s 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 intrinsic popularity, it has been scarcely
able to support itself.

ROWE.

Nicholas Rowe was born at Little Beckford, in Bedfordshire, in 1673. His
family had long possessed a considerable estate, with a good house,
at Lambertoun 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 part 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. He was made a serjeant, 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 chosen one of the
King's Scholars. His master was Busby, 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. 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. 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 that
he devoted himself from that time wholly to elegant literature.

His next tragedy (1702) was Tamerlane, in which, under the name of
T