Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/349

 also cleverly adapted some odes of Horace to current affairs, and published many poems on public occasions. These included ‘Britannia's Charge to the Sons of Freedom’ (1703, s. sh. fol.), ‘the late glorious successes of her Majesty's arms,’ humbly inscribed to the Earl of Godolphin, 1707 (fol.), and ‘Mæcenas,’ verses occasioned by the honours conferred on the Earl of Halifax, 1714 (fol.). He contributed a memoir of Boileau to a translation of Boileau's ‘Lutrin’ (1708), took some part in a collective rendering of Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ prefixed a translation of Pythagoras's ‘Golden Verses’ to an English edition of Dacier's ‘Life of Pythagoras’ (1707), and published translations of De la Bruyère's ‘Characters’ (1708) and Quillet's ‘Callipædia’ (1710).

One of Rowe's chief achievements was an edition of Shakespeare's works, which he published in 1709, with a dedication to the Duke of Somerset (6 vols.). This is reckoned the first attempt to edit Shakespeare in the modern sense. In the prefatory life Rowe embodied a series of traditions which he had commissioned the actor Betterton to collect for him while on a visit to Stratford-on-Avon; many of them were in danger of perishing without a record. Rowe displayed much sagacity in the choice and treatment of his biographic materials, and the memoir is consequently of permanent value. As a textual editor his services were less notable, but they deserve commendation as the labours of a pioneer. His text followed that of the fourth folio of 1685; the plays were printed in the same order, but the seven spurious plays were transferred from the beginning to the end. Rowe did not compare his text with that of the first folio or the quartos, but in the case of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ he met with an early quarto while his edition was passing through the press, and inserted at the end of the play the prologue which is only met with in the quartos. He made a few happy emendations, some of which coincide accidentally with the readings of the first folio; but his text is deformed by many palpable errors. His practical experience as a playwright induced him, however, to prefix for the first time a list of dramatis personæ to each play, to divide and number acts and scenes on rational principles, and to mark the entrances and exits of the characters. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar he corrected and modernised (Cambridge Shakespeare, pref. p. xxv). For his labours Rowe received the sum of 36l. 10s. (, Lit. Anecdotes, v. 597). A new edition of his Shakespeare appeared in 1714 (8 vols. 12mo). By way of completing this edition, Curll issued an unauthorised ninth volume, containing Shakespeare's poems and an essay on the drama by Gildon. Rowe is said to have projected an edition of Massinger's works, but apparently contented himself with plagiarising Massinger's ‘Fatal Dowry’ in his ‘Fair Penitent.’

Rowe interested himself in politics, as an ardent whig. On 5 Feb. 1708–9 he became under-secretary to the Duke of Queensberry, secretary of state for Scotland, and held office till the duke's death in 1711 (, vi. 404). Although it is stated that Rowe's devotion to the whigs was so great that he declined to converse with men of the opposites party, Pope relates the anecdote that he applied to Lord Oxford for employment, that Oxford advised him to learn Spanish, and that after Rowe had at much pains followed the advice, he received from Oxford only the remark, ‘Then, sir, I envy you the pleasure of reading “Don Quixote” in the original’ (, Anecdotes, p. 178). At the accession of George I, Rowe obtained the recognition he sought. On 1 Aug. 1715 he was made poet laureate in succession to Nahum Tate. He was also appointed in October one of the land surveyors of the customs of the port of London. The Prince of Wales chose him to be clerk of his council, and in May 1718, when Thomas Parker, first earl of Macclesfield [q. v.], became lord chancellor, he appointed Rowe clerk of the presentations.

His literary work in later life included a tame series of official new year odes addressed to the king; ‘Verses upon the Sickness and Recovery of Robert Walpole’ in a volume called ‘State Poems’ (1716, not collected); an epilogue for Mrs. Centlivre's ‘Cruel Gift’ (Drury Lane, 17 Dec. 1716); and a prologue, in which he denounced Jacobitism, for Colley Cibber's ‘Nonjuror’ (Drury Lane, 6 Oct. 1717). At the same time he completed a verse translation of Lucan's ‘Pharsalia.’ The ninth book he had already contributed to Tonson's ‘Miscellanies’ (vol. vi.) in 1710 (cf., Works, vi. 63 et seq.). The whole was published immediately after his death, with a laudatory memoir by Dr. Welwood and a dedication to George I by Rowe's widow. The translation exhibits much of ‘the spirit and genius of the original,’ although it is a paraphrase rather than a literal translation. Warton deemed Rowe's version superior to the original. Rowe died on 6 Dec. 1718, and was buried thirteen days later in the Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. Rysbrack executed the bust which adorns the elaborate monument. Pope wrote an epitaph, which is extant in two forms. In Pope's published ‘Miscellanies’ it fills eight lines; that on the