ceaſe, in octavo, by way of Supplement to that admired Biographer; in which though ſo young a guide, he ſtrikes out a way like one well acquainted with the dark and intricate paths of antiquity. The ſtile is perfectly eaſy, yet conciſe, and nervous; The reflexions juſt, and ſuch as might be expected from a lover of truth and of mankind.
Beſides theſe Lives, he had finiſhed for the preſs, the Life of Thraſybulus, which being put into the hands of Sir Richard Steele, for his reviſal, was unhappily loſt, and could never ſince be recovered.
The famous Mr. Dacier, having tranſlated Plutarch’s Lives into French, with Remarks Hiſtorical and Critical, the Abbé Bellenger added in 1734 a ninth tome to the other eight, conſiſting of the Life of Hannibal, and Mr. Rowe’s Lives made French by that learned Abbé: In the Preface to which verſion, he tranſcribes from the Preface to the Engliſh edition, the character of the author with viſible approbation; and obſerves, that the Lives were written with taſte; though being a poſthumoous work, the author had not put his laſt hand to it.
Such is the character of Mr. Rowe, the huſband of this amiable lady; and when ſo accompliſhed a pair meet in conjugal bonds, what great expectations may not be formed upon them! A friend of Mr. Rowe’s upon that occaſion wrote the following beautiful Epigram,
No more proud Gallia, bid the world revere
Thy learned pair, Le Fevre and Dacier:
Britain may boaſt, this happy day unites,
Two nobler minds, in Hymen’s ſacred rites.
What theſe have ſung, while all th’ inſpiring nine,
Exalt the beauties of the verſe divine,
Thoſe (humble critics of th’ immortal ſtrain,)
Shall bound their fame to comment and explain.
