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which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules are so little practised, that they are not known; nor can the satire be understood but by the learned. He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away. He cures diseases that were never felt. For this reason, this joint production of three great writers has never attained any notice from mankind." With the opinion of Dr. Johnson we entirely coincide, so far as the Scriblerus is concerned; but we think that Arbuthnot was unfortunate in the part of the design which he selected, and that, in satirising more palpable follies, he might have been more successful. The success of Swift, in ridiculing mankind in general in his Gulliver, is surely a sufficient reason, if no other existed, for the lamentation of Warburton.

ward's Account of the Deluge, a work which had | If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, been published in 1695, and which, in Dr. Arbuthnot's estimation, was irreconcilable with just philosophical reasoning upon mathematical principles. This publication, which appeared in 1697, laid the foundation of the author's literary reputation, which not long after received a large and deserved increase by his Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning. The favour which he acquired by these publications, as well as by his agreeable manners and learned conversation, by degrees introduced him into practice as a physician. Being at Epsom when Prince George of Denmark was suddenly taken ill, he was called in, and had the good fortune to effect a cure. The prince immediately became his patron, and in 1709 he was appointed fourth physician in ordinary to the queen (Prince George's royal consort), in which situation he continued till her majesty's death in 1714. In 1704 Dr. Arbuthnot had been elected a member of the Royal Society, in consequence of his communicating to that body a most ingenious paper on the equality of the numbers of the sexes; a fact which he proved by tables of births from 1629, and from which he deduced the reasonable inference that polygamy is a violation of the laws of nature. In 1710 he was elected a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

This was the happy period of Dr. Arbuthnot's life. Tory principles and Tory ministers were now triumphant; he enjoyed a high reputation, a lucrative practice, and a most honourable preferment; he also lived in constant intercourse with a set of literary men, almost the greatest who had ever flourished in England, and all of whom were of his own way of thinking in regard to politics. This circle included Pope, Swift, Gay, and Prior. In 1714 he engaged with Pope and Swift in a design to write a satire on the abuse of human learning in every branch, which was to have been executed in the humorous manner of Cervantes, the original inventor of this species of satire, under the history of feigned adventures. But the prosecution of this design was prevented by the queen's death, which lost Arbuthnot his situation, and proved a death-blow to all the political friends of the associated wits. In the dejection which befell them, they never went farther than an essay, chiefly written by Arbuthnot, under the title of the First Book of the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. "Polite letters," says Warburton in his edition of Pope's works, "never lost more than in the defeat of this scheme, in the execution of which, each of this illustrious triumvirate would have found exercise for his own particular talents; besides constant employment for those which they all had in common. Dr. Arbuthnot was skilled in everything which related to science; Mr. Pope was a master in the fine arts; and Dr. Swift excelled in a knowledge of the world. Wit they had in equal measure; and this so large, that no age perhaps ever produced three men to whom nature had more bountifully bestowed it, or art had brought it to higher perfection." We are told by the same writer that the Travels of Gulliver and the Memoirs of a Parish Clerk were at first intended as a branch of the Memoirs of Scriblerus. In opposition to what Warburton says of the design, we may present what Johnson says of the execution. "These memoirs," says the doctor, in his life of Pope, "extend only to the first part of a work projected in concert by Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot. Their purpose was to censure the abuses of learning by a fictitious life of an infatuated scholar. They were dispersed; the design never was completed: and Warburton laments its miscarriage, as an event very disastrous to polite letters.

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At the death of the queen, when it pleased the new government to change all the attendants of the court, the immortal suffered with the mortal; Arbuthnot, displaced from his apartments at St. James', took a house in Dover street, remarking philosophically to Swift that he "hoped still to be able to keep a little habitation warm in town." His circumstances were never so prosperous or agreeable after this period. With the world at large, success makes merit -the want of it the reverse; and it is perhaps impossible for human nature to think so highly of a man who has been improperly deprived of some external mark of distinction and honour, as of him who wears it without so much desert. The wit, left to his own resources, and with a rising family to support, seems to have now lived in some little embarrassment.

In 1717 Arbuthnot, along with Pope, gave assistance to Gay, in a farce entitled "Three Hours after Marriage," which, strange to say, was condemned the first night. A rival wit wrote upon this subject:

"Such were the wags who boldly did adventure
To club a farce by tripartite indenture;
But let them share their dividend of praise,
And wear their own fool's cap instead of bays."

In 1722 Dr. Arbuthnot found it necessary for his health to indulge in a visit to Bath. He was accompanied on this occasion by a brother who was a banker at Paris, and whose extraordinary character called forth the following striking description from Pope: "The spirit of philanthropy, so long dead to our world, seems revived in him: he is a philosopher all fire; so warmly, nay so wildly, in the right, that he forces all others about him to be so too, and draws them into his own vortex. He is a star that looks as if it were all on fire, but is all benignity, all gentle and beneficial influence. If there be other men in the world that would serve a friend, yet he is the only one, I believe, that could make even an enemy serve a friend." About this time, the doctor thus described himself in a letter to Swift: "As for your humble servant, with a great stone in his right kidney, and a family of men and women to provide for, he is as cheerful in public affairs as ever.

Arbuthnot, in 1723, was chosen second censor of the Royal College of Physicians; in 1727 he was made an Elect, and had the honour to pronounce the Harveian oration for the year. In 1727 also appeared his great and learned work, entitled Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, explained and exemplified in several Dissertations. He continued to practise physic with good reputation, and diverted his leisure hours by writing papers of wit and humour. Among these may be mentioned one,

which appeared in 1731, in the shape of an epitaph upon the infamous Colonel Charteris, and which we shall present in this place as perhaps the most favourable specimen of Dr. Arbuthnot's peculiar vein of talent:

"Here continueth to rot the body of Francis Charteris, who, with an inflexible constancy, and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in spite of age and infirmities, in the practice of every human vice; excepting prodigality and hypocrisy; his insatiable avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless impudence from the second. Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity of his manners, than successful in accumulating wealth; for, without trade or profession, without trust of public money, and without bribe-worthy service, he acquired, or more properly created, a ministerial estate. He was the only person of his time who could cheat with the mask of honesty, retain his primeval meanness when possessed of ten thousand a year, and, having daily deserved the gibbet for what he did, was at last condemned to it for what he could not do.-Oh! indignant reader! Think not his life useless to mankind! Providence connived at his execrable designs, to give to after-ages a conspicuous proof and example of how small estimation is exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by his bestowing it on the most unworthy of all mortals."1

Arbuthnot, about this time, wrote a very entertaining paper on the Altercations or Scolding of the Ancients. In 1732 he contributed towards detecting and punishing the scandalous frauds and abuses that had been carried on under the specious name of The Charitable Corporation. In the same year he pub. plished his Treatise on the Nature and Choice of Aliments, which was followed, in 1733, by his Essay on the Effects of Air on Human Bodies. He is thought to have been led to these subjects by the consideration of his own case-an asthma, which, gradually increasing with his years, became at length desperate and incurable. A little before his last publication, he had met with a severe domestic affliction in the loss of his son Charles, "whose life," he says in a letter to Swift, "if it had so pleased God, he would willingly have redeemed with his own." He now retired in a state of great debility to Hampstead; from whence, in a letter to Pope, July 17th, 1734, he gives the following philosophic, and we may add, touching, account of his condition:-

"I have little doubt of your concern for me, nor of that of the lady you mention. I have nothing to repay my friends with at present, but prayers and good wishes. I have the satisfaction to find that I am as officiously served by my friends, as he that

1 This paragon of wickedness, who was a native of Scotland, is thus described by Pope, but we believe, as in the epitaph itself, with much exaggeration. Francis Charteris, a man infamous for all vices. When he was an ensign in the army, he was drummed out of the regiment for a cheat; he was banished Brussels, and turned out of Ghent, on the same account. After a hundred tricks at the gaming-tables, he took to lending of money at exorbitant interest, and on great penalties, accumulating premium, interest, and capital into a new capital, and seizing to a minute when the payment became due; in a word, by a constant attention to the vices, wants, and follies of mankind, he acquired an immense fortune. He was twice condemned for rapes and pardoned, but the last time not without imprisonment in Newgate, and large confiscations. He died in Scotland in 1731, aged sixty-two. The populace, at his funeral, raised a great riot, almost tore the body out of the coffin, and cast dead dogs, &c., into the grave along with it." We may add that the mourners had to defend themselves from the mob with their swords. (See Traditions of Edin burgh.) One remarkable feature of Charteris' character is not generally known: though a bully and a coward, he had his

fighting days; he would suffer himself to be kicked for refusing

a challenge one day, and the next would accept another and kill his man.

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has thousands to leave in legacies; besides the assurance of their sincerity. God Almighty has made my distress as easy as a thing of that nature can be. I have found some relief, at least sometimes, from the air of this place. My nights are bad, but many poor creatures have worse.'

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In a letter about the same time to Swift, he says he came to Hampstead, not for life, but for ease. That he had gained in a slight degree from riding; but he was "not in circumstances to live an idle country life;" and he expected a return of the disorder in full force on his return in winter to London. He adds, "I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, but was again blown back to sea; who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world, for I have as great comfort in my own family, and from the kindness of my friends, as any man; but the world in the main displeaseth me; and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are like to befall my country. However, if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sustained in one of them gave me my first shock; and the trouble I have with the rest, to bring them to a good temper, to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured that you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour for all that is in the world. This world is not worth the least deviation from that way," &c. In such a strain did this truly good man discourse of his own certain and immediate death, which accordingly took place, February, 1735, in his house, Cork Street, Burlington Gardens, to which he had returned from Hampstead at the approach of winter.

Arbuthnot's character was given by his friend Swift in one dash: "He has more wit than we all have, and more humanity than wit." "Arbuthnot,' says Dr. Johnson in his life of Pope, "was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliancy of wit; a wit who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.' Lord Orrery has thus entered more minutely into his character: "Although he was justly celebrated for wit and learning, there was an excellence in his character more amiable than all his other qualifications, I mean the excellence of his heart. He has shown himself equal to any of his contemporaries in wit and vivacity, and he was superior to most men in acts of humanity and benevolence. His very sarcasms are the satirical strokes of good nature: they are like slaps in the face given in jest, the effects of which may raise blushes, but no blackness will appear after the blow. He laughs as jovially as an attendant upon Bacchus, but continues as sober and considerate as a disciple of Socrates."

It is

The wit, to which Swift's was only allowed the second place, was accompanied by a guileless heart, and the most perfect simplicity of character. related of its possessor, that he used to write a humorous account of almost every remarkable event which fell under his observation, in a folio book, which lay in his parlour; but so careless was he about his writings after he was done with them, that,

while he was writing towards one end of this work, he would permit his children to tear out the leaves from the other, for their paper kites. This carelessness has prevented many of the works of Dr. Arbuthnot from being preserved, and no correct list has ever been given. A publication in two volumes, Svo, at Glasgow, in 1751, professing to be his Miscellaneous Works, was said by his son to consist chiefly of the compositions of other people. He was so much in the habit of writing occasional pieces anonymously, that many fugitive articles were erroneously attributed to him: he was at first supposed to be the author of Robinson Crusoe. He scarcely ever spoke of his writings, or seemed to take the least interest in them. He was also somewhat indolent. Swift said of him, that he seemed at first sight to have no fault, but that he could not walk. Besides this, he had too much simplicity and worth to profit by the expedients of life: in Swift's words,

"He knew his art, but not his trade."

Swift also must be considered as insinuating a certain
levity of feeling, with all his goodness, when he says,
in anticipation of his own death,

"Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day!"

Being educated for the medical profession at the university of Edinburgh, under the elder Monro, Armstrong, in 1732, took his degree as M.D. with much reputation, the subject of his treatise being Tabes Purulenta. He had ere this period addicted himself to the composition of verses. We are informed that, to relieve the tedium of a winter spent in "a wild romantic country"--probably Liddesdale -he wrote what he intended for an imitation of Shakspeare, but which turned out to resemble rather the poem of Winter, then just published by Thomson. The bard of the Seasons, hearing of this composition, which so strangely and so accidentally resembled his own, procured a sight of it by means of a mutual friend, and, being much pleased with it, brought it under the notice of Mr. David Mallet, Mr. Aaron Hill, and Dr. Young, all of whom joined with him in thinking it a work of genius. Mallet even requested the consent of the author to its publication, and undertook that duty, though he afterwards gave up the design.

though the habitual cheerfulness of his dispositioning the Study of Physic, to which is added, A Dialogue may have been all that the poet had in his eye. The only other work ascertained as Arbuthnot's, besides those mentioned, is the celebrated History of John Bull, a political allegory, which has had many imitations, but no equal. He also attempted poetry, though without any particular effort. A philosophical poem, of his composition, entitled INOOI ZEATTON" [Know Yourself], is printed in Dodsley's Miscellanies. He left a son, George, who was an executor in Pope's will, and who died in the enjoyment of a lucrative situation in the exchequer office towards the end of the last century; and a daughter, Anne, who was honoured with a legacy by Pope. His second son, Charles, who died before himself, had been educated in Christ Church College, Oxford, and entered into holy orders.

ARGYLE. See CAMPBELL.

ARMSTRONG, JOHN, M.D., author of the well-known poem entitled The Art of Preserving Health, was born, about 1709, in the parish of Castleton, Roxburghshire, where his father and brother were successively ministers. He might almost be styled a poet by right of birthplace, for the parish of Castleton is simply the region of Liddesdale, so renowned for its heroic lays, the records of deeds performed by the Border reivers, among whom the family of the poet bore a distinguished rank. The rude and predatory character of this district had, however, passed away before the commencement of the eighteenth century; and young Armstrong, though his lullabies were no doubt those fine old ballads which have since been published by Sir Walter Scott, seems to have drawn from them but little of his inspiration. It was as yet the fashion to look upon legendary verses as only fit for nurses and children; and nothing was thought worthy of the term poetry, unless it were presented in trim artificial language, after the manner of some distinguished classic writer. It is therefore by no means surprising that Armstrong, though born and cradled in a land full of beautiful traditionary poetry, looked upon it all, after he had become an educated man, as only Doric trash, and found his Tempe in the bowers of Twickenham instead of the lonely heaths of Liddesdale.

In

Armstrong was probably led by this flattering circumstance to try his fortune in London, where his countrymen Thomson and Mallet had already gained literary distinction. In 1735 he is found publishing, in that capital, a humorous attack upon empirics, in the manner of Lucian, entitled An Essay for Abridg betwixt Hygeia, Mercury, and Pluto, relating to the Practice of Physic, as it is managed by a certain illustrious Society; and an epistle from Usbeck the Persian to Joshua Ward, Esq. The essay, besides its sarcastic remarks on quacks and quackery, contains many allusions to the neglect of medical education among the practising apothecaries; but the author had exhausted his wit in it, and the dialogue and epistle are consequently flat and insipid. 1737 he published a serious professional piece, styled A Synopsis of the History and Cure of the Venereal Disease, 8vo, inscribed in an ingenious dedication to Dr. Alexander Stuart, as to "a person who had an indisputable right to judge severely of the performance presented to him." He probably designed the work as an introduction to practice in this branch of the medical profession; but it was unfortunately followed by his poem entitled The Economy of Love, which, though said to have been designed as merely a burlesque upon certain didactic writers, was justly condemned for its warm and alluring pictures, and its tendency to inflame the passions of youth. It appears by one of the "cases of literary property," that Andrew Millar, the bookseller, paid fifty pounds for the copyright of this poem; a sum ill-gained, for the work greatly diminished the reputation of the author. After it had passed through many editions, he published one, in 1768, in which the youthful luxuriances that had given offence to better minds were carefully pruned. But the offence had been already perpetrated, and it was too late to undo it.

In 1744 Dr. Armstrong made some amends for this indiscretion, by publishing The Art of Preserv ing Health, a didactic poem in blank verse, extending through four books, each of which contains a particular branch of the subject. This very meritorious work raised his reputation to a height which his subsequent efforts scarcely sustained. It is written in a taste which would not now be considered very pure or elegant; but yet, when the subject and the age are considered, there is amazingly little to be condemned. Dr. Warton has justly remarked the refined terms in which the poet, at the end of his third book, has described an English plague of the fifteenth century, entitled "the sweating sickness."

"There is a classical correctness and closeness of style in this poem," says Dr. Warton, "that are truly admirable, and the subject is raised and adorned by numberless poetical images." Dr. Mackenzie, in his H.story of Health, bestowed similar praises on this poem, which was indeed everywhere read and admired.

In 1741 Armstrong solicited the patronage of Dr. Birch, to be appointed physician to the fleet then about to sail for the West Indies; but he does not seem to have obtained the object of his desire. In 1746, when established in reputation by his Art of Preserving Heaith, he was appointed one of the physicians to the hospital for lame and sick soldiers behind Buckingham House. In 1751 he published

his poem on Benevolence, in folio, a production which seems to have come from the heart, and contains sentiments which could have been expressed with equal ardour only by one who felt them. His Taste, an Epistle to a Young Critic, 1753, 4to, is a lively and spirited imitation of Pope, and the first production in which Armstrong began to view men and manners with a splenetic eye. His next work was less meritorious. It was entitled Sketches or Essays on Various Subjects, and appeared under the fictitious name of Lancelot Temple, Esq. The critical examinators of Dr. Armstrong's merits allow to this work the credit of exhibiting much humour and knowledge of the world, but find it deformed by a perpetual flow of affectation, a struggle to say smart things, and, above all, a disgusting repetition of vulgar oaths and exclamations-forms of expression to which the poet, it seems, was also much addicted in conversation. In some of these sketches, Armstrong is said to have had assistance from the notorious John Wilkes, with whom he lived in habits of intimacy; but it is certain that the contributions of this gentleman cannot have been great, as the work is much inferior to the literary style of the demagogue of Aylesbury, who, whatever might be his moral failings, is allowed to have had a chaste classical taste, and a pure vein of humour.

Armstrong had sufficient professional interest in 1760 to obtain the appointment of physician to the army in Germany. From that country he wrote Day, a Poem, addressed as an epistle to John Wilkes, Esq. This lively piece, which professes to embody an account of all the proper indulgences, moral and physical, of twenty-four hours, was, it is said, published in an imperfect shape, by some clandestine editor. It was never added to the collected works of Dr. Armstrong till Dr. Anderson admitted it into his edition of the British Poets. After the peace of 1763, Dr. Armstrong returned to London, and resumed his practice, but with no eager desire of increasing the moderate competency he now enjoyed. He continued after this period rather to amuse than to exert himself in literary productions, chiefly spending his time in the society of men of wit and taste like himself. In 1771 he made a tour into France and Italy, in company with the celebrated Fuseli, who survived him for nearly fifty years, and always spoke highly of Dr. Armstrong's amiable character. In Italy he took a tender farewell of his friend Smollett, to whom he was much attached, and who died soon after. On returning home he published an account of his travels, under the name of Lancelot Temple.

The latter years of Dr. Armstrong's life were embittered by one of those quarrels which, arising between persons formerly much attached, are at once the most envenomed and the most productive of uneasiness to the parties. In his poem of Day, he had asked, among other things,

What crazy scribbler reigns the present wit?"

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which the poet Churchill very properly took to himself, and resented in the following passage in his poem of The Journey:—

"Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of sense,
Read musty lectures on Benevolence;
Or con the pages of his gaping Day,1
Where all his former fame was thrown away,
Where all but barren labour was forgot,
And the vain stiffness of a lettered Scot;
Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light,
But not one hour of darkness; when the night
Suspends this mortal coil, when memory wakes,
When for our past misdoings conscience takes
A deep revenge, when by reflection led
She draws his curtains, and looks comfort dead,
Let every muse be gone; in vain he turns,
And tries to pray for sleep; an Etna burns,
A more than Etna in his coward breast,
And guilt, with vengeance armed, forbids to rest;
Though soft as plumage from young Zephyr's wing,
His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring;
Ingratitude hath planted daggers there,

No good man can deserve, no brave man bear."

We have no hesitation in saying that this severe satire was not justified either by the offence which called it forth or by the circumstances on which it was founded. Wilkes, the associate of Churchill, had lent money to Armstrong on some occasion of peculiar distress. When the attacks of Wilkes upon Scotland led to animosities between the two friends, it was not to be expected that the recollection of a former obligation was necessarily to tie up the natural feelings of Dr. Armstrong, and induce him to submit rather to the certain charge of meanness of spirit, than the possible imputation of ingratitude. Neither could Wilkes have fairly expected that the natural course of the quarrel was to be stayed by such a submission on the part of his former friend. It would have been equally mean for the obliged party to have tendered, and for the obliging party to have accepted, such a submission. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Dr. Armstrong, in giving way to resentment against Wilkes, was chargeable, properly, with no blame except that of giving way to resentment; and if it is to be supposed, from the character of the poet in respect of irritability, that the resentment would have taken place whether there had been a debt of kindness standing undischarged between the parties or not, we cannot really see how this contingent circumstance can enhance his offence.

There is unfortunately too great reason to suppose, that if the obligation tended to increase the blame of either party, it was that of Wilkes, who, from almost incontestable evidence, appears to have made a most ungenerous use of the advantage he had acquired over his former friend. Not only must he bear a portion of the guilt of Churchill's satire, which could have only been written as a transcript of his feelings, and with his sanction, but he stands almost certainly guilty of a still more direct and scurrilous attack upon Dr. Armstrong, which appeared in a much more insidious form. This was a series of articles in the well-known Public Advertiser, commencing with a letter signed Dies, which appeared to proceed from an enemy of the patriot, but, in the opinion of Dr. Armstrong, was written by the patriot himself.

Armstrong died at his house in Russel Street, Covent Garden, September 7, 1779, in consequence of an accidental contusion in his thigh, received while getting into a carriage. He was found, to the surprise of the world, to have saved the sum of £2000 out of his moderate income, which for many

This poem was full of large hiatus supplied by asterisks.

pay.

Dr. Armstrong was much beloved and respected by his friends for his gentle and amiable dispositions, as well as his extensive knowledge and abilities; but a kind of morbid sensibility preyed upon his temper, and a languid listlessness too frequently interrupted his intellectual efforts. With Thomson's Castle of Indolence he is appropriately connected, both as a figure in the piece and as a contributor to the verse. The following is his portraiture:

years had consisted of nothing more than his half- | fessional career which caused him to turn his attention to literature. In 1779 appeared his History of | Edinburgh, I vol. 4to, a work of much research, and greatly superior in a literary point of view to the generality of local works. The style of the historical part is elegant and epigrammatic, with a vein of causticity highly characteristic of the author. From this elaborate work the author is said to have only realized a few pounds of profit; a piratical impression, at less than half the price, was published almost simultaneously at Dublin, and, being shipped over to Scotland in great quantities, completely threw the author's edition out of the market. A bookseller's second edition, as it is called, appeared after the author's death, being simply the remainder of the former stock, embellished with plates, and enlarged by some additions from the pen of the publisher, Mr. Creech. Another edition was published in 8vo, in 1817.

With him was sometimes joined in silent walk

Profoundly silent-for they never spoke,

One shyer still, who quite detested talk;

Oft stung by spleen, at once away he broke,
To groves of pine, and broad o'ershadowing oak,
There, inly thrilled, he wandered all alone,
And on himself his pensive fury wroke:

He never uttered word, save, when first shone
The glittering star of eve-"Thank heaven! the day is done!"

His contributions consist of four stanzas descriptive
of the diseases to which the votaries of indolence
finally become martyrs.

The rank of Dr. Armstrong as a poet is fixed by his Art of Preserving Health, which is allowed to be among the best didactic poems in the language. It is true this species of poetry was never considered among the highest, nor has it been able to retain its place among the tastes of a modern and more refined age. Armstrong, however, in having improved upon a mode of composition fashionable in his own time, must still be allowed considerable praise. "His style," according to the judgment of Dr. Aikin, "is distinguished by its simplicity-by a free use of words which owe their strength to their plainnessby the rejection of ambitious ornaments, and a near approach to common phraseology. His sentences are generally short and easy; his sense clear and obvious. The full extent of his conceptions is taken | in at the first glance; and there are no lofty mysteries to be unravelled by a repeated perusal. What keeps his language from being prosaic, is the vigour of his sentiments. He thinks boldly, feels strongly, and therefore expresses himself poetically. When the subject sinks, his style sinks with it; but he has for the most part excluded topics incapable either of vivid description or of the oratory of sentiment. He had from nature a musical ear, whence his lines are scarcely ever harsh, though apparently without much study to render them smooth. On the whole, it may not be too much to assert, that no writer in blank verse can be found more free from stiffness and affectation, more energetic without harshness, and more dignified without formality."

ARNOT, HUGO, a historical and antiquarian writer of the eighteenth century, was the son of a merchant and ship-proprietor at Leith, where he was born, December 8th, 1749. His name originally was Pollock, which he changed in early life for Arnot, on falling heir, through his mother, to the estate of Balcormo in Fife. As "Hugo Arnot of Balcormo, Esq.," he is entered as a member of the Faculty of Advocates, December 5, 1772, when just about to complete his twenty-third year. Previous to this period he had had the misfortune to lose his father. Another evil which befell him in early life was a settled asthma, the result of a severe cold which he caught in his fifteenth year. As this disorder was always aggravated by exertion of any kind, it became a serious obstruction to his progress at the bar: some of his pleadings, nevertheless, were much admired, and obtained for him the applause of the bench. Perhaps it was this interruption of his pro

VOL. I.

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Mr. Arnot seems to have now lived on terms of literary equality with those distinguished literary and professional characters who were his fellow-townsmen and contemporaries. He did not, however, for some years, publish any other considerable or acknow. ledged work. He devoted his mind chiefly to local subjects, and sent forth numerous pamphlets and newspaper essays, which had a considerable effect in accelerating or promoting the erection of various public works. The exertions of a man of his public spirit and enlarged mind, at a time when the capital of Scotland was undergoing such a thorough reno vation and improvement, must have been of material service to the community, both of that and of all succeeding ages. Such they were acknowledged to be by the magistrates, who bestowed upon him the freedom of the city. We are told that Mr. Arnot, by means of his influence in local matters, was able to retard the erection of the South Bridge of Edin burgh for ten years-not that he objected to such an obvious improvement on its own account, but only in so far as the magistrates could devise no other method for defraying the expense than by a tax upon carters; a mode of liquidating it which Mr. Arnot thought grossly oppressive, as it fell in the first place upon the poor. He also was the means of preventing for several years the formation of the present splendid road between Edinburgh and Leith, on account of the proposed plan (which was afterwards unhappily carried into effect) of defraying the expense by a toll; being convinced, from what he knew of local authorities, that, if such an exaction were once established, it would always, on some pretext or other, be kept up.

In 1785 Mr. Arnot published A Collection of Celebrated Criminal Trials in Scotland, with Historical and Critical Remarks, 1 vol. 4to; a work of perhaps even greater research than his History of Edinburgh, and written in the same acutely metaphysical and epigrammatic style. In the front of this volume appears a large list of subscribers, embracing almost all the eminent and considerable persons in Scotland, with many of those in England, and testifying of course to the literary and personal respectability of Mr. Arnot. This work appeared without a publisher's name, probably for some reason connected with the following circumstance. Owing perhaps to the unwillingness of the author to allow a sufficient profit to the booksellers, the whole body of that trade in Edinburgh refused to let the subscription papers and prospectuses hang in their shops; for which reason the author announced, by means of an advertisement in the newspapers, that these articles might be seen in the coffee-houses. Mr. Arnot received the sum of six hundred pounds for the copies 4

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