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church; the doctor: what would the multitude have? Why are they incensed? Who of our order has offended? Impeach, silence, hang, behead! That a name of a man should turn one's head to a giddiness! Say a short mental prayer. Cool by degrees. Jane petitions not to hear the sermon, but make her beds. There is no dealing with youthful inclinations. They are unsteady in every path. They leave the direct way. Walk in by places and corners. Give her leave to depart. Resolve within myself to deny Robin to go, if he should ask. Robin asks. Reprove him thus: "I have watched your mutual temptations, and the snares you laid for each other. You, Robin, I say, and the damsel Jane. Forbear your iniquity; struggle with sin; make not excuses to follow the handmaid. Thou shalt stay here, and hear and edify.' Prepare to preach. Hem thrice. Spread my hands; lift up my eyes; attempt to raise myself. Sink backwards. Faint suddenly."

In the journal for Monday, a dialogue is introduced between the bishop and his physician, Sir Samuel Garth, who was, in fact, the Esculapius whom the Whigs worshipped, as the Tories did Arbuthnot. The latter, indeed, may be said to have been displaced by Garth, who was knighted with Marlborough's sword, on the accession of the House of Hanover, and appointed physician to the king. Sir Samuel is well known to have been somewhat free in his sentiments upon religion, a circumstance which is touched upon in this dialogue, and which occasioned the remark of Pope, that if ever there was a good Christian without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth. Proceeding from the pen of a rival, both in medicine and politics, this dialogue may be considered as curious and interesting. We subjoin the conclusion, from which we may infer, that Garth adopted the rough manner towards his patients, in preference to that smooth and conciliating style of address, which sometimes marks the courtly physician.

"Patient. Don't shake your head so, dear doctor. Tell me plainly what hopes you have of me. I don't love to be flattered, I never flattered any body myself.

"Doctor, No! That's strange indeed; flatter nobody! I wonder how you lived so long then. Come, put out your tongue, that must be viewed too.

"Patient. Why, doctor, you don't pretend to tell by one's tongue whether one has flatter'd or no. Come, to oblige you, see it. "Doctor. A strange tongue! an unflattering tongue, truly! For it tells a sad truth, I am sure, at present.

"Patient. Pray what's that?

"Doctor. Only you have got a lurking fever, and your church bellows are so inflamed, that I dare prognosticate they can't blow much longer.

"Patient. Ah, doctor! I have used them, I fear, with too much

vehemence: they have been serviceable lungs for our cause. But give me a little better comfort before you leave me.

"Doctor. If blood-letting, coolers, lambatives, and pectorals, are comforts, I shall prescribe you enough, never fear. But I have your own word not to flatter you.

"Patient. But do you think I can weather it, or how long is it probable I shall last?

"Doctor. Till you stink, as far as I know. You should have sent for me sooner; and yet I am not certain but that you may survive it. I would have you chear up, Son of Thunder. A good spirit is a half cure in many cases. Besides I know you black gentlemen have a good trick at deceiving the devil. It is your business to do it. Stand upon your guard, for it is pro aris et focis now.

"Patient. I will, I will-but, prithee, don't be so irreligious, Doctor; I have a great respect for your constancy in a good cause, and your name has done us service in verse and prose.

"Doctor. Why, sir, have you the vanity to think, that religion ever did our cause any service? If that comes into your head, and you squeak at last, it is time for me to bid you good night.

"Patient. I will do any thing you order me, but I must confess, that I begin to think a man can't die easily without repentance. "Doctor. Farewell then; my time is past: there can be no hopes, if talk at this rate. you I will tell the kit-cat club of and you, it shall be known to every man at court, that you die like a pedant. Farewell."

That Arbuthnot did not entertain any very high opinion of his rival, appears from a passage in a letter written to Dean Swift, soon after the queen's death, (Scott's Swift, xvi. 246,) in which he says, "Garth told me his merit was giving intelligence about his mistress's health. I desired he would do me the favour to say, that I valued myself upon quite the contrary; and I hoped to live to see the day when his majesty would value me the more for it too."

In order to divert the chagrin occasioned by the queen's death and the misfortune of his friends, Dr. Arbuthnot determined to make a tour in France, where he left two of his daughters under the care of their uncle, who was residing in that country. In the memoirs prefixed to his miscellaneous works, this journey is said to have been undertaken before 1716; but from a letter addressed to Swift, (Scott's Swift, xvi. 338,) it must have taken place in 1718. He staid six weeks at Paris, and as long at Rouen. During his residence at Paris, he had the honour of appearing at court as the conductor of a celebrated Irish beauty, Miss Nelly Bennet, upon whom some lines appear in Swift's Works, (xiii. 347,) which were probably the production of Arbuthnot himself. Miss Bennet was " admired beyond all the ladies in France for her beauty-She had great honours done her. The hussar himself was ordered to

bring her the king's cat to kiss." Previously to his visit to France, Arbuthnot is said to have assisted Gay in the farce of Three hours after Marriage, which was brought upon the stage in 1716. The satirical attack in the drama upon Dr. Woodward, seems to favour this supposition.

In the autumn of 1722, Arbuthnot, finding himself unwell, visited Bath, whither he was accompanied by one of his brothers, who had lately arrived in England, probably the one under whose care he had left his daughters on his visit to Paris in 1718. Mr. Robert Arbuthnot was a person of a singularly benevolent character, and is commemorated in a letter from Pope to the Hon. Robert Digby (Warton's Pope, viii. 58.) "His brother, who is lately come to England, goes also to the Bath, and is a more extraordinary man than he, and worth your going thither on purpose to know him. The spirit of philanthropy, so long dead to our world, is revived in him. He is a philosopher all of 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 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."

There are but few traces of Arbuthnot's proceedings for some years after this time, nor does he appear, during that period, to have been occupied in any literary undertakings. He was chosen second censor of the College of Physicians, on the 30th September, 1723; and, in the autumn of 1725, he had a dangerous attack of illness. His friend Pope visited him on this occasion, and thus communicates the intelligence of his illness to Dean Swift. "Dr. Arbuthnot is, at this time, ill of a very dangerous distemper, an imposthume in the bowels, which is broke, but the event is very uncertain. Whatever that be (he bids me tell you, and I write this by him,) he lives and dies your faithful friend, and one reason he has to desire a little longer life is, the wish to see you once more." (Scott's Swift, xvi. 35.) The news of the doctor's recovery was conveyed by himself in a letter to Swift, on the 17th October, 1725, in which he adds, " people tell me of new impostures (as they call them) every day." (xvi. 47.) In the following year, although the circumstance does not appear in the memoirs prefixed to his works, the doctor again seems to have visited France, as may be collected from a letter addressed to him by Pope (Warton's Pope, vii. 366.) In the year 1727, he published a work of great learning and value, entitled Tables of ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, explained and exemplified in several dissertations," 4to. This volume, which does great

honour to the antiquarian knowledge, and industry of the writer, though not wholly free from inaccuracies, has ever since been considered a standard work. Although much engaged in professional avocations, he still occasionally diverted himself in compositions of wit and humour, amongst which his Epitaph upon the infamous Colonel Chartres has been preserved. In 1732, he published a professional treatise On the Nature and Choice of Aliments; and, in the following year, an essay On the effects of Air on Human Bodies.

Although the health of Arbuthnot was now fast declining, yet, if we may credit the date, (January 26, 1734-5,) affixed to a paper in his miscellaneous works, entitled Critical Remarks on Capt. Gulliver's Travels, by Doctor Bantley, his facetious genius did not desert him even at the very close of his life. The well-preserved gravity of these critical remarks, and the copious citations from ancient authors with which they are accompanied, certainly induce a belief that they are the production of Arbuthnot. The writer's object was to prove, that the Houyhnhnms were well known to the ancients, which he affects to do by numerous authorities, some of which he has manufactured with great skill, of which the following imitation of Chaucer may serve as an instance.

"The first author I shall cite is Chaucer, a poet from our own nation, who was well read in the ancient geography, and is allowed by all critics to have been a man of universal learning, as well as of inimitable wit and humour.

"The passage is literally thus, as I transcribed it from a very fair ancient copy in the Bodleian library, and compared it with other editions in the library of St. James's, my Lord Oxford's, and Lord Sunderland's.

"Certes (quod John) I nat denye

That touchende of the steedes' countrye,
I rede as thylke old Cronyke seythe
Y long before our Crysten feythe
Ther ben, as ye shull understonde,
An yle ycleped Coursyr's londe,
Wher nis ne dampnynge covetise
Ne letchere hotte in sainctes gise;
Ne seely squire, lyche browdred ape
Who maken Goddes boke a jape;
Ne lemman vyle, mishandlynge youthe
Ne woman, britell ware in sothe;
Ne flattrir, ne unlettred clerke
Who richen him, withouten werke;
For vice in thought ne als in dede
Was never none in londe of Steede."

"From this remarkable passage it is evident, that the nation of the Houyhnhnms was commonly known to the ancient inhabitants of this island by the name of Stedlonde, or Steed-land; and that their manners, which are, indeed, more copiously treated of by the traveller, are yet described with great strength and beauty by the poet."

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Finding the state of his health becoming still more precarious, Dr. Arbuthnot retired, in 1734, to Hampstead. "I came out to this place" (says he, in an affecting letter to his friend Swift, dated Oct. 4,)" so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, or move. most earnestly desired and begged of God that he would take Contrary to his hopes and expectations, the air of Hampstead revived him for a little while, and he again enjoyed the society of his friends, and the endearing attentions of his family, with all that warmth of heart and cheerfulness of temper, for which he was remarkable. He had, indeed, sustained à severe loss in the death of one of his sons, and this circumstance, joined to the grief which his family displayed at the prospect of losing so affectionate a parent, was a sensible affliction to him. His attachment to Swift is strongly and tenderly manifested at the conclusion of this letter. "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 you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour; for all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from that way."

In the same strain of earnest friendship, Dr. Arbuthnot had a little while before addressed a letter to Pope. (Warton's Pope, viii. 242.)

"As for you, my good friend, I think, since our first acquaintance, there have not been any of those little suspicions or jealousies, that often affect the sincerest friendships: I am sure not on my side. I must be so sincere as to own, that though I could not help valuing you for those talents, which the world prizes, yet they were not the foundation of my friendships; they were quite of another sort; nor shall I at present offend you by enumerating them; and I make it my last request, that you will continue that noble disdain and abhorrence of vice which you seem naturally endued with; but still with a regard to your own safety, and study more to reform than chastise, though the one cannot be effected without the other.

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"A recovery in my case and at my age is impossible; the kindest wish of my friends is Euthanasia. Living or dying, I shall always be yours."

Pope was not insensible to the affection and advice of his excellent friend.

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If," says he in his reply," it be the will of

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