liberally applauded'. It was on the side of charity against the intrigues of interest, and of regular learning against licentious usurpation of medical authority 2, and was therefore naturally favoured by those who read and can judge of poetry 3.

11 In 1697 Garth spoke that which is now called the Harveian Oration; which the authors of the Biographia5 mention with more praise than the passage quoted in their notes will fully justify. Garth, speaking of the mischief done by quacks, has these expressions:

12

'Non tamen telis vulnerat ista agyrtarum colluvies, sed theriacâ ¤ quâdam magis perniciosâ, non pyrio, sed pulvere nescio quo exotico certat, non globulis plumbeis, sed pilulis æque lethalibus interficit".

This was certainly thought fine by the author, and is still admired by his biographer. In October 1702 he became one of the censors of the College.

Garth, being an active and zealous Whig, was a member of the

Kit-cat club, and by consequence 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 dismission, a short poem 3, which was criticised in The Examiner, and so successfully either defended or excused by Mr. Addison 5 that, for the sake of the vindication, it ought to be preserved.

At the accession of the present Family his merits were acknow- 13 ledged and rewarded. He was knighted with the sword of his hero, Marlborough, and was made physician in ordinary to the king and physician-general to the army.

He then undertook an edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, trans- 14 lated by several hands'; which he recommended by a Preface,

''Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon can all of them bear a part. The KitCat itself is said to have taken its original from a mutton-pie.' ADDISON, The Spectator, No. 9.

'The master of the house where the Club met was Christopher Katt. Jacob Tonson was Secretary, who has his own and all the members' pictures by Kneller.' POPE, Spence's Anec. p. 337. These pictures, being uniform in size, have given their name to all portraits of that size-28 inches by 36.

For Pope's epigram on the Club see his Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 446, and for Garth's Verses written for the Toasting-Glasses see Eng. Poets, xxviii. 113. See also post, BLACKMORE, 21; Hearne's Remains, i. 74. Horace Walpole describes the Club as 'generally mentioned as a set of wits, in reality the patriots that saved Britain.' Anecdotes of Painting, iii. 205.

3

Ante, PARNELL, 5.
Eng. Poets, xxviii. 109.

It was written

For Sept. 7, 1710. by Prior. Post, PRIOR, 22.

5 In The Whig Examiner, No. I, Addison's Works, iv. 370. Addison thus ends:The same who has endeavoured here to prove that he who wrote The Dispensary was no poet, will very suddenly undertake

to show that he who gained the Battle of Blenheim is no general.'

6

Biog. Brit. p. 2133, which refers to Chronological Diary, 1714-15, P. 12. Of this work I can learn nothing in the British Museum. Garth was knighted on Oct. 11, 1714. Chron. Hist. of Gt. Brit. 1716, p.784. In a note in The Tatler, 1789, ii. 273, it is stated that Steele was knighted with the same sword. Lord Berkeley of Stratton wrote on Jan. 9, 1713:-'The Duchess of Marlborough hath given great presents at her taking leave of her friends, several fine diamond rings and other jewels of great value, to Dr. Garth for one. Wentworth Papers, p. 313.

It was published in 1717 by Jacob Tonson. In a ballad entitled Sandys's Ghost (for Sandys see ante, COWLEY, 197), attributed to Swift (Works, xiii. 292) and Pope (Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 486), the writer says:

'I hear the beat of Jacob's drums,
Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
See first the merry P-[? Pembroke]

comes

In haste, without his garter. Then lords and lordlings, 'squires and knights,

Wits, witlings, prigs and peers! Garth at St. James's, and at White's, Beats up for volunteers.'

This edition is composed of versions by Addison, Congreve, Dryden, Gay, Garth, Pope and Rowe, and eleven other poets.

15

written with more ostentation than ability: his notions are halfformed, and his materials immethodically confused'. This was his last work. He died Jan. 18, 1717-18, and was buried at Harrow-on-the-Hill 2.

His personal character seems to have been social and liberal 3. 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 imparted his kindness to those who were not supposed to favour his principles. He was an early encourager of Pope, and was at once the friend of Addison 5 and of Granville. He is accused of voluptuousness and irreligion';

Johnson, after describing how 'stock-jobbers affect dress, gaiety and elegance, and mathematicians labour to be wits,' continues:-' That absurdity of pride could proceed only from ignorance of themselves, by which Garth attempted criticism, and Congreve waived his title to dramatic reputation, and desired to be considered only as a gentleman [post, CONGREVE, 31]. The Rambler, No. 24. For Garth's strange criticisms see J. Warton's Essay on Pope, ii. 89.

2 Barber wrote to Swift :-'You may remember Mr. Garth said he was glad when he was dying, for he was weary of having his shoes pulled off and on.' Swift's Works, xviii. 273.

'A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over.' BACON,

Essays, No. ii. According to an account in Spence's Anec. p. 114, Garth took means to hasten on his death, on being told that he might linger in ill health for years.

Bolingbroke (Works, iv. 90) describes him as 'the best-natured ingenious wild man I ever knew.' Lady M. W. Montagu wrote about 1712 (Letters, i. 242):-'The Duke of Grafton and Dr. Garth ran a footmatch in the Mall of 200 yards, and the latter, to his immortal glory, beat.'

Pope dedicated to him his Second Pastoral. In Prol. Sat. 1. 137 he writes:

'Well-natur'd Garth inflam'd with early praise;

And Congreve lov'd, and Swift endur'd my lays.'

It

5 He wrote the Epilogue to Addison's Cato. Eng. Poets, xxviii. 120; Addison's Works, i. 226. 'It was severely and not unreasonably censured as ignoble and out of place.' MACAULAY, Essays, iv. 227. was praised by Steele. 'Dr. Garth has very agreeably rallied the mercenary traffic between men and women of this age in the Epilogue.' The Guardian, No. 33.

Granville wrote verses To My Friend Dr. Garth in his Sickness. Eng. Poets, xxxviii. 38. He was as strong a Tory as Addison was a Whig. Post, Granville, 16, 18.

7

According to Atterbury, in an epitaph for St. Evremond's tomb in the Abbey, 'he commended him for his indifference to all religion.' Atterbury Corres. iii. 199. 'The offensive passage,' writes the editor, 'is not in the epitaph. See also ante, DRYDEN, 153 n.

In Berkeley's Memoirs, 1784, p. 30, it is stated that Garth, in his last illness, urged by Addison to prepare for death, replied :-'Surely, Addison, I have good reason not to believe those trifles, since Dr. Halley, who has dealt so much in demonstration, has assured me that the doctrines of Christianity are incomprehensible, and the religion itself an imposture.' Berkeley, hearing of this from Addison, wrote The Analyst, or a Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician, 1734.

and Pope, who says that if ever there was a good Christian without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth,' seems not able to deny what he is angry to hear and loth to confess 1.

Pope afterwards declared himself convinced that Garth died 16 in the communion of the Church of Rome, having been privately reconciled. It is observed by Lowth3, that there is less distance than is thought between scepticism and popery, and that a mind wearied with perpetual doubt willingly seeks repose in the bosom of an infallible church".

His poetry has been praised at least equally to its merit 5. In 17 The Dispensary there is a strain of smooth and free versification; but few lines are eminently elegant. No passages fall below

mediocrity, and few rise much above it. The plan seems formed without just proportion to the subject; the means and end have no necessary connection. Resnel, in his Preface to Pope's Essay, remarks that Garth exhibits no discrimination of characters, and that what any one says might with equal propriety have been

Pope wrote this to Jervas in 1718. Works (Elwin and Courthope), (viii. 28). Three years earlier he had written :

'Farewell, Arbuthnot's raillery

On every learned sot; And Garth, the best good Christian he,

Although he knows it not.'

Farewell to London, ib. iv. 482. In 1712 Swift wrote of Garth sarcastically:-' Yet I will be bold to say in his defence, that I believe he is as good a Christian as he is a poet.' Works, v. 418.

'Garth, being questioned by Addison upon his creed, is said to have replied that he was of the religion of wise men; and being urged to explain himself further, he added that wise men kept their own secrets.' Spence's Anec. p. 115 n.

2

'He died a Papist, as I was assured by Mr. Blount, who carried the Father to him in his last hours.' 16. p. 2. For the same absurd assertion about Milton see ante, MILTON,

165 n.

Johnson may refer to William Lowth, a theological writer, father of Robert Lowth, Bishop of London, Warburton's adversary.

* Ante, DRYDEN, 118; Boswell's Johnson, iv. 289. This paragraph is not in the first edition.

5 'On y trouve beaucoup plus d'imagination, de variété, de naïveté que dans le Lutrin.' VOLTAIRE, Euvres, xxxiv. 263.

'Is not it extraordinary that two of our very best poets, Garth and Darwin, should have been physicians?' HORACE WALPOLE, Letters, ix. 372. 'Our approbation of The Dispensary at present is cooler, for it owed part of its fame to party.' GOLDSMITH, Works, iii. 437. See also ib. p. 432. For Garth's imitation of Denham sée ante, DENHAM, 28.

• The finest lines are perhaps the following:

'To die is landing on some silent shore,

Where billows never break nor tempests roar;

Ere well we feel the friendly stroke

'tis o'er.' Eng. Poets, xxviii. 45. Cowper borrows the second line in his My Mother's Picture, Works, x. 68:

'So thou, with sails how swift! hast reach'd the shore

"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar."'

said by another'. The general design is perhaps open to criticism; but the composition can seldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never slumbers in self-indulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; scarce a line is left unfinished, nor is it easy to find an expression used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expressed. It was remarked by Pope that The Dispensary had been corrected in every edition, and that every change was an improvement. It appears, however, to want something of poetical ardour, and something of general delectation; and therefore, since it has been no longer supported by accidental and extrinsick popularity, it has been scarcely able to support itself.