they contain many things excellent, judicious, and humorous, yet they
will not justify the writer, who dwells upon them in the same rapturous
strain of admiration, with which we speak of a Horace, a Milton, or a
Pope. He had the happiness of an early acquaintance with some of the
most powerful, wisest, and wittiest men of the age in which he lived; he
attached himself to a party, which at last obtained the ascendant, and
he was equally successful in his fortune as his friends: Persons in
these circumstances are seldom praised, or censured with moderation.

We have already seen how warmly Addison espoused the Dr's. writings,
when they were attacked upon a principle of party, and there are many of
the greatest wits of his time who pay him compliments; amongst the rest
is lord Lansdowne, who wrote some verses upon his illness; but as the
lines do no great honour either to his lordship, or the Dr. we forbear
to insert them.

The following passage is taken from one of Pope's Letters, written upon
the death of Dr. Garth, which, we dare say, will be more acceptable.
'The best natured of men (says he) Sir Samuel Garth has left me in
the truest concern for his loss. His death was very heroical, and yet
unaffected enough to have made a saint, or a philosopher famous. But ill
tongues, and worse hearts have branded his last moments, as wrongfully
as they did his life, with irreligion: you must have heard many tales
upon this subject; but if ever there was a good christian, without
knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth.'

Our author was censured for his love of pleasure, in which perhaps it
would be easier to excuse than defend him; but upon the whole, his
character appears to have been very amiable, particularly, that of his
bearing a tide of prosperity with so much, evenness of temper; and his
universal benevolence, which seems not to have been cramped with party
principles; as appears from his piety towards the remains of Dryden.

He died after a short illness, January 18, 1718-19, and was buried the
22d of the same month in the church of Harrow on the Hill, in the county
of Middlesex, in a vault he caused to be built for himself and his
family[7], leaving behind him an only daughter married to the honourable
colonel William Boyle, a younger son of colonel Henry Boyle, who was
brother to the late, and uncle to the present, earl of Burlington[8].
His estates in Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, are now
posses