We have already seen how warmly Addison espoused the Dr’s. writings, when they were attacked upon a principle of party, and there are many of the greatest wits of his time who pay him compliments; amongst the rest is lord Lansdowne, who wrote some verses upon his illness; but as the lines do no great honour either to his lordship, or the Dr. we forbear to insert them.

The following passage is taken from one of Pope’s Letters, written upon the death of Dr. Garth, which, we dare say, will be more acceptable.  ’The best natured of men (says he) Sir Samuel Garth has left me in the truest concern for his loss.  His death was very heroical, and yet unaffected enough to have made a saint, or a philosopher famous.  But ill tongues, and worse hearts have branded his last moments, as wrongfully as they did his life, with irreligion:  you must have heard many tales upon this subject; but if ever there was a good christian, without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth.’

Our author was censured for his love of pleasure, in which perhaps it would be easier to excuse than defend him; but upon the whole, his character appears to have been very amiable, particularly, that of his bearing a tide of prosperity with so much, evenness of temper; and his universal benevolence, which seems not to have been cramped with party principles; as appears from his piety towards the remains of Dryden.

He died after a short illness, January 18, 1718-19, and was buried the 22d of the same month in the church of Harrow on the Hill, in the county of Middlesex, in a vault he caused to be built for himself and his family[7], leaving behind him an only daughter married to the honourable colonel William Boyle, a younger son of colonel Henry Boyle, who was brother to the late, and uncle to the present, earl of Burlington[8].  His estates in Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, are now possessed by his grandson, Henry Boyle, Esq; whose amiable qualities endear him to all who have the happiness of his acquaintance.  His works are collected, and printed in one volume, published by Tonson.

[Footnote 1:  Biog.  Brit, p. 2129.]

[Footnote 2:  See Dryden’s Life.]

[Footnote 3:  History of the Stewarts, vol. ii. p. 479.]

[Footnote 4:  The line here referred to, was omitted in the later editions of these verses.]

[Footnote 5:  Chronol.  Diary for A.D. 1714-15.]

[Footnote 6:  Biog.  Britan, p, 2135.]

[Footnote 7:  Chronol.  Diary, A.D. 1719.]

[Footnote 8:  Collins’s Peerage, vol. iv. p. 259.]

* * * * *

Nicholas Rowe, Esq;

This excellent poet was descended from an ancient family in Devonshire, which had for many ages made a very good figure in that county, and was known by the name of the Rowes of Lambertowne.  Mr. Rowe could trace his ancestors in a direct line up to the times of the holy war, in which one of them so distinguished himself, that at his return he had the arms given him, which the family has born ever since, that being in those days all the reward of military virtue, or of blood spilt in those expeditions.