Rowe

“ We conceive, that for every purpose of practical criticism, that is a good tragedy which draws tears without moving laughter. Rowe’s play is founded on one of Massinger’s, the Fatal Dowry, in which the characters are a good deal changed, and the interest not increased. The genius of Rowe was slow and timid, and loved the ground: he had not ‘a Muse of fire to ascend the brightest heaven of invention:’ but he had art and judgment enough to accommodate the more daring flights of a ruder age to the polished well-bred mediocrity of the age he lived in. ”

“ Rowe secretary for public affairs; and when that nobleman came to know him well, he was never more delighted than when in his company: After the duke's death, all avenues were stopt to his preferment; and during the rest of queen Anne's reign, he passed his time with the Muses and his books, and sometimes with the conversation of his friends.
While Mr. Rowe was thus without a patron, he went one day to pay his court to the earl of Oxford, lord high treasurer of England, then at the head of the Tory faction, who asked him if he understood Spanish well? ”

“ Are you a dummy, Rowe, or just a dead one?"
"Money doesn't seem to be much of an object—"
"No object! My God, Rowe, now I know you're a dead one! You're no good; come on home. I'll go up and close the thing myself—no, stay there! I'll be up tomorrow—tomorrow—hear that?"
Phil Rowe emerged from the telephone booth in the Commercial House with the pallor of his face accentuated. To buy this pine had been to him the entry into his own, but Luke Taylor would not give him time. To have the old man close the deal himself would rob Rowe of his coveted glory. ”

“ George I granted her on 8 May 1719 a pension of 40l. a year in consideration of Rowe's translation of Lucan. She died on 6 Dec. 1747, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Rowe was a cultivated man, well acquainted with the classics, and with French, Italian, and Spanish literature. Mrs. Oldfield used to say the best school she had ever known was ‘only hearing Rowe read her part in his tragedies’ (Richardsoniana, p. 77; Spence, p. 380) . He was a charming companion, always witty and vivacious. ”

“ Helen Foraker had heard, had seen the enmity between Taylor and Rowe. She stared at John and as he dodged that first blow she turned and stumbled through the doorway and ran across the street, leaping into her car, fleeing for the sanctity of her forest where she could think and reason and try to straighten this thing out for herself.
She had driven him out, yet he had blocked Rowe in his purpose. He had betrayed her and today he had been her defender. The throbbing of her heart almost choked her: wild hope and abject misery blinded her. ”

“ Her voice was sharp and brittle and brought slow color to Rowe's face.
"You are too hasty, Miss Foraker."
"Too tardy, I should say. I don't care to sell, Mr. Rowe, and I have work to do."
She rose.
The man leaned back in his chair and smiled. "You have the courage to refuse a man who has all he wants but happiness and sees happiness in the possession of your forest?" ”

“ Rowe the next Monday.
“Shall we shut up Zip?” asked Mrs. Rowe, as she brought her husband a glass of milk.
“No, my dear,” Mr. Rowe smiled. “Let the little Mexican follow. I believe his dogship [13] thinks none of the family can be trusted anywhere without him.”
As soon as Mr. Rowe had gone, Mrs. Rowe hastened to call Molly from the book she was reading.
“Come, Molly, while papa is away we will begin our packing. Please ask Hop Kee to take the largest trunk from the store-room, and set it down in the upper hall in front of the grate.” ”

“ Miss Rowe is one of the most normal people I have ever known."
"So she impressed me, at least most of the time. Indeed the doctor says that a person who has those attacks may be quite normal part of the time, only sometimes they get strange ideas into their heads and behave queerly. That was what Miss Rowe was doing. It didn't seem altogether wise to have her here."
There was an ominous glitter in the ill man's eyes, the muscles in his cheeks twitched as his lips tightened.
"What do you mean by 'not altogether wise'?" he inquired coldly.
"I see you don't believe me, Roger. ”

“ Rowe the honour not only of imitating some lines in his own poems, but of printing the elegy in 1720 as an appendix to his ‘Eloisa and Abelard’ (2nd edit.) . Mrs. Rowe never completely recovered from the grief of her bereavement. Retiring to Frome, where she inherited a small property from her father, she devoted herself to pious exercises, occasionally varied by literary work or sketching. ”

“ Law proved uncongenial. From youth he had read much literature, especially dramatic literature, both classical and modern, and he was soon fired with the ambition to try his hand as a dramatist. His father's death in 1692, which put him in possession of an income of 300l. a year, enabled him to follow his own inclinations.
Forsaking the bar, although still residing in the Temple, Rowe early in 1700 saw his blank-verse tragedy, ‘The Ambitious Stepmother,’ produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields. ”

“ Rowe was a lady quite famous in her own time; to an elevated piety she united in her style of composition many of the faults of the age in which she lived; her works were tinctured by an ardent mode of expression little in harmony with the more frigid expressions of our own day. For Dr. Watts she entertained the highest esteem. She died suddenly, but in her cabinet were found letters for two or three of the friends who held the highest place in her affections, especially for the Countess of Hertford and Dr. Watts ”

“ There are limits to endurance. You've overstepped them."
His manner was quite easy, almost tolerant.
"So you—" Rowe began again.
"You will keep still now." John interrupted. "You will keep still," voice rising, "or I'll thrash you until you grovel on your knees before Miss Foraker!"
Rowe drew back. A choking sound came from his throat and he shook his head.
"If you know what's best for you, you'll keep out of this!" he cried, beside himself. "You've done enough now to damn you forever in the old man's eyes! You've blocked me for the last time, Taylor!" ”

“ Rowe is fortunate to be blessed with a most superiorly skilled receptorman or he is gifted with an awesome ability to submerge his total being in the role he plays. In this feelie it is as if Mr. Rowe, the actor, dies and imparts only his life force to the character of the cocky youngster who comes fully alive without the slightest trace of the personality of Jason Rowe. ”

“ And here, if we may descend from barristers to solicitors, let us render a tribute of respect to the memory of a fine old fellow, a practitioner in the latter branch of the legal profession. We speak of George Rowe, of whom we knew much, and nothing but what was admirable. He was a warm friend and a delightful companion. He loved the good things of this world, but he liked others to enjoy them with him. He was fond of society, and in his own house kept, we always thought, the best table in Liverpool. ”

“ The warbled notes of Rowe's ecstatic song.
Old Avon pleas'd, his reedy forehead rears,
And polish'd Orrery delighted hears.
See with what transport she resigns her breath,
Snatch'd by a sudden, but a wish'd-for death!
Releas'd from earth, with smiles she roars on high
Amidst her kindred spirits of the sky,
Where faith and love those endless joys bestow,
That warm'd her lays, and fill'd her hopes below.
Nor can her noble [8] friend escape unseen,
Or from the muse her modest virtues screen ”

“ Rowe, "that was in the Royal Navy like myself. He lives near here, and they're decent folk. The place is a poor place, but you'll have to make the best of it, young gentlemen, and a shilling 'll cover the damage. If you wants supper you must pay for it. Give the missis the money, and she'll do the best she can, and bring you the change to a half-farthing."
My courage was now fully restored, but Fred was very much overwhelmed by the roughness of the streets we passed through, the drunken, quarrelling, poverty-struck people, and the grim, dirty old houses. ”

“ He left a son, who died young. Rowe was rough but kindly, and unconventional in his habits of life. The natives called him ‘Old Red Breeches.’ He was an accomplished musician and a good linguist, speaking French, Portuguese, and Italian. ”

“ If the Elizabethan play is confused, long spun out, and not especially edifying, it is yet occasionally intense in its emotional effect and maintains some verisimilitude of life and character. Rowe's artificially ingenious and morally mellifluous play, if edifying, is never thrilling. ”

“ Lucy Rowe was favoured with these observations, heightened by occasional hits at her own misfortune in that she was a Rowe, and could not boast one thimbleful of Whyte blood in her veins.
It was the almost daily care of Mrs. Rowe to impress the people with whom her business brought her in contact, with the gulf that lay between her and her niece; although, through the early and [Pg 24] inexplicable condescension of a Miss Harriet Whyte, of Battersea, they bore the same name, Miss Rowe was no blood relation whatever. ”

“ The almost saint-like innocence of her life, the felicity of her natural disposition, and the superior sprightliness of her temper, which she always retained, seem to have prolonged the period, not only of her beauty, but youth, beyond their ordinary limits. The appearances of age had not time to steal upon a mind engaged only in the contemplation of sublime and noble subjects. This observation may seem misplaced; but Mr. Rowe was but twenty-three. Though not a regular beauty, she possessed a large measure of the charms of her sex. ”

“ Rowe repeated with a scornful laugh. "If Doak can make mutiny out of it, an' prove to a judge that I wasn't doin' any more'n a decent man has a right to do, by defendin' himself, let him go ahead an' I'll stand the shot. Say, Uncle Ben, will you keep me here a little while, pervidin' I'll turn to an' work my board?"
"For certain, Reuben. You're welcome to stay as long as you like, an' needn't distress yourself tryin' to pay for what you eat. It kinder looks as if my family was growin' faster'n I counted on, an' at this rate I'll have to get somebody to help me out with the housekeepin'." ”

“ For his labours Rowe received the sum of 36l. 10s. (Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, v. 597) . A new edition of his Shakespeare appeared in 1714 (8 vols. 12mo) . By way of completing this edition, Curll issued an unauthorised ninth volume, containing Shakespeare's poems and an essay on the drama by Gildon. Rowe is said to have projected an edition of Massinger's works, but apparently contented himself with plagiarising Massinger's ‘Fatal Dowry’ in his ‘Fair Penitent.’
Rowe interested himself in politics, as an ardent whig. ”

“ Then the two men bent their backs to the oars, as if not eager for further conversation, and Mr. Rowe said in a confident tone to his companions:
"You can set it down as a fact that Eliakim won't dare to try any more funny business, seein's he's roused the folks at the Port. We've had a mighty lucky day of it, 'cordin' to my way of thinkin', for what he might do has bothered me not a little." ”

“ Beside what call has he to do anythin' agin us? We paid cash for the schooner, an' more than anybody else would give, at a time when he wanted to sell her, so, as I've figgered it, we did him a good turn."
"There's no goin' back of that, Uncle Ben," Mr. Rowe agreed, "but doin' Eliakim Doak a good turn is much the same as if you'd kicked another man black an' blue. He ain't built the right way to appreciate it. The only time he can be made to understand is when somebody stands ready to knock him down whenever he goes wrong, an' that'll keep him where he belongs." ”

“ Rowe presents to his reader the Restoration Shakespeare: the original genius, the antithesis of Jonson, the exception to the rule and the instance that diminishes the importance of the rules. Shakespeare "lived under a kind of mere light of nature," and knowing nothing of the rules should not be judged by them. Admitting the poor plot structure and the neglect of the unities, except in an occasional play, Rowe concentrates on Shakespeare's virtues: his images, "so lively, that the thing he would represent stands full before you, and you possess every part of it;" ”

“ But it seems probable that a generation which read French romances would not have felt especially hostile to the romantic comedies when read in the closet. Rowe's criticism is so little original, so far from idiosyncratic, that it is unnecessary to assume that his response to the characters in the comedies is unique.
Be that as it may, it was well that at the moment when the reading public began rapidly to expand in England, Tonson should have made Shakespeare available in an attractive and convenient format; and it was a happy choice that brought Rowe to the editorship of these six volumes. ”

“ In his prologue to The Fair Penitent (l703) , Rowe gave expression to the first: the "fate of kings and empires", he argues, 3 is too remote to engage our feelings, for "we ne'er can pity that we ne'er can share"; therefore he offers "a melancholy tale of private woes". In his prologue, Lillo repeats this idea, but in his dedication he shows himself primarily concerned with the second tendency. Specifically challenging those "who deny the lawfulness of the stage", he argues that "the more extensively useful the moral of any tragedy is, the more excellent that piece must be of its kind" ”

“ The remainder of the day was spent catching cunners to be used as bait for the lobster traps; mending some of the old pots, and putting tar on the seams of the dory. Mr. Rowe worked as if the labor was sport, and Uncle Ben no sooner tried his hand at this thing or that, than one of his "family" insisted on doing it, until the old man said with a laugh of content:
"I declare it does seem as if all hands were bent on drivin' me outer business. I've allers been able to putter 'round with nobody to help, an' it comes a little odd not to be allowed to so much as raise a finger." ”