JOHN ARMSTRONG.

BORN 1709 DIED 1779.

lines happened to hit off the character of Churchill as a bouncing mimic" and "crazy scribbler," the author of the "Rosciad" resolved to be revenged, and in his poem called "The Journey," thus retaliated on the doctor, by twenty stabs at the reputation of a man whom he had once called his friend, and had joined with all the world in admiring as a writer:

JOHN ARMSTRONG, M.D., author of the well- | for private perusal. Having in two unlucky known poem "The Art of Preserving Health," was born, it is believed, in 1709, in the parish of Castleton, Roxburghshire. He completed his education at the University of Edinburgh, and having chosen the medical profession, he took his degree as physician in 1732, and soon after repaired to London, where he became known by the publication of several fugitive pieces and medical essays. In 1735 he pub lished "An Essay for Abridging the Study of Medicine," being a humorous attack on quacks and quackery, in the style of Lucian. Two years afterwards appeared "The Economy of Love," for which poem he received £50 from Andrew Millar, the bookseller. It was an objectionable production, and greatly interfered with his practice as a physician. He subsequently expunged many of the youthful luxuriances with which the first edition abounded. In 1744 his principal work was published, entitled "The Art of Preserving Health," one of the best didactic poems in the English language, and the one on which his reputation mainly rests. It is certainly the most successful attempt in the English language to incorporate material science with poetry.

In 1746 Armstrong was appointed physician to the Hospital for Sick and Lame Soldiers, and in 1751 he published his poem on "Benevolence," followed by an Epistle on Taste, addressed to a Young Critic." His next work, issued in 1758, was prose,-"Sketches or Essays on Various Subjects, by Lancelot Temple, Esq.," in two parts, which evinced considerable humour and knowledge of the world. Its sale was wonderful, owing chiefly to a fable of the day, that the celebrated John Wilkes, then in the zenith of his popularity, had assisted in its production. In 1760 Dr. Armstrong received the appointment of physician to the army in Germany, where in 1761 he wrote "Day, a Poem, an epistle to John Wilkes, Esq.," his friendship for whom did not long continue, owing to his publishing the piece, which was intended

"Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of sense,
Read musty lectures on Benevolence;
Or con the pages of his gaping Day,
Where all his former fame was thrown away,
Where all but barren labour was forgot,
And the vain stiffness of a letter'd Scot;
Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light,
But not one hour of darkness; when the night
Suspends this mortal coil, when mem'ry wakes,
When for our past misdoings conscience takes
A deep revenge, when by reflection led
She draws his curtains, and looks comfort dead,
Let ev'ry 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 arm'd, 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."

At the peace of 1763 Armstrong returned to London, and resumed his practice, but not with his former success. In 1770 he collected and published two volumes of his "Miscellanies," containing the works already enumerated; the "Universal Almanack," a new prose piece; and the "Forced Marriage," a tragedy. The year following he took "a short ramble throug some parts of France and Italy,” in company with Fuseli the painter, publishing on thei return an account of their journey, entitle "A Short Ramble, by Lancelot Temple." last publication was his Medical Essays, i 1773. Dr. Armstrong died September 7, 1779 in the seventieth year of his age. In Thon son's "Castle of Indolence," to which Arn strong contributed four stanzas, describing th diseases incidental to sloth, he is depicted

Hi

the shy and splenetic personage, who "quite | their strength to their plainness-by the redetested talk." His portrait is drawn injection of ambitious ornaments, and a near Thomson's happiest manner:

"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;

Nor ever uttered word, save, when first shone,
The glittering star of eve-Thank Heaven, the day is
done!'"

The poet was of a somewhat querulous temper, and his friend Thomson remarked of him, “The doctor does not decrease in spleen; but there is a certain kind of spleen that is both humane and agreeable, like Jacques's in the play."

Armstrong's style, according to the judgment of Dr. Aitken, is "distinguished by its simplicity-by a free use of words which owe

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. 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 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."

PESTILENCE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
(FROM THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH.1)

Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent
Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field;
While, for which tyrant England should receive,
Her legions in incestuous murders mixed,
And daily horrors; till the fates were drunk
With kindred blood by kindred hands profused:
Another plague of more gigantic arm
Arose, a monster never known before,
Reared from Cocytus its portentous head;
This rapid fury not, like other pests,
Pursued a gradual course, but in a day
Rushed as a storm o'er half the astonished isle,
And strewed with sudden carcasses the land.

First through the shoulders, or whatever part
Was seized the first, a fervid vapour sprung;
With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within.
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.
Through all the yielding pores the melted blood
Gushed out in smoky sweats; but nought assuaged
The torrid heat within, nor aught relieved
The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil,
Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain,
They tossed from side to side. In vain the stream
Ran full and clear, they burnt and thirsted still.

1 This poem has been warmly commended by Campbell and other eminent authorities Warton praises it for classical correctness. Dr. Beattie predicted that

The restless arteries with rapid blood

Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly
The breath was fetched, and with huge labour-
ings heaved.

At last a heavy pain oppressed the head,
A wild delirium came: their weeping friends
Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.
Harassed with toil on toil, the sinking powers
Lay prostrate and o'erthrown; a ponderous sleep
Wrapt all the senses up: they slept and died.
In some a gentle horror crept at first
O'er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin
Withheld their moisture, till, by art provoked,
The sweats o'erflowed, but in a clammy tide;
Now free and copious, now restrained and slow;
Of tinctures various, as the temperature
Had mixed the blood,and rank with fetid streams:
As if the pent-up humours by delay
Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign.
Here lay their hopes (though little hope re-
mained),

With full effusion of perpetual sweats
To drive the venom out. And here the fates
Were kind, that long they lingered not in pain.
For, who survived the sun's diurnal race,

it would make Armstrong known and esteemed by posterity, but adds, "And I presume he will be more esteemed if all his other works peri.h with him."-ED.

Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeemed; Some the sixth hour oppressed, and some the third.

Of many thousands, few untainted 'scaped;
Of those infected, fewer 'scaped alive;

Of those who lived, some felt a second blow;
And whom the second spared, a third destroyed.
Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun
The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land
The infected city poured her hurrying swarms:
Roused by the flames that fired her seats around,
The infected country rushed into the town.
Some sad at home, and in the desert some
Abjured the fatal commerce of mankind
In vain; where'er they fled, the fates pursued.
Others, with hopes more specious, crossed the
main,

To seek protection in far-distant skies;

The Esk, o'erhung with woods; and such the

stream

On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air;
Liddel, till now, except in Doric lays,
Tuned to her murmurs by her love-sick swains,
Unknown in song, though not a purer stream
Through meads more flowery, more romantic

groves,

Rolls towards the western main. Hail, sacred
flood!

May still thy hospitable swains be blest
In rural innocence, thy mountains still
Teem with the fleecy race, thy tuneful woods
For ever flourish, and thy vales look gay
With painted meadows and the golden grain.
Oft with thy blooming sons, when life was new,
Sportive and petulant, and charmed with toys,
In thy transparent eddies have I laved;

But none they found. It seemed the general air, Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks,

From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east,
Was then at enmity with English blood;
For but the race of England all were safe
In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste
The foreign blood which England then contained.
Where should they fly? The circumambient

heaven

Involved them still, and every breeze was bane.
Where find relief? The salutary art

Was mute, and, startled at the new disease,

In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave.

With the well-imitated fly to hook
The eager trout, and with the slender line
And yielding rod solicit to the shore
The struggling panting prey, while vernal clouds
And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool,
And from the deeps called forth the wanton

swarms.

Formed on the Samian school, or those of Ind, There are who think these pastimes scarce humane;

Yet in my mind (and not relentless I)

To Heaven, with suppliant rites they sent their His life is pure that wears no fouler stains.

prayers;

Heaven heard them not. Of every hope deprived,

Fatigued with vain resources, and subdued
With woes resistless, and enfeebling fear,
Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.
Nothing but lamentable sounds was heard,
Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death.
Infectious horror ran from face to face,
And pale despair. Twas all the business then
To tend the sick, and in their turns to die.
In heaps they fell; and oft one bed, they say,
The sickening, dying, and the dead contained.

RECOMMENDATION OF ANGLING.
(FROM THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH.)
But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale
Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue,
Not less delightful, the prolific stream
Affords. The crystal rivulet, that o'er
A stony channel rolls its rapid maze,

ADDRESS TO THE NAIADS.
(FROM THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH.)
Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead,
Now let me wander through your gelid reign.
I burn to view th' enthusiastic wilds
By mortal else untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thund'ring o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the streams renowned in ancient

song.

Here from the desert down the rumbling steep
First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding
Po

In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the East;
And there in Gothie solitude reclined
The cheerless Tanaïs pours his hoary urn.
What solemn twilight! what stupendous shades
Enwrap these infant floods! through every nerve
| A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear

Swarms with the silver fry: such through the Glides o'er my frame. The forest deepens round

bounds

Of pastoral Stafford runs the brawling Trent;

Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; such

And more gigantic still th' impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms athwart th

gloom.

Are these the confines of some fairy world?