should be confidered as poor. This likewise was granted by the College.

It was then confidered who fhould diftribute the medicines, and who fhould fettle their prices. The phyficians procured fome apothecaries to undertake the difpenfation, and offered that the warden and company of the apothecaries fhould adjust the price, This offer was rejected; and the apothecaries who had engaged to affift the charity were confidered as traytors to the company, threatened with the impofition of troublesome offices, and deterred from the performance of their engagements. The apothecaries ventured upon public oppofition, and prefented a kind of remonftrance against the design to the committee of the city, which the physicians condefcended to confute : and at laft the traders feem to have prevailed the fons of trade; for the proposal of the college having been confidered, a paper of approbation was drawn up, but poftponed and forgotten,

among

The physicians still perfifted; and in 1696 a fubfcription was raised by themselves, according to an agreement prefixed to the U 4 Dif

Difpenfary. The poor were for a time fupplied with medicines; for how long a time, I know not. The medicinal ́ charity, like others, began with ardour, but foon remitted, and at last died gradually away.

About the time of the fubfcription begins the action of the Difpenfary. The Poem, as its fubject was 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 spoke that which is now called the Harveian Oration; which the authors of the Biographia mention with more praise than the paffage quoted in their notes will fully justify. Garth, speaking of the mifchiefs done by quacks, has thefe expreffions: "Non tamen telis vulnerat ifta agyr"tarum colluvies, fed theriacâ quadam ma

gis perniciofa, non pyrio, fed pulvere

"nefcio

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 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 so successfully either defended or excufed 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 sword of his hero, Marlborough; and was made phyfician in ordinary to the king, and phyfician-general to the

army.

He then undertook an edition of Ovid's Metamorphofes, tranflated by feveral 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 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 accused of voluptuoufness 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 diftance 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 difcrimination of characters; and that what any one says might with equal propriety have been faid by another. The general defign is perhaps open to criticism; but the composition can feldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never flumbers in selfindulgence; 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 Difpenfary had been corrected in every edition, and

that