Born at Little Barford, Bedfordshire, 1674; baptized, 30 June. Early education at a school at Highgate. To Westminster School as King’s Scholar, 1638. Called to Bar at Middle Temple. Abandoned legal profession after death of his father in 1692. Married (i.) Antonia Parsons, 1700 [?]. Play, “The Ambitious Stepmother,” produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1700; “Tamerlane,” 1702; “The Fair Penitent,” 1703; “The Biter,” 1704; “Ulysses,” 1706. “The Royal Convert,” Haymarket, 25 Nov. 1707; “Jane Shore,” Drury Lane, 2 Feb. 1714; “Lady Jane Grey,” Drury Lane, 20 April 1715. Wife died, 1706. Under-Secretary to Sec. of State for Scotland, 1709–11. Poet Laureate, Aug. 1715. Surveyor of Customs, Oct. 1715. Married (ii.) Anne Devenish, 1717. Clerk of Council to Prince of Wales. Clerk of Presentations, 1718. Died, in London, 6 Dec. 1718. Buried in Westminster Abbey. Works: “The Ambitious Stepmother,” 1701; “Tamerlane,” 1702; “The Fair Penitent,” 1703; “Britannia’s Charge to the Sons of Freedom,” 1703; “The Biter,” 1705; “Ulysses,” 1706; “Ode on the late Glorious successes of Her Majesty’s Arms,” 1707; “The Royal Convert,” 1708; “The Tragedy of Jane Shore,” [1714]; “Poems on Several Occasions,” 1714; “Mæcenas,” 1714; “The Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey,” 1715; “Ode for the New Year 1716,” 1716. He translated: Boileau’s “Lutrin,” 1708; De La Bruyère’s “Characters,” 1708; Quillet’s “Callipædiæ,” 1710; Lucan’s “Pharsalia,” 1718; and edited: Shakespeare’s Works, 1709. Collected Works: in 3 vols., 1727; in 2 vols., ed. by Dr. Johnson, 1792.

Personal

  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 make it impossible to part from him without that uneasiness which generally succeeds all our pleasures.

  Mr. Nic. Rowe is made poet laureat in the room of Mr. Tate, deceased. This Rowe is a great whig, and but a mean poet.

  Mr. Rowe, as to his person, was graceful and well made, his face regular and of a manly beauty; he had a quick, and fruitful invention, a deep penetration, and a large compass of thought, with a singular dexterity, and easiness in communicating his opinions. He was master of most parts of polite learning, especially the Classic Authors, both Greek and Latin; he understood the French, Italian and Spanish languages. He had likewise read most of the Greek and Roman histories in their original languages; and most that are written in English, French, Italian and Spanish: He had a good taste in philosophy, and having a firm impression of religion upon his mind, he took delight in divinity, and ecclesiastical history, in both which he made great advances in the times he retired to the country, which were frequent. He expressed upon all occasions, his full persuasion of the truth of revealed religion; and being a sincere member of the established church himself, he pitied, but condemned not, those who departed from him; he abhorred the principle of persecuting men on account of religious opinions, and being strict in his own, he took it not upon him to censure those of another persuasion. His conversation was pleasant, witty, and learned, without the least tincture of affectation or pedantry; and his inimitable manner of diverting, or 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 provocation he met with at any time, he passed them over, without the least thought of resentment or revenge. There were not wanting some malevolent people, and some pretenders to poetry too, that would some times bark at his best performances; but he was too much conscious of his own genius, and had so much good-nature as to forgive them, nor could however be tempted to return them an answer.

  Mr. Rowe’s Plays were written from the heart. He practised the virtue he admired, and he never, in his gayest moments, suffered himself to talk loosely or lightly upon religious or moral subjects; or to turn any thing sacred, or which good men reverenced as such, into ridicule.

  Rowe, in the opinion of Mr. Pope, maintained a decent character, but had no heart. Mr. Addison was justly offended with him for some behaviour which arose from that want, and estranged himself from him; which Rowe felt very severely. Mr. Pope, their common friend, knowing this, took an opportunity, at some juncture of Mr. Addison’s advancement, to tell him poor Rowe was grieved at his displeasure, and what satisfaction he expressed at his good fortune; which he expressed so naturally, that he could not but think him sincere. Addison replied, I do not suspect that he feigned; but the levity of his heart is such, that he is struck with any new adventure, and it would affect him just in the same manner if he heard I was going to be hanged.—Mr. Pope said, he could not deny but that Mr. Addison understood Rowe well.

  Deserves to be remembered as a tragic dramatist on grounds more solid than those which entitle him to an “esteem” such as too many of his contemporaries have failed to secure. The success of his literary career, which may be held to have culminated in his appointment (just after the close of our period) to the Poet-Laureateship, was due in part to his personal presence, breeding, and training,—in part to his assiduous service in the interest of the dominant political party to which he remained consistently attached,—and very largely to the versatility of his talents and to the modesty with which he bore the successes of a singularly prosperous career.

  Rowe died on the 6th December, 1718, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where there is a handsome monument to his memory in Poet’s Corner. On the front of the pedestal is the inscription:—“To the memory of Nicholas Rowe, Esq., who died in 1718, aged forty-five; and of Charlotte, his only daughter, wife of Henry Fane, Esq., who, inheriting her father’s spirit, and amiable in her own innocence and beauty, died in the twenty-second year of her age, 1739.” Then follows a poetical epitaph:—

Tamerlane, 1702

  This was the tragedy which Rowe valued most and that which probably, by the help of political auxiliaries, excited most applause; but occasional poetry must often content itself with occasional praise. “Tamerlane” has for a long time been acted only once a year, on the night when king William landed. Our quarrel with Lewis has been long over; and it now gratifies neither zeal nor malice to see him painted with aggravated features, like a Saracen upon a sign.

  The play upon which its author is said to have “valued himself most,” chiefly interests us as treating one of the most famous themes of the Elisabethan drama. But most assuredly this Tamerlane would have caused supreme astonishment to Marlowe. In the place of the truculent hero of the Old tragedy, with his “high astounding terms,” we are here met by a calm, tolerant, nay philosophic prince, who discusses the common merits of varying forms of religion in a tone resembling that of Nathan the Wise, and whom the severest of personal trials hardly suffice to move from his temperate calm…. The plot is altogether without dramatic probability; everything as usual resolves itself into a love-story; but even here the poet fails to rise to the height of his own situations; his efforts indeed are perceptible, but to borrow a phrase which he appears to affect, “it wo’ not be.”

The Fair Penitent, 1703

  One of the most pleasing tragedies on the stage, where it still keeps its turns of appearing, and probably will long keep them, for there is scarcely any work of any poet at once so interesting by the fable, and so delightful by the language. The story is domestick, and therefore easily received by the imagination, and assimilated to common life; the diction is exquisitely harmonious, and soft or sprightly as occasion requires.

  It is a remarkable instance of the decay of dramatic art at this period, that severa! of the principal authors of the time felt themselves at liberty to write imitations of old plays belonging to the original school, by way of adapting them to the taste of their own age. “The Fair Penitent” of Rowe is well known as a poor imitation of Massinger’s “Fatal Dowry.” It does not greatly excel the original in the management and conduct of the piece; and, in everything else, falls as far beneath it as the baldest translation can sink below the most spirited original.

  In my opinion “The Fair Penitent” while sharing the general features that are so attractive in the works of Rowe, is not indebted for its extraordinary success to any special merit. It is to be feared that this success was not unconnected with the ghastly device of the first scene of the last act, where the unhappy heroine is discovered “in a room hung with Black; on one side Lothario” (her seducer)’s “Body on a Bier; on the other, a Table, with a Skull and other Bones, a Book and a Lamp on it.” It would be an error to suppose that this play, the idea of which is borrowed from Massinger and Field’s “The Fatal Dowry,” shows any sustained endeavour to trace the purifying power of penitence, or to rival the tender pathos of such an Elisabethan tragedy as Heywood’s “A Woman Killed with Kindness.”

Shakespeare’s Works, 1709

  I believe, those who compare it with former copies will find that he has done more than he promised; and that, without the pomp of notes or boasts of criticisms, many passages are happily restored…. He at least contributed to the popularity of his author.

  Rowe’s edition of Shakspere, we doubt not, supplied a general want. Its critical merits were but small.

  In 1709 Nicholas Rowe published a life of the poet, the materials for which were contributed chiefly by Betterton, the celebrated Restoration actor. “I must own,” says Rowe, “a particular obligation to him for the most considerable part of the passage relating to his life which I have here transmitted to the public, his veneration for the memory of Shakspere having engaged him to gather up what remains he could of a name for which he had so great value.” Thus Rowe’s account claims to be based on special inquiry, and though the accuracy of many of its statements has often been questioned, it bears upon it intrinsic evidence of good faith, and in several points it has been strikingly verified by modern research. In the acceptance of tradition scepticism may be pushed to a point where it is little less of a historical vice than uncritical credulity, and because some of Rowe’s anecdotes are picturesque they are not therefore necessarily untrue.

  One of Rowe’s chief achievements was an edition of Shakespeare’s works…. This is reckoned the first attempt to edit Shakespeare in the modern sense. In the prefatory life Rowe embodies 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 commendations as the labours of a pioneer.

Jane Shore, 1714

  It was mighty simple in Rowe, to write a play now, professedly in Shakespeare’s style, that is, professedly in the style of a bad age.

  In what he thought himself an imitator of Shakspeare, it is not easy to conceive. The numbers, the diction, the sentiments, and the conduct, every thing in which imitation can consist, are remote in the utmost degree from the manner of Shakspeare; whose dramas it resembles only as it is an English story, and as some of the persons have their names in history. This play, consisting chiefly of domestick scenes and private distress, lays hold upon the heart. The wife is forgiven because she repents, and the husband is honoured because he forgives. This, therefore, is one of those pieces which we still welcome on the stage.

  Perhaps you never saw Mrs. Siddons act it; but, even read, it is most touching poetry. You must allow Jane Shore her rank among the heroines of the English stage…. Rowe’s Jane Shore I maintain to be perfectly moral; he paints her only in her penitence—in all the horror of remorse—in abject poverty: she is brought before you as the victim of her own guilt, and, if you will compare with Shakespere, I must say that Cleopatra is immoral, and Jane Shore is not.

General

  Rowe writ a foolish farce, called “The Biter,” which was damned.

  We deem it unnecessary to give any specimen of Mr. Rowe’s poetry; the most celebrated speeches in his plays, which are beautifully harmonious; are repeated by every body who reads poetry, or attends plays; and to suppose the reader ignorant of them, would be to degrade him from that rank of intelligence, without which he can be little illuminated by perusing the “Lives of the Poets.”

  Rowe’s genius was rather delicate and soft than strong and pathetic; his compositions soothe us with a tranquil and tender sort of complacency, rather than cleave the heart with pangs of commiseration. His distresses are entirely founded on the passion of love. His diction is extremely elegant and chaste, and his versification highly melodious. His plays are declamations rather than dialogues, and his characters are general and undistinguished from each other.

  Rowe, solemn, florid, and declamatory.

  The version of “Lucan” is one of the greatest productions of English poetry; for there is perhaps none that so completely exhibits the genius and spirit of the original. “Lucan” is distinguished by a kind of dictatorial or philosophick dignity, rather, as Quintilian observes, declamatory than poetical; full of ambitious morality and pointed sentences, comprised in vigorous and animated lines. This character Rowe has very diligently and successfully preserved. His versification which is such as his contemporaries practised, without any attempt at innovation or improvement, seldom wants either melody or force. His author’s sense is sometimes a little diluted by additional infusions, and some times weakened by too much expansion. But such faults are to be expected in all translations, from the constraint of measures and dissimilitude of languages. The “Pharsalia” of Rowe deserves more notice than it obtains, and as it is more read will be more esteemed.

  He is full of elevated and moral sentiments. The poetry is often good, and the language always pure and elegant; but in most of his plays, he is too cold and uninteresting; and flowery rather than tragic. Two, however, he has produced, which deserve to be exempted from this censure, “Jane Shore” and the “Fair Penitent;” in both of which there are so many tender and truly pathetic scenes, as to render them justly favourites of the public.

  Rowe’s “Despairing Shepherd” is the sweetest poem of the kind we have in England.

  Rowe was an honest admirer of Shakspeare, and his modest reverence for this superior genius was rewarded by a return to nature and truth. The traces of imitation are not to be mistaken: the part of Gloster in “Jane Shore” is even directly borrowed from “Richard the Third.” Rowe did not possess boldness and vigour, but sweetness and feeling; he could excite the softer emotions, and hence, in his “Fair Penitent,” “Jane Shore,” and “Lady Jane Gray,” he has successfully chosen female heroines and their weaknesses for his subject.

  If he did not bring back the full fire of the drama, at least preserved its vestal spark from being wholly extinguished.

  The ashes, and scarcely glowing embers, of Rowe.

  Rowe, though deeply infected with the false French taste which was then fashionable, was not unacquainted with the early English writers, and some beneficial effects from this acquaintance are visible in all his Dramas. Perhaps his versification is the best part about him; and his blank verse has a flow and an easy sweetness, which are advantageously contrasted to the tumidity of Dryden, and the feebleness of Otway.

  Was esteemed in his own day a great master of the pathetic, but is now regarded as little more than a smooth and occasionally sounding versifier.

  Rowe’s general characteristics as a man of letters reflect themselves with sufficient distinctness in his tragic dramas, which in a single respect only—but that a very important one—surpass the endeavours of the foremost among his predecessors. In dramatic power, as exhibiting itself in characterisation, he cannot be said to have excelled. Of a genuinely poetic touch he shows few signs. His plays are still occupied almost entirely with themes of “heroic love;” on this pivot everything is made to turn, whatever other passions may be nominally brought into play. In the invention of situations exciting terror or pity Rowe is fertile and skilful; he is fond of night-scenes, and of all the outward machinery of awe and gloom. But he rarely exhibits any natural force even in his most effective passages, and is wanting in impetus or in aspiring ardour, where some exceptional movement of the kind seems to be demanded by his theme. His most distinctive and most praiseworthy feature lies in the greater degree of refinement to which in expression if not in sentiment he has attained. Rowe is indeed far from being an English Racine; his style is too tame to rise to the dignified beauty and exquisite grace proper to the great French tragedian; but he is at least subject to none of those grosser influences which depressed the higher impulses of so many dramatists whose creative genius was not inferior to his own.

  His English verse may be taken to represent what Lord Macaulay calls the critical poetry of his age, the poetry by courtesy,—the poetry to which the memory, the judgment, and the wit contribute far more than the imagination. During the short time he held office as Laureate he appears to have escaped the fate of most of his predecessors; his amiability of temper preserved him from the dislike or envy of his contemporaries, whilst his cleverness protected him from ridicule.

  Rowe’s dramatic work is not yet absolutely forgotten by the world. We still hear of the “gallant gay Lothario,” although many of those who are glib with the words do not know that they come from the “Fair Penitent,” and would not care even if they did know.

  Measured by his contemporary dramatists he is a distinguished playwright. His characters do not live, but he could invent effective scenes, though in some cases the poet’s taste may be questioned.

  To Rowe’s devotion to tragedy alone we owe “Jane Shore” and “Lady Jane Grey.” The tenderness, the grace, the pathos of these plays show how thorough and affectionate had been Rowe’s study of the great Elizabethan drama. The proof of Rowe’s power is in the fact that they held the stage so long and were so popular even in the age other than his own. Jane Shore was one of the great Sarah Siddon’s favourite characters. Sir James Mackintosh spoke with great feeling of the way she acted it, but he added that even were the play never seen upon the stage, but simply read, it would prove itself to be most thrilling poetry, dealing as it does with some of the most touching phases of remorse and pain. But with all the genuine power of these two great tragedies, Rowe’s chief distinction in the history of English literature lies in the fact that he was the first to bring out an edition of Shakespeare, and to inaugurate that revival of the legitimate Shakespearean drama which gave Shakespeare his rightful place in the hearts of the people. His admiration of Shakespeare was honest and sincere, and the effect of that admiration is seen in the excellence of his own work.

  Is dull, but never gross.