Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/339

Rh Jeuriel’s Antiquities, civil law, the Belles Lettres, and experimental philoſophy; and eſtabliſhed a reputation for capacity, application, and an obliging deportment, both among the profeſſors and ſtudents. He returned from that celebrated ſeat of literature, with a gpeat acceſſion of knowledge, entirely incorrupt in his morals, which he had preſerved as inviolate, as he could have done under the moſt vigilant eye, though left without any reſtraints but thoſe of his own virtue and prudence.

The love of liberty had always been ore of Mr. Rowe’s darling paſſions. He was very much confirmed therein, by his familiar acquaintance with the hiſtory and noble authors of Greece and Rome, whoſe very ſpirit was tranferredtranſferred [sic] into him: By reſiding ſo long at a Republic, he had continual examples at the ineſtimable value of freedom, as the parent of induſtry, and the univerſal ſource of ſocial happineſs. Tyranny of every kind he ſincerely deteſted; but moſt of all eccleſiaſtical tyranny, deeming the ſlavery of the mind the moſt abject and ignominious, and in its conſequences more pernicious than any other.

He was a perfect maſter of the Greek, Latin and French languages; and, which is ſeldom known to happen, had at once ſuch a prodigious memory, and unexhaustible fund of wit, as would have ſingly been admired, and much more united. Theſe qualities, with an eaſy fluency of ſpeech, a frankneſs, and benevolence of diſpoſition, and a communicative temper, made his company much ſollicited by all who knew him. He animated the converſation, and inſtructed his companions by the acuteneſs of his obſervations.

He had formed a deſign to compile the lives of all the illuſtrious perſons of antiquity, omitted by Plutarch; and for this purpoſe read the antient hiſtorians with great care. This deſign he in part executed. Eight lives were publiſhed ſince his ,