e's handwriting. It is
now, however, the opinion of experts that the writing is not Pope's. If
he be the author, it is the only example of blank verse which we have
from his pen.

CHAPTER III.

MINOR POETS.

Sir Samuel Garth--Ambrose Philips--John Philips--Nicholas
Rowe--Aaron Hill--Thomas Parnell--Thomas Tickell--William
Somerville--John Dyer--William Shenstone--Mark Akenside--David
Mallet--Scottish Song-Writers.

[Sidenote: Sir Samuel Garth (1660-1717-18).]

In Pope's day even the medical profession was influenced by party
feeling, and Samuel Garth became known as the most famous Whig
physician, but his friendships were not confined to one side, and he
appears to have been universally beloved.

Garth came of a Yorkshire family, and was born in 1660. He was admitted
a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1693, gained a large practice,
and is said to have been very benevolent to the poor. The _Dispensary_
(1699) is a satire called forth by the opposition of the Society of
Apothecaries, to an edict of the College, and is a mock-heroic poem,
which the quarrel made so effective at the time that it passed through
several editions. The merit of achieving what the satirist intended may
therefore be granted to the _Dispensary_. Few modern readers, however,
will appreciate the welcome it received, and it is ludicrous to read in
Anderson's edition of the poet that the poem 'is only inferior in
humour, discrimination of character, and poetical ardour to the _Rape of
the Lock_.' It would be far more accurate to say that the _Dispensary_
has not a single merit in common with that poem, and but slight merit of
any kind.

The following passage upon death is the most vigorous, and is
interesting as having supplied Cowper with a line in the poem on his
Mother's Picture:[31]

''Tis to the vulgar Death too harsh appears,
The ill we feel is only in our fears;
To die is landing on some silent shore
Where billows never break, nor tempests roar;
Ere well we feel th' friendly stroke 'tis o'er.
The wise through thought th' insults of death defy,
The fools through blest insensibility.
'Tis what the guilty fear, the pious crave;
Sought by the wretch and vanquished by the brave.
It eases lovers, sets the captive free,
And though a tyrant, offers liberty.'

Addison in defending Garth in the _Whig-Examiner_ from the criticisms of
Prior in the _Examiner_, the organ of