He gained admission to the Kit-kat in
consequence of a vehement eulogy on King William which he had introduced
into his Harveian oration in 1697.[13] It was Garth, too, who
extemporized most of the verses which were inscribed on the
toasting-glasses of their club, so that he may, _par excellence_, be
considered the Kit-kat poet. He was the physician and friend of
Marlborough, with whose sword he was knighted by George I., who made him
his physician in ordinary. Garth was a very jovial man, and, some say,
not a very religious one. Pope said he was as good a Christian as ever
lived, 'without knowing it.' He certainly had no affectation of piety,
and if charitable and good-natured acts could take a man to heaven, he
deserved to go there. He had his doubts about faith, and is said to have
died a Romanist. This he did in 1719, and the poor and the Kit-kat must
both have felt his loss. He was perhaps more of a wit than a poet,
although he has been classed at times with Gray and Prior; he can
scarcely take the same rank as other verse-making doctors, such as
Akenside, Darwin, and Armstrong. He seems to have been an active,
healthy man--perhaps too much so for a poet--for it is on record that he
ran a match in the Mall with the Duke of Grafton, and beat him.
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