Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/244

230 mind, he took great delight in divinity and ecclesiastical history.

"His conversation was pleasant, witty, and learned, without the least tincture of affectation or pedantry; and his inimitable manner of diverting and enlivening the company made it impossible for any one to be out of humour when he was in it. Envy and detraction seemed to be entirely foreign to his constitution; and whatever provocations he met with at any time, he passed them over without the least thought of resentment or revenge."

Pope bears testimony to the vivacity of his disposition. In one of his letters he writes thus: "Mr. Rowe accompanied me, and passed a week in the forest. I need not tell you how much a man of his turn entertained me; but I must acquaint you there is a vivacity and gaiety of disposition almost peculiar to him, which makes it impossible to part from him without that uneasiness which generally succeeds all our pleasures."

Our author had his weaknesses, however, as the following trifling anecdote will show. Strolling one day into the famed coffee-house, "The Cocoa Tree," in St. James's Street, he saw Garth in conversation with two noblemen; and sitting down nearly opposite, attempted to catch the Doctor's eye. Garth perceived his drift, and was obtusely blind to all his advances. At length Rowe summoned a waiter, and sent him to ask Garth for his snuff-box, a valuable one, the gift of some foreign prince. The box was sent, but the lender still appeared absorbed in conversation. The request was repeated two or three times with no better success. At length Garth drew out a pencil, wrote on the lid the two Greek characters, φ. ς. (fie, Rowe), and then sent it across. Rowe rose and left the room in high dudgeon.

He translated the first book of Quillet's "Callipœdia," and the golden verses of Pythagoras.