412 
ROWE. 
The beting of the sea— 
And that a manstandeoutof doubte 
A myleoff thens, andheare it route. Chaucer. 
They had gode leysir for to route. 
To vye who mighten slepe best. Chaucer. 
To ROUT, v. n. To search in the ground: as, a 
swine. A corruption of root. See To Root. —It is a low 
expression also for making any search. 
Do thou the monumental hillock guard 
From trampling cattle, and the routing swine. Edwards. 
ROUTE, s. [route, Fr.] Road; way. 
Wide through the furzy field their route they take. 
Their bleeding bosoms force the thorny brake. Gay. 
ROUTINE, s. [French; anciently rottine, “ an 
usual course, beaten path, ordinary way.” Cotgrave.] 
Custom; practice.—He has certain set forms and routines of 
speech. Butler. 
ROUTOT, a small town in the north of France, depart¬ 
ment of the Eure. Population 1100; 9 miles east-by-norlh 
of Pont Audemer. 
ROUVRAY, a pretty town in the east of France, depart¬ 
ment of the Cote d’Or, with 800 inhabitants; 47 miles west- 
by-north of Dijon. 
ROW, s. [reih, Genu. pae]>a, Sax.] A rank or file; 
a number of things ranged in a line. 
Lips never part, but that they show 
Of precious pearl the double row. Sidney. 
After them all dancing on a row, 
The comely virgins came with garlands dight. 
As fresh as flowres. Spenser. 
ROW, s. A riotous noise; a drunken debauch. A 
low expression. 
To ROW, v. n. [po]>an. Sax.] To impel a vessel in the 
water by oars.—He saw them toiling in rowing; for the 
wind was contrary. St. Marl;.— Some of these troughs or 
canoes were so great, that above twenty men have been found 
rowing in one. Abbot. 
To ROW, v. a, To drive or help forward by oars. 
—The swan rows her state with oary feet.. Milton. 
ROW, a parish of Scotland, in Dumbartonshire, lying 
upon Loch Gair and the frith of Clyde, having Cardross on 
the east, Arroquhar on the north, and Roseneath on the west 
side of the Gairloch, for its boundaries. It is about 14 miles 
long, and 3 broad ; and the surface is in general hilly, the 
ground rising gradually from the east. The soil is mostly 
light, and, when properly cultivated, abundantly fertile. 
The hills are green, and afford good pasture. The thriving 
village of Helenburg is in this parish. Population 1243. 
ROW'ABLE, adj. Capable of being rowed upon. 
That long barren fen. 
Once rowable ; but now doth nourish men 
In neighbour towns, and feels the weighty plough 
B. Jonson _ 
ROWAN, a county of the United States, in the west part 
of North Carolina. Population 21,543: Slaves 3757. Chief 
town, Salisbury. 
R6WBARROW, a parish of England, in Somersetshire ; 
3 miles north-east of Axbridge. 
ROWCESTER, a village of England, in Staffordshire, 
north-east of Uttoxeter, near the confluence of the Dove and 
Churnel. 
ROWDE, a parish of England, in Wiltshire; 2 miles 
west-by-north from Devizes. Population 997. 
ROWE (Elizabeth), a lady distinguished for her piety 
and her poetical talents, was the daughter of the Rev. Wal¬ 
ter Singer, a dissenting minister, possessed of a moderate 
estate near Frome in Somersetshire. He was imprisoned for 
non-conformity in the intolerant reign of Charles II. at 
Ilchester, where he married, and where his daughter Eliza¬ 
beth was born in 1674. She displayed from childhood a 
passion for reading, together with .a devotional turn, which. 
however, did not impair her natural vivacity, or prevent her 
from cultivating a taste for the agreeable arts. She began 
to write verses at twelve years of age, and she practised both 
music and drawing. Her poetry excited notice in the 
neighbourhood, and gave her an introduction to the family 
of Lord Viscount Weymouth at Long-Leat, near Frome. 
The deprived Bishop Kenn was a resident in that house, and 
paid much attention to the young poetess; and the Hon. 
Mr. Thynne, son to Lord Weymouth, undertook to be her 
teacher in French and Italian. In her 22d year, at the re¬ 
quest of her friends, she published a volume of miscellaneous 
poems, which made her advantageously known. Possess¬ 
ing an agreeable person, and a large share of the accom¬ 
plishments of her sex, she attracted several admirers, among 
whom is said to have been the celebrated Prior; but as 
matrimony does not seem to have ever been his object, it is 
robable that his addresses were only complimentary. In 
er 36th year, she gave her hand to Mr. Thomas Rowe, 
with whom she lived in the enjoyment of the highest 
felicity, till the year 1715, when he died. 
From this time she passed her days for the most part in 
retirement at Frome, but making occasional visits to some 
intimate friends/among whom one of the most distinguished 
was the excellent Countess of Hertford. 
Of her poetical compositions, besides the early volume 
already mentioned, she published “ The History of Joseph,” 
and some other miscellaneous poems. Of these, the general 
character is correct and melodious versification, and a flow 
of ornate language, and tender and elevated sentiment. 
Among her prose writings, the most popular was that en¬ 
titled “ Friendship in Death, in Twenty Letters from the 
Dead to the Living.” These are the work of a lively and 
florid imagination, and a feeling heart, exercised in pious 
meditations, and never fail to be highly impressive upon the 
minds of young and susceptible readers. They have passed 
through many editions, and are usually accompanied by 
other pieces of the author’s of a moral and religious kind. 
She also published “ Letters, moral and entertaining, in 
Prose and Verse,” in three parts. She wrote without labour, 
and with no great attention to correctness. She died in 
1737. 
ROWE (Nicholas), an English poet, descended from an 
ancient family in Devonshire, was the son of John Rowe, 
Esq. serjeant-at-law, a barrister of reputation and extensive 
practice. He was born in 1674, at the house of his maternal 
grandfather at Little Berkford (now called Barford,) Bedford¬ 
shire. After a preliminary education in a private school at 
Highgate, he was placed under Dr. Busby at Westminister, 
as a king’s scholar, and pursued the classical studies of that 
seminary with credit. His poetical exercises in the learned 
languages and in English were particularly admired. He 
was removed from school at the age of 16, and entered a 
student of the Middle Temple, it being his father’s intention 
to bring him up to his own profession. He proceeded so 
far in the study of the law as to be called to the bar; but the 
death of his father, when he was 19, had freed him from 
the authority which was probably his principal motive for 
applying to a pursuit foreign to his disposition, and he gra¬ 
dually turned his chief attention to poetry and polite litera¬ 
ture. At the age of 25 he produced his first tragedy, “ The 
ambitious Step-mother;” the story of which appears founded 
on that of Solomon elevated to the throne by the machi¬ 
nations of his mother Bathsheba, but the scene and circum¬ 
stances are totally different. The play was acted at Lincoln’s 
Inn Fields, and though marked with all the faults of a 
juvenile composition, its success is said to have rendered the 
author a decided deserter from the law. His next dramatic 
performance was “ Tamerlane,” acted in 1702. This was 
intended to have a political signification; the tyrant and 
despot Bajazet being a type of Lewis XIV., then considered 
as the great foe of liberty, civil and religious; and the Tartar 
Tamerlane, metamorphosed into a perfect prince, representing 
King William. In both portraits there was much exagger, 
ation, but the purpose of the piece, and its pompous senti¬ 
ments, caused it to be received with great applause. It was 
frequently 
