was always hurried and slovenly, but amidst the occupations of a large practice he found time to help the distressed. His notes to Sir Hans Sloane (Sloane MS. in Brit. Mus. 4045) always go straight to the point, as: ‘Dear Sir Hans,—If you can recommend this miserable slut to be flux'd you'll do an act of charity for, dear sir, your obedt sert Sl Garth.’ He married Martha, daughter of Sir Henry Beaufoy, and had one child, a daughter, who married Colonel William Boyle. Lady Garth died on 14 May 1717, and was buried in the parish church of Harrow. Garth continued to write throughout life; in 1711 he wrote a verse dedication of Lucretius, in 1715 ‘Claremont,’ a poem on Lord Clare's villa; and in 1717 an edition of Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ in English verse, of no great merit. He also wrote in verse a dedication of Ovid's ‘Art of Love’ to Richard, earl of Burlington, and one to Lady Louisa Lenox with Ovid's ‘Epistles,’ an epilogue to the tragedy of ‘Cato,’ a prologue to ‘Tamerlane,’ and a prologue to the ‘Music Meeting in York Buildings.’ He was knighted on the accession of George I, and became physician in ordinary to the king and physician-general to the army. The ‘Chronological Diary,’ 1714, states that he was knighted with the sword of Marlborough. He lived in Covent Garden, grew wealthy by practice, and died on 18 Jan. 1719, after a brief illness, and was buried beside his wife at Harrow. Pope wrote that Garth was ‘the best natured of men,’ and that ‘his death was very heroical, and yet unaffected enough to have made a saint or philosopher famous.’ His portrait, of kit-cat size, by Kneller, hangs to the left of the fireplace in the censor's room at the College of Physicians, and gives him a fresh complexion and cheerful expression, in a flowing wig. A drawing by Hogarth represents him at Button's coffee-house standing by a table at which Pope is sitting.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 498; Garth's Works; Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ed. 1781, ii. 313; An Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets, London, 1720; Cibber's Lives of the Poets, London, 1753, iii. 263; Merrett's Short View of the Frauds and Abuses committed by Apothecaries, London, 1670; A Charter granted to the Apothecaries of London, London, 1695; Thomas Brown's Physick lies a-bleeding, or the Apothecary turned Doctor, London, 1697; The late Censors deservedly censured by Lysiponius Celer, M.D.L., London, 1698; The Necessity and Usefulness of the Dispensaries, London, 1702; The Present State of Physick and Surgery in London, 1701; Bellum Medicinale, 1701; Pitt's Craft and Frauds of Physic exposed, 1702; Spence's Anecdotes.]
GARTHSHORE, MAXWELL (1732–1812), physician, son of the Rev. George Garthshore (d. 24 Jan. 1760, aged 72; see Gent. Mag. lxxxii. 387–8), fifty years minister in Kirkcudbright, was born at Kirkcudbright on 28 Oct. 1732. After being educated at the Kirkcudbright grammar school, he was apprenticed to a medical man in Edinburgh at the age of fourteen, and attended medical classes in the university. Before proceeding to his degree, Garthshore entered the army as surgeon's mate when in his twenty-second year. In 1756 he settled at Uppingham, succeeding (by the aid of his cousin, Robert Maitland, a prosperous London merchant) to the practice of Dr. John Fordyce [q. v.] After practising successfully at Uppingham for eight years, Garthshore was encouraged to remove to London, and to support his position there he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh 8 May 1764, and was admitted a licentiate of the London College of Physicians on 1 Oct. 1764. He obtained a large practice as an accoucheur, was appointed physician to the British Lying-in Hospital, and became a fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies. He was a formal, fashionable physician of the old school, a sincere orthodox Christian, and extremely liberal to the poor, although parsimonious in his personal expenditure. It is stated that on one occasion he gave in a single gratuity more than his whole annual income (Gent. Mag. loc. cit.). The widow of the celebrated John Hunter was indebted to him for a comfortable provision when in very poor circumstances (Ottley, Life of Hunter, p. 139). His first wife, who brought him the small estate of Ruscoe in Kirkcudbrightshire, died in 1765, leaving him one son surviving. His second wife, Mrs. Murrel, whom he married in 1795, died some years before him. He died on 1 March 1812, and was buried in Bunhill Fields cemetery.
Garthshore bore a striking resemblance to the first Earl of Chatham, and was once pointed out in a debate in the House of Commons as the earl, whom every one believed to be present (Gent. Mag. loc. cit. p. 391). His portrait, by Slater, was engraved by Collyer. His only publications were his inaugural dissertation at Edinburgh, ‘De papaveris usu … in parturientibus ac puerperis,’ 1764; two papers read before the Society of Physicians in 1769, and published in the fourth and fifth volumes of ‘Medical Observations;’ some ‘Observations on Extra-uterine Cases, and Ruptures of the Tubes and Uterus,’ published in the ‘London Medical Journal,’ 1787; and ‘A Remarkable Case of Numerous Births,’ ‘Phil. Trans.,’ vol. lxxvii.
William Garthshore (1764–1806), son
