Enough for him that Congreve was his friend, That Garth, and steele, and Addifon commend, That Brunswick with the bays his temples bound, And Parker with immortal honours crown'd, AMHURST. O Sacred Shade! thy Writings fhall be read Till even arts are with their founders dead'; But thou shalt live when dead, and flourish in the tomb! BECKINGHAM EMBELLISHED WITH SUPERB ENGRAVINGS London: Printed for C. COOKE, No. 17, Paternofter-Row: And fold by all the Bookfellers in Great-Britain and Ireland. NC dramatic writings, was born in the TICHOLAS ROWE, an author much esteemed year 1673, and defcended from a family which poffeffed a good eftate at Lamberton in the county of Devon. His ancestor had acquired renown in the holy war, and tranfmitted to pofterity his heroic achievements, in the arms borne by the family. His father, John Rowe, who was the first that quitted rural life, and the delightful as well as falutary employment of cultivating his paternal lands, for any lucrative profeffion; applied himself to the study of the law, in which he acquired fuch a competent knowledge as raised him to the degree of Serjeant, when he published Benlow's and Dallifon's Reports in the reign of James II. This undertaking offered him an opportunity of defending, in a preface, the liberties of the fubjects, from the encroachments of the crown, as had been the undeviating, practice of his ancestors, amidst all the changes of government. He died April the thirtieth, and was interred in the Temple church. Nicholas Rowe was initiated in claffical learning at a private fchool at Highgate, and thence removed to Westminster, where, at the age of twelve years, he was elected one of the King's fcholars. His genius and application foon recommended him to the favourable regard of his master, Dr. Busby, who never failed to countenance merit, and he was admired throughout the school for the accuracy and facility with which he wrote his exercises in different languages. His father defigning him for the profeffion of the law, removed him, at the age of fixteen, from Weftminster school to the Middle Temple, where he was entered a student, and applied himself with fuch diligence and perfeverance, as enabled him, in the course of a fhort time, to gain a very comprehenfive knowledge of the law, not merely as a feries of precedents, A 3 but |