Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/346

 horse, and was present at the battle of Culloden in 1746, after which he attended the high sheriffs of Yorkshire in the capacity of trumpeter to the assizes for upwards of forty years. He eked out a scanty subsistence as a puppet showman, travelling far and wide in Scotland and the north of England. His devotion to his old parents commended him to the notice of [q. v.], the popular wine merchant and virtuoso of York, who got up a subscription for him, and caused to be printed for his benefit ‘Macbeth, with Notes by Harry Rowe, York, printed for the Annotator, 1797, 8vo.’ The edition was gratefully dedicated to those patrons who had ‘raised the puppet-master from abject poverty to ease, comfort, and content.’ A second edition, with a portrait of Rowe, appeared in 1799. The so-called ‘emendations’ were probably inspired by Croft, and were intended to raise a laugh at the expense of the accredited commentators. The alterations are based, the reader is informed, upon ‘a careful perusal of a very old manuscript in the possession of my prompter, one of whose ancestors, by the mother's side, was rush-spreader and candle-snuffer at the Globe Play-house, as appears from the following memorandum on a blank page of the MS.: this day, March the fourth, 1598, received the sum of seven shillings and fourpence for six bundles of rushes and two pairs of brass snuffers.’

In 1797 also appeared, in Rowe's name, ‘No Cure No Pay; or the Pharmacopolist, a musical farce,’ York, 8vo, in which some amusing sarcasm is levelled against empirics, with diplomas both sham and genuine, who are represented by Drs. Wax, Potion, and Motion, and the journeyman Marrowbone. Prefixed is an engraved portrait of Rowe, which is reproduced in Chambers's ‘Book of Days.’ In some copies Rowe is represented with a copy of ‘Macbeth’ in his hand, and a puppet-show in the background, with the legend ‘A manager turned author.’ The annotations were again furnished by ‘a friend,’ probably Croft, who, shortly after Rowe's death in York poorhouse, on 2 Oct. 1800, issued ‘Memoirs of Harry Rowe, constructed from materials found in an old box after his decease,’ the profits of which were devoted to the York Dispensary. A copy of Rowe's ‘Macbeth,’ in the Boston Public Library, contains some manuscript notes by its former owner, [q. v.], including an erroneous ascription of the annotations to Dr. [q. v.]



ROWE, JOHN (1626–1677), nonconformist divine, son of John Rowe (1588–1660), and grandson of Lawrence Rowe, was born at Crediton, Devonshire, in 1626. His religious biography of his father, published in 1673, is included in Clarke's ‘Lives,’ 1683. On 1 April 1642 he entered as a batler at New Inn Hall, Oxford. Next year, Oxford being garrisoned for the king and New Inn Hall used as a mint, he removed to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1646. On 8 Dec. 1648 he was incorporated B.A. at Oxford; on 12 Dec. he was admitted M.A., and on 11 Oct. 1649 was made fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, by the parliamentary visitors. He was a good patristic scholar, well read in philosophy and jurisprudence, and versed in the schoolmen. From his youth to the last he made a practice of keeping a diary in Greek. His first preferment was a lectureship at Witney, Oxfordshire; this had once been a puritan place, but Rowe's congregation was thin. On 3 Feb. 1653 the ‘most pleasant comedy of Mucedorus’ was acted in a room of the inn at Witney, before three hundred or four hundred spectators, by a company of amateurs from Stanton-Harcourt. After the second act the floor broke down, and five persons were killed. Rowe made this catastrophe the topic of a series of sermons. He soon became lecturer at Tiverton, Devonshire, vacating his fellowship, and was made assistant-commissioner to the ‘expurgators’ (August 1654) for Devonshire, but can hardly have acted as such, for in the same year he succeeded William Strong (d. June 1654) as preacher at Westminster Abbey and pastor of an independent church which met in the abbey. Among its members was (1602–1659) [q. v.], the regicide, whose funeral sermon was preached by Rowe. On 14 March 1660 he was appointed one of the approvers of ministers.

The Restoration deprived him of his offices. He migrated with his church to Bartholomew Close, and afterwards to Holborn (probably Baker's Court), where [q. v.] was his assistant. He died on 12 Oct. 1677, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. In person he was tall and dignified, with a pleasing manner. He left two sons— [q. v.] and Benoni [see under ]. His sister became the mother of [q. v.]

He published, besides a sermon before parliament (1656) and his father's life above noted:  ‘Tragi-Comœdia … a Brief Rela-