s used in some parts of England for a little backside or close. It is an ancient British word, Gardd, in that language, signifies garden, and is pronounced and written garth. This word is also used for a dam or weir, &c.

Garth-men is used in our statutes for those who catch fish by means of fish garths, or weirs. By statute it is ordained, that no fisher, nor garth-man, shall use any nets or engines to destroy the fry of fish, &c.

The word is supposed by some to be derived from the Scotch word gart, which signifies forced or compelled; because fish are forced by the weir to pass in a loop, where they are taken.

Garth (Sir Samuel), an excellent English poet and physician, was descended from a good family in Yorkshire. He was admitted into the college of physicians at London in 1693. He at that time zealously promoted and encouraged the erecting of the dispensary for the relief of the sick poor, by giving them advice gratis, and medicines at low rates. This work of charity having exposed him and many other physicians to the envy and resentment of several persons of the same faculty as well as apothecaries, he ridiculed them, with a peculiar spirit and vivacity, in a poem called the Dispensary, in six cantos, highly esteemed. He was one of the most eminent members of the famous society called the Kit-Kat Club, which consisted of noblemen and gentlemen distinguished by their excellent parts and affection to the house of Hanover. Upon the accession of George I. he was knighted, and made physician in ordinary to his majesty, and physician-general to the army. Nor were these more than just rewards even of his physical merit. He had gone through the office of censor of the college in 1702; and had practised always with great reputation, and a strict regard to the honour and interest of the faculty, never stooping to prostitute the dignity of his profession, through mean and sordid views of self-interest, to any even the most popular and wealthy apothecaries. In a steady adherence to this noble principle, he concurred with the much celebrated Dr Radcliffe, with whom he was also often joined in physical consultations. He had a very extensive practice, but was very moderate in his views of advancing his own fortune; his humanity and good-nature inclining him more to make use of the great interest he had with persons in power, for the support and encouragement of other men of letters. He chose to live with the greatest in that degree of independency and freedom which became a man possessed of a superior genius, whereof he was daily giving fresh proofs to the public. One of his last performances in polite letters, was his translation of the whole fourteenth book, and the story of Cinnus in the fifteenth book, of Ovid's Metamorphoses. These, together with an English version of the rest, were published in 1717; and he has prefixed an excellent preface to the whole, wherein he not only gives an idea of the work, and points out its principal beauties, but shows the uses of the poem, and how it may be read to most profit. The distemper which seized him the ensuing year, and ended not but with his life, caused a general concern; which was particularly testified by lord Landown, brother-poet, though of a different party, in some admirable verses written on the occasion. He died, after a short illness, which he bore with great patience, in January 1719.

Garumna, a noble and navigable river of Gaul, which rising from the Pyrenees, formerly bounded Aquitain on the north (Caesar); but by the new regulation of Augustus divided it in the middle, emptying itself, to the north of Burdegala, into the Aquitanic ocean. Now the Garonne. Mela observes concerning it, that unless it is swelled by winter rains, or the melting of the snow, it is for a great part of the year shoal and scarce navigable: but when increased by the meeting tide, whereby its waters are repelled, it is somewhat fuller, and the farther the river advances, it is broader, till at length it resembles a large frith or arm of the sea; not only bearing large vessels, but also swelling like a raging sea, tosses them extremely, especially if the direction of the wind be one way and that of the current another.