In 1711 Dr. Garth wrote a dedication for an intended edition of Lucretius, addressed to his late Majesty, then Elector of Brunswick, which has been admired as one of the purest compositions in the Latin tongue that our times have produced.

On the accession of that King to the throne, he had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him by his Majesty, with the duke of Marlborough’s sword[5].  He was likewise made Physician in ordinary to the King, and Physician General to the army.  As his known services procured him a great interest with those in power, so his humanity and good nature inclined him to make use of that interest, rather for the support, and encouragement of men of letters who had merit, than for the advancement of his private fortune; his views in that respect having been always very moderate.  He lived with the great in that degree of esteem and independency, and with all that freedom which became a man possessed of superior genius, and the most shining and valuable talents.  His poem entitled Claremont, addressed to the duke of Newcastle, printed in the 6th volume of Dryden’s Miscellanies, met with great approbation.  A warm admirer of the Doctor’s, speaking of Claremont, thus expresses himself; ’It will survive, says he, the noble structure it celebrates, ’and will remain a perpetual monument of its author’s learning, taste, and great capacity as a poet; since, in that short work, there are innumerable beauties, and a vast variety of sentiments easily and happily interwoven; the most lively strokes of satire being intermixed with the most courtly panegyric, at the same time that there appears the true spirit of enthusiasm, which distinguishes the works of one born a poet, from those of a witty, or learned man, that has arrived at no higher art, than that of making verse[6].’  His knowledge in philosophy, his correct taste in criticism, and his thorough acquaintance in classical literature, with all the advantages that can be derived from an exact, but concealed method, an accurate, though flowing stile, and a language pure, natural, and full of vivacity, appear, says the same panegyrist in the preface he prefixed to a translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which would have been sufficient to have raised him an immortal reputation, if it had been the only product of his pen.

Dr. Garth is said to have been a man of the most extensive benevolence; that his hand and heart went always together:  A circumstance more valuable than all the lustre which genius can confer.  We cannot however, speak of his works with so much warmth, as the author just quoted seems to indulge.  His works will scarce make a moderate volume, and though they contain many things excellent, judicious, and humorous, yet they will not justify the writer, who dwells upon them in the same rapturous strain of admiration, with which we speak of a Horace, a Milton, or a Pope.  He had the happiness of an early acquaintance with some of the most powerful, wisest, and wittiest men of the age in which he lived; he attached himself to a party, which at last obtained the ascendant, and he was equally successful in his fortune as his friends:  Persons in these circumstances are seldom praised, or censured with moderation.