equally to its merit. In the Dispensary there is a strain of smooth and free verfification; but few lines are eminently elegant. No pafsages fall below mediocrity, and few rise much above it. The plan seems formed without just proportion to the subject; the means and end have no necessary connection. Refnel, in his Preface to Pope's Effay, remarks, that Garth exhibits no difcrimination 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; but the composition can feldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never slumbers in selfindulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; scarce a line is left unfinished, nor is it easy to find an expression used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expressed. 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 something 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. that ROW Ε. NICHO ICHOLAS ROWE was born at Little Beckford in Bedfordshire, in 1673. His family had long possessed 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 descendants 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, professed the law, and published Benlow's and Dallison's Reports in the reign of James the Second, when, in opposition to the notions ** In the Villare, Lamerton. then |