MINOR POETS.
Sir Samuel Garth—Ambrose Philips—John Philips—Nicholas Rowe—Aaron Hill—Thomas Parnell—Thomas Tickell—William Somerville—John Dyer—William Shenstone—Mark Akenside—David Mallet—Scottish Song-Writers.
Sir Samuel Garth (1660-1717-18).
In Pope's day even the medical profession was influenced by party feeling, and Samuel Garth became known as the most famous Whig physician, but his friendships were not confined to one side, and he appears to have been universally beloved.
Garth came of a Yorkshire family, and was born in 1660. He was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1693, gained a large practice, and is said to have been very benevolent to the poor. The Dispensary (1699) is a satire called forth by the opposition of the Society of Apothecaries, to an edict of the College, and is a mock-heroic poem, which the quarrel made so effective at the time that it passed through several editions. The merit of achieving what the satirist intended may therefore be granted to the Dispensary. Few modern readers, however, will appreciate the welcome it received, and it is ludicrous to read in Anderson's edition of the poet that the poem 'is only inferior in humour, discrimination of character, and poetical ardour to the Rape of the Lock.' It would be far more accurate to say that the Dispensary has not a single merit in common with that poem, and but slight merit of any kind.
The following passage upon death is the most vigorous, and is interesting as having supplied Cowper with a line in the poem on his Mother's Picture:[31]
''Tis to the vulgar Death too harsh appears,
The ill we feel is only in our fears;
To die is landing on some silent shore
Where billows never break, nor tempests roar;
Ere well we feel th' friendly stroke 'tis o'er.
The wise through thought th' insults of death defy,
The fools through blest insensibility.
'Tis what the guilty fear, the pious crave;
Sought by the wretch and vanquished by the brave.
It eases lovers, sets the captive free,
And though a tyrant, offers liberty.'
Addison in defending Garth in the Whig-Examiner from the criticisms of Prior in the Examiner, the organ of the Tory party, says he does not question but the author 'who has endeavoured 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.' The comparison was an unfortunate one. Marlborough's military reputation has grown brighter with time, Garth's fame as a poet has long ago ceased to exist.
A literary although not a poetical interest is associated with the name of "well-natured Garth," who, as Pope acknowledges, was one of his earliest friends; like Arbuthnot, he lived among the wits, and as a member of the famous Kit-cat Club he wrote verses upon the Whig beauties toasted by its members. His name is linked with Dryden's as well as with that of his illustrious successor. It will be remembered how, on the death of Dryden, the poet's body lay in state in the College of Physicians, and how, before the great procession started for Westminster Abbey, Sir Samuel, who was then President, delivered a Latin oration.
Garth died in January, 1717-18, and, according to Pope, was a good Christian without knowing it. Addison, however, who visited Garth in his last illness, told Dr. Berkeley that he rejected Christianity on the assurance of his friend Halley that its doctrines were incomprehensible, and the religion itself an imposture. According to another report which comes through Pope, he actually 'died a papist.'