Nicholas, a poet and dramatist of some distinction, was descended from an ancient family in Devonshire, and was born at Little Barford in Bedfordshire about 1673. He acquired a strong taste for the classical authors under Dr Busby in Westminster school; but poetry was his early and darling study. His father, who was a lawyer, entered him a student in the Middle Temple, and he made remarkable advances in the study of the law; but the love of belles lettres, and of poetry, interfered with his legal career. His first tragedy, the Ambitious Stepmother, meeting with considerable applause, he laid aside all thoughts of rising by the law, and afterwards composed several tragedies; but that which he valued himself most upon was his Tamurlane. The others were the Fair Penitent, almost wholly borrowed from the Fatal Dowry of Massinger, Ulysses, the Royal Convert, Jane Shore, and Lady Jane Grey. He also wrote a farce called the Bitter, which Congreve in his correspondence says "was damned." He likewise wrote several poems upon different subjects, which have been published under the title of Miscellaneous Works, in one volume, as his dramatic works have been in two.

Meanwhile the love of poetry and books did not make Rowley, him unfit for business; for nobody applied closer to it when occasion required. The Duke of Queensberry, when secretary of state, made him secretary for public affairs. But after the duke's death all avenues to his preferment were stopped; and during the remainder of Queen Anne's reign he passed his time with the Muses and his books. On the accession of George I., however, he was made poet-laureate on the 1st August 1715, and one of the land-surveyors of the customs in the port of London. The Prince of Wales conferred on him the clerkship of his council; and the Lord Chancellor Parker made him his secretary for the presentations. But he did not enjoy these promotions long. He died on the 6th of December 1718, in his forty-fifth year.

Rowe was twice married, had a son by his first wife, and a daughter by his second. He was a very handsome man; and his mind was as amiable as his person. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, opposite to Chaucer, where his widow erected an elegant monument to him, containing a bust by Ryshnack, and an epitaph by Pope.

Rowe is chiefly to be considered in the light of a tragic writer and a translator. In his attempt at comedy, he failed so ignominiously that his Bitter is not inserted in his works; and his occasional poems and short compositions are rarely worthy either of praise or censure, for they seem to be the casual sports of a mind seeking rather to amuse its leisure than to exercise its powers. In the construction of his dramas there is not much art; and he is not a nice observer of the unities. "I know not," says Dr. Johnson, "that there can be found in his plays any deep search into nature, any accurate discrimination of kindred qualities, or nice display of passion in its progress. All is general and undefined. Nor does he much interest or affect the auditor, except in Jane Shore, who is always seen and heard with pity. Alicia is a character of empty noise, with no resemblance to real sorrow or to natural madness. Whence then has Rowe acquired his reputation? From the reasonableness and propriety of some of his scenes, from the elegance of his diction, and from the suavity of his verse. He seldom moves either pity or terror, but he often elevates the sentiment; he seldom pierces the breast, but he always delights the ear, and often improves the understanding." Being a great admirer of Shakspeare, he gave the public an edition of his plays, to which he prefixed an account of his life. He even professed to have imitated the dramatist in his Royal Comedies; and Pope ridiculed this profession in his Martius Scriblerus, by stating that the resemblance was confined to one single line, "And so good morrow I've good Master Lieutenant." But the most considerable of Rowe's performances was an excellent translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, which he just lived to finish, but not to publish; it did not appear in print till 1728, ten years after his death.