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ROWE'

ICHOLAS ROWE was born at Little Beckford 2 in Bedford- 1

shire in 1673. His family had long possessed a considerable estate with a good house at Lambertoun3 in Devonshire. The ancestor from whom he descended in a direct line received the arms borne by his descendants for his bravery in the Holy War. His father John Rowe, who was the first that quitted his paternal acres to practise any art of profit, professed the law, and published Benlow's and Dallison's Reports in the reign of James the Second, when, in opposition to the notions then diligently propagated, of dispensing power, he ventured to remark how low his authors rated the prerogative 5. He was made a serjeant,

"This Life,' wrote Nichols, 'is a very remarkable instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's memory. When I received from him the MS. he complacently observed that the criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not read one of Rowe's plays for thirty years.' Johnson's Letters, ii. 132 n.

Johnson wrote to Nichols :-'In reading Rowe in your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece has not only appeared in the Works of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope into the Miscellanies he published in his own name and that of Dean Swift.' Ib. ii. 158. For these Miscellanies see post, POPE, 141.

Johnson's chief authority is a brief account by James Welwood, M.D., prefixed to Rowe's Lucan's Pharsalia,

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In the Villare, Lamerton. JOHNSON. Johnson refers to the Villare Anglicanum, or a View of the Cities, Towns and Villages in England, by Sir Henry Spelman, London, 1656, 4to.

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The power by which the King, by remitting penalties, was competent to annul virtually a penal statute.' Macaulay's Hist. i. 32, 230, ii. 335; ante, MILTON, 47.

5He durst do this in the late King James's reign, at a time when a dispensing power was set up as inherent in the Crown.' Rowe's Lucan, Preface, p. 37. It was in 1689, in the reign of William and Mary, that he published Les Reports de Gulielme Benloe, &c., and Les Reports

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colligées par Gulielme Dalison. In the Preface he writes:-'Some resolutions are here reported, the like whereof are to be found nowhere so exactly (as I could ever observe) which relate to the Crown and Royal Prerogative, which do show what moderate notions were enter

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and died April 30, 1692. He was buried in the Temple Church.

Nicholas was first sent to a private school at Highgate'; and, being afterwards removed to Westminster, was at twelve years 2 chosen one of the King's scholars. His master was Busby 3, who suffered none of his scholars to let their powers lie useless; and his exercises in several languages are said to have been written with uncommon degrees of excellence, and yet to have cost him very little labour.

3 At sixteen he had in his father's opinion made advances in learning sufficient to qualify him for the study of law, and was entered a student of the Middle Temple, where for some time he read statutes and reports with proficiency proportionate to the force of his mind, which was already such that he endeavoured to comprehend law, not as a series of precedents or collection of positive precepts, but as a system of rational government and impartial justice *.

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When he was nineteen he was by the death of his father left more to his own direction, and probably from that time suffered law gradually to give way to poetry. At twenty-five he produced The Ambitious Step-mother, which was received with so much favour 5 that he devoted himself from that time wholly to elegant literature 6.

5 His next tragedy (1702) was Tamerlane, in which, under the name of Tamerlane, he intended to characterise king William', and Lewis the Fourteenth under that of Bajazet. The virtues of

tained by the Judges concerning
those matters in a very critical time.'
[Dalison was a judge of the Queen's
Bench from about 1556-9. His Re-
ports, in conjunction with Sergeant
Bendlowes', which come down to 16
Eliz., are a valuable record of the
cases of the time.' Foss's Biog.
Jurid. p. 210.]

'The free-school built by Sir
HAWKINS,
Roger Cholmondely.'
Johnson's Works, 1787, iii. 28.

2' He was not elected till 1688.' NICHOLS, Johnson's Works, 1825, vii. 407 n.

Ante, DRYDEN, 4.

This is Johnson's paraphrase of the following passage by Welwood, in Rowe's Lucan, Preface, p. 38:

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Tamerlane seem to have been arbitrarily assigned him by his poet, for I know not that history gives any other qualities than those which make a conqueror. The fashion, however, of the time was to accumulate upon Lewis all that can raise horror and detestation; and whatever good was withheld from him, that it might not be thrown away, was bestowed upon king William.

This was the tragedy which Rowe valued most, and that which 6 probably, by the help of political auxiliaries, excited most applause; but occasional poetry must often content itself with occasional praise. Tamerlane has for a long time been acted only once a year, on the night when king William landed 2. Our quarrel with Lewis has been long over, and it now gratifies neither zeal nor malice to see him painted with aggravated features, like a Saracen upon a sign.

The Fair Penitent, his next production (1703), is one of the 7 most pleasing tragedies on the stage, where it still keeps its turns of appearing; and probably will long keep them, for there is scarcely any work of any poet at once so interesting by the fable and so delightful by the language. The story is domestick, and therefore easily received by the imagination, and assimilated to common life; the diction is exquisitely harmonious, and soft or spritely as occasion requires 3.

The character of Lothario seems to have been expanded by 8 Richardson into Lovelace, but he has excelled his original in the moral effect of the fiction. Lothario, with gaiety which cannot be hated, and bravery which cannot be despised, retains too much of the spectator's kindness. It was in the power of Richardson alone to teach us at once esteem and detestation; to make virtuous resentment overpower all the benevolence which wit, elegance, and courage naturally excite, and to lose at last the hero in the villain

Garth, in a Prologue designed for Tamerlane, says of William :— 'To valour much he owes, to virtue more;

He fights to save, and conquers to restore;

He strains no text, nor makes dragoons persuade;

He likes religion, but he hates the trade.' Eng. Poets, xxviii. 115. 2 See Appendix H.

3 Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 251), wrote in 1782:-'You would have enjoyed seeing Johnson take me by the hand in the middle of dinner, and repeat, with no small enthusiasm, many passages from The Fair Penitent, &c.'

4 In Clarissa.

5 For Johnson's high opinion of Richardson see Boswell's Johnson, ii. 49, 174.

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The fifth act is not equal to the former: the events of the drama are exhausted, and little remains but to talk of what is past'. It has been observed that the title of the play does not sufficiently correspond with the behaviour of Calista, who at last shews no evident signs of repentance, but may be reasonably suspected of feeling pain from detection rather than from guilt, and expresses more shame than sorrow, and more rage than shame.

His next (1706) was Ulysses; which, with the common fate of mythological stories3, is now generally neglected. We have been too early acquainted with the poetical heroes to expect any pleasure from their revival: to shew them as they have already been shewn is to disgust by repetition; to give them new qualities or new adventures is to offend by violating received notions.

The Royal Convert (1708) seems to have a better claim to longevity. The fable is drawn from an obscure and barbarous age, to which fictions are most easily and properly adapted; for when objects are imperfectly seen they easily take forms from imagination. The scene lies among our ancestors in our own country, and therefore very easily catches attention. Rhodogune is a personage truly tragical, of high spirit and violent passions, great with tempestuous dignity, and wicked with a soul that would have been heroic if it had been virtuous. The motto 5 seems to tell that this play was not successful.

12 Rowe does not always remember what his characters require. In Tamerlane there is some ridiculous mention of the God of Love; and Rhodogune, a savage Saxon, talks of Venus, and the eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter.

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This play discovers its own date by a prediction of the Union,

'It is a very good play for three acts; but failing in the two last answered not the Company's expectation.' Roscius Ang. p. 62. For a ludicrous accident that one night brought the play to an end 'with immoderate fits of laughter' see Biog. Dram. ii. 213.

This play, being all new cloathed and excellently performed, had a successful run.' Roscius Ang. p. 65. Addison wrote to A. Philips in a letter conjecturally, but wrongly, dated 1710:- Mr. Rowe has on the stocks

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in imitation of Cranmer's prophetick promises to Henry the Eighth '. The anticipated blessings of union are not very naturally introduced, nor very happily expressed.

He once (17062) tried to change his hand. He ventured 14 on a comedy, and produced The Biter3, with which, though it was unfavourably treated by the audience, he was himself delighted; for he is said to have sat in the house, laughing with great vehemence whenever he had in his own opinion produced a jest. But finding that he and the publick had no sympathy of mirth he tried at lighter scenes no more.

After The Royal Convert (1714) appeared Fane Shore, written, 15 as its author professes, 'in imitation of Shakespeare's style". In what he thought himself an imitator of Shakespeare it is not easy to conceive. The numbers, the diction, the sentiments, and the conduct, every thing in which imitation can consist, are remote in the utmost degree from the manner of Shakespeare; whose dramas it resembles only as it is an English story, and as some of the persons have their names in history. This play, consisting chiefly of domestick scenes and private distress, lays hold upon the heart. The wife is forgiven because she repents, and the

1 Henry VIII, v. 5.

It was published in 1705. Biog. Dram. ii. 59. Addison wrote in the letter quoted ante, ROWE, 10 n. 2: — "Mr. Rowe has promised the town a farce this winter, but it does not yet appear.' Works, v. 381.

3 There is an ingenious tribe of men sprung up of late years who are for making April fools every day in the year. These gentlemen are commonly distinguished by the name of Biters; a race of men that are perpetually employed in laughing at those mistakes which are of their own production.' ADDISON, The Spectator, No. 47.

Post, ROWE, 30. 'It had a six days' run; the six days running it out of breath, it sickened and expired.' Roscius Ang. p. 62. Congreve wrote on Dec. 9, 1704:-'Rowe writ a foolish farce called The Biter, which was damned.' G. M. Berkeley's Lit. Relics, p. 342. It was printed in 1705.

It was produced on Feb. 2, 1713-4, and was acted nineteen times. Genest's Hist. of the Stage, ii. 524.

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