cines, and another room prepared for their reception; and that the contributors to the expence should manage the charity.

pa

It was now expected that the apothecaries would have undertaken the care of providing medicines; but they took another course. Thinking the whole defign pernicious to their interest, they endeavoured to raise a faction against it in the college, and found fome physicians mean enough to folicit their tronage, by betraying to them the counfels of the College. The greater part, however, enforced, by a new edict, in 1694, the former order of 1687, and fent it to the mayor and aldermen, who appointed a committee to treat with the College, and fettle the mode of administering the charity.

It was defired by the aldermen, that the teftimonials of churchwardens and overfeers fhould be admitted; and that all hired fervants, and all apprentices to handicraftsmen, fhould be considered as poor. This likewife was granted by the College.

It was then confidered who should distribute the medicines, and who fhould fettle their prices. The phyficians procured fome apothecaries to undertake the difpenfation,

and

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 affist the charity were confidered as traytors to the company, threatened with the imposition of troublefome offices, and detered from the performance of their engagements. The apo thecaries 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 least the traders seem to have prevailed among the fons of trade; for the propofal of the College having been confidered, a paper of approbation was drawn up, but poftponed and forgotten.

The physicians still persisted; and in 1696 a subscription was raised by themselves, according to an agreement prefixed to the 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

"

1

as its fubject was prefent and popular, cooperated with paffions and prejudices then prevalent, and, with fuch auxiliaries to its intrinsick merit, was universally and liberally applauded. It was on the fide of cha⚫rity against the intrigues of interest, and of regular learning against licentious ufurpation of medical authority, and was therefore naturally favoured by those 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 mischiefs done by quacks, has these expreffions: "Non tamen telis vulnerat ista agyrtarum coluvies, fed theriacâ quadam

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magis perniciofa, non pyrio, fed pulvere "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

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 dismisfion, a fhort poem, which was criticised in the Examiner, and fo fucccfsfully either defended or excufed by Mr. Addison, that, for the fake of the vindication, it ought to be preserved.

At the acceffion of the present family his merits were acknowledged and rewarded. He was knighted with the fword 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, written 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

VOL. II.

U

imparted

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 Addison and of Granville. He is accused of voluptuousness and irreligion; and Pope, who fays, that " if "ever there was a good Christian, without

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knowing himself 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 distance than is thought between scepticism and popery; and that a mind, wearied with perpetual doubt, willingly feeks repofe in the bosom of an infallible church.

His poetry has been praised at least equally to its merit. In the Difpenfary there is a strain 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 fubject; the means and end have no neceffary connection.

5