Nicholas Rowe (dramatist)

Nicholas Rowe (/roʊ/; 20 June 1674 – 6 December 1718), English dramatist, poet and miscellaneous writer, was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1715.

Nicholas Rowe was born in Little Barford, Bedfordshire, England, son of John Rowe (d. 1692), barrister and sergeant-at-law, and Elizabeth, daughter of Jasper Edwards, on 20 June 1674. His family possessed a considerable estate at Lamerton in Devonshire. His father John Rowe, practised law, and published Benlow's and Dallison's Reports during the reign of King James II.

The future English poet was educated first at Highgate School, and then at Westminster School under the guidance of Dr. Busby. In 1688, Rowe became a King's Scholar, which was followed by his entrance into Middle Temple in 1691. His entrance into Middle Temple was decided upon by his father, who felt that Rowe had made sufficient progress to qualify him to study law. While at Middle Temple, he read statutes and reports with proficiency proportionate to the force of his mind, which was already such that he endeavoured to comprehend law, not as a series of precedents, or collection of positive precepts, but as a system of rational government and impartial justice.

On his father's death, when he was nineteen, he became the master of an independent fortune. He was left to his own direction, and from that time ignored law to try his hand first at poetry, and then later at writing plays.

Rowe married first a daughter of a Mr Parsons and left a son John. By his second wife Anne, née Devenish, he had a daughter Charlotte.

Rowe acted as under-secretary (1709–1711) to the duke of Queensberry when he was principal secretary of state for Scotland. On the accession of George I he was made a surveyor of customs, and in 1715 he succeeded Nahum Tate as poet laureate.

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