ROWE, Nicholas, was descended of an ancient family in Devonshire, and born in 1673. He acquired a complete taste for the classical authors under Dr Busby in Westminster school; but poetry was his early and darling study. His father, who was a lawyer, entered him a student in the Middle Temple, and he made remarkable advances in the study of the law; but the love of the belles lettres, and of poetry, stopped him in his career. His first tragedy, the Ambitious Stepmother, meeting with universal applause, he laid aside all thoughts of rising by the law, and afterwards composed several tragedies; but that which he valued himself most upon was his Tamerlane. The others were, the Fair Penitent, Ulysses, the Royal Convert, Jane Shore, and Lady Jane Grey. He also wrote a poem called the Biter, and several poems upon different subjects, which have been published under the title of Miscellaneous Works, in one volume, as his dramatic works have been in two. Rowe is chiefly to be considered in the light of a tragic writer and a translator. In his attempt at comedy, he failed so ignominiously that his Biter is not inserted in his works; and his occasional poems and short compositions are rarely worthy either of praise or censure, for they seem to be the casual sports of a mind seeking rather to amuse its leisure than to exercise its powers. In the construction of his dramas there is not much art; and he is not a nice observer of the unities. I know not, says Dr Johnson, that there can be found in his plays any deep search into nature, any accurate discrimination of kindred qualities, or nice display of passion in its progress. All is general and undefined. Nor does he much interest or affect the auditor, except in Jane Shore, who is always seen and heard with pity. Alicia is a character of empty noise, with no resemblance to real sorrow or to natural madness. Whence then has Rowe acquired his reputation? From the reasonableness and propriety of some of his scenes, from the elegance of his diction, and from the suavity of his verse. He seldom moves either pity or terror, but he often elevates the sentiment; he seldom pierces the breast, but he always delights the ear, and often improves the understanding. Being a great admirer of Shakspeare, he gave the public an edition of his plays, to which he prefixed an account of his life. But the most considerable of Mr Rowe’s performances was a translation of Lucan’s Pharsalia, which he just lived to finish, but not to publish; for it did not appear in print till 1728, ten years after his death.

In the meanwhile, the love of poetry and books did not make him unfit for business; for nobody applied closer to it when occasion required. The Duke of Queensberry, when secretary of state, made him secretary for public affairs. But after the duke’s death, all avenues to his preferment were stopped; and during the remainder of Queen Anne’s reign he passed his time with the Muses and his books. On the accession of George I., however, he was made poet-laureat, and one of the land-surveyors of the customs in the port of London. The Prince of Wales conferred on him the clerkship of his council; and the Lord Chancellor Parker made him his secretary for the presentations. But he did not enjoy these promotions long; for he died on the 6th of December 1718, being then in his forty-fifth year.

Mr Rowe, who was twice married, had a son by his first wife, and a daughter by his second. He was a very hand[7:19:510]some man; and his mind was as amiable as his person. He lived beloved; and at his death he had the honour to be lamented by Pope, in an epitaph which is printed in Pope’s works, although it was not affixed on Mr Rowe’s monument in Westminster Abbey, where he was interred, in the poets’ corner, opposite to Chaucer.

Rowe, Elizabeth, an English lady, eminent for her writings both in prose and verse, was born at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in 1674, being the daughter of worthy parents, Mr Walter Singer and Mrs Elizabeth Portnel. There being a great affinity between painting and poetry, this lady, who had a vein for the one, naturally had a taste for the other. She was also very fond of music, chiefly of the grave and solemn kind, as best suited the grandeur of her sentiments and the sublimity of her devotion. But poetry was her favourite employment, her distinguishing excellence; and so prevalent was her genius this way, that her prose is all poetical. In 1696, a collection of her poems was published at the desire of two friends. Her paraphrase on the thirty-eighth chapter of Job was written at the request of Bishop Ken. She had no other tutor for the French and Italian languages than Mr Thynne, who willingly took the trouble upon himself. Her shining merit, with the charms of her person and conversation, had procured her many admirers. Amongst others, it is said, the famous Mr Prior made his addresses to her; but Mr Thomas Rowe was destined to be the happy man. This gentleman was honourably descended; and his superior genius, and insatiable thirst after knowledge, were conspicuous in his earliest years. He had formed a design to compile the lives of all the illustrious persons in antiquity omitted by Plutarch; which, indeed, he partly executed, and eight lives were published after his decease. They were translated into French by the Abbé Bellenger in 1734. He spoke with ease and fluency, and had a trank and benevolent temper, an inexhaustible fund of wit, and a communicative disposition. Such was the man who, charmed with the person, character, and writings of our authoress, married her in 1710, and made it his study to repay the felicity with which she crowned his life. But too intense an application to study, beyond what the delicacy of his frame would bear, broke his health, and threw him into a consumption, which put a period to his life in May 1715, when he had but just passed the twenty-eighth year of his age. Mrs Rowe wrote a beautiful elegy on his death; and continued to the last moments of her life to express the highest veneration and affection for his memory. As soon after his decease as her affairs would permit, she indulged her inclination for solitude by retiring to Frome, in Somersetshire, in the neighbourhood of which place lay the greatest part of her estate. In this recess it was that she composed the most celebrated of her works, Friendship in Death, and the Letters Moral and Entertaining. In 1736, she published the History of Joseph, a poem which she had written in her younger years. But she did not long survive this publication; for she died of an apoplexy, as was supposed, on the 20th ofFebruary 1736-1737. In her cabinet were found letters to several of her friends, which she had ordered to be delivered immediately after her decease. Dr Isaac Watts, agreeably to her request, revised and published, in 1737, her devotions, under the title of Devout Exercises of the Heart in Meditation and Soliloquy, Praise and Prayer; and, in 1739, her Miscellaneous Works, in prose and verse, were published in two volumes 8vo, with an account of her life and writings prefixed.