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communicate to others the pleasure he has received from a work of taste and genius. He thinks himself secure of the thanks of the public, and hopes this farther advantage will attend the present publication, that it will soon be followed by a correct and compleat edition from the author's own manuscript.

All this is somewhat mysterious, but there will not, however, be much injustice in supposing that Mr. Wilkes conveyed to the press as much of this Epistle as he thought would do credit to the author and to himself. It is certain the poem was published by Andrew Miller who was well acquainted with Dr. Armstrong, and would not have joined in any attempt to injure his fame or property. The poem contains many striking allusions to manners and objects of taste, but the versification is frequently careless: the author did not think proper to add it to his collected works, nor was it ever published in a more correct form.

In this poem he was supposed to reflect on Churchill, but in a manner so distant that few except of Churchill's irascible temper could have laid hold of any cause of offence. This libeller, however, retorted on our author in The Journey, with an accusation of ingratitude, the meaning of which is said to have been, that Dr. Armstrong forgot certain pecuniary obligations he owed to Mr. Wilkes. About the same time a coolness took between place Dr. Armstrong and Mr. Wilkes on political grounds. Armstrong not only serving under government as an armyphysician, but he was also a Scotchman, and could not help resenting the indignity which Wilkes was perpetually attempting to throw on that nation in his North Briton. On this account they appear to have continued at variance as late as the year 1773, when our author called Wilkes to account for some reflections on his character which he suspected he had written in his favourite vehicle, the Public Advertiser. The conversation which passed on this occasion was lately published in the Gentleman's Magazine (1792), and is said to have been copied from minutes taken the same afternoon, April 7, 1773, and sent to a friend: but as the doctor makes by far the worst figure in the dialogue, it can be no secret by whom the minutes were taken, and afterwards published. The contests, however, of Wilkes and his friends are of very little moment: there appears to have been no sound principle of friendship among them, and no ties which they did not think themselves at liberty to violate when it suited their interest.

After the peace, Dr. Armstrong resided some years in London, where his practice was confined to a small circle, but where he was respected as a man of general knowledge and taste, and an agreeable companion. In 1770, he published two volumes of Miscellanies, containing the articles already mentioned, except the Economy of Love (an edition of which he corrected for separate publication in 1768) and his Epistle to Mr. Wilkes. The new articles were, the Imitations of Shakespeare and Spenser, the Universal Almanac, and the Forced Marriage, a tragedy, which was offered to Garrick about the year 1754, and rejected. A second part of his Sketches was likewise added to these volumes, and appeared to every delicate and judicious mind, as rambling and improper as the first. "I know not," says Dr. Beattie to his friend sir William Forbes, "what is the matter with Armstrong, but he seems to have conceived a rooted aversion at the whole human race, except a few friends, who, it seems, are dead. He sets the public opinion at defiance: a piece of boldness, which neither Virgil nor Horace

were ever so shameless as to acknowledge. I do not think that Dr. Armstrong has any cause to complain of the public: his Art of Health is not indeed a popular poem, but it is very much liked, and has often been printed. It will make him known and esteemed by posterity: and I presume he will be more esteemed if all his other works perish with him. In his Sketches, indeed, are many sensible and some striking remarks: but they breathe such a rancorous and contemptuous spirit, and abound so much in odious vulgarisms and colloquial execrations, that in reading we are as often disgusted as pleased. I know not what to say of his Univeral Almanac; it seems to me an attempt at humour, but such humour is either too high or too low for my comprehension. The plan of his tragedy, called The Forced Marriage, is both obscure and improbable: yet there are good strokes in it, particularly in the last scene."

In 1771, he published another extraordinary effusion of spleen, under the title of A short Ramble through some parts of France and Italy, and with his assumed name of Lancelot Temple. This ramble he took in company with Mr. Fuseli, the celebrated painter, who speaks highly in favour of the general benevolence of his character. In 1773, under his own name, and unfortunately for his reputation, appeared a quarto pamphlet of Medical Essays, in which, while he condemns theory, he plunges into all the uncertainties of theoretical conjectures. He complains, likewise, in a very coarse style, of the neglect he met with as a physician, and the severity with which he was treated as an author, and appears to write with a temper soured by disappointment in all his pursuits.

He died at his house in Russell-street, Covent Garden, on Sept. 7, 1779. His death was attributed to an accidental contusion in his thigh, while getting into the carriage which brought him to town from a visit in Lincolnshire. To the surprise of his friends, who thought that poverty was the foundation of his frequent complaints, he left behind him more than three thousand pounds, saved out of a very moderate income arising principally from his half-pay.

His character is said to have been that of a man of learning and genius, of con siderable abilities in his profession, of great benevolence and goodness of heart, fond of associating with men of parts and genius, but indolent and inactive, and therefore totally unqualified to employ the means that usually lead to medical employment, or to make his way through a crowd of competitors. An intimate friendship always subsisted between him and Thomson the poet; as well as with other gentlemen of learning and genius; and he was intimate with, and respected by sir John Pringle, at the time of his death3. In 1753, Dr. Theobald addressed two Latin Odes, Ad ingenuum virum, tum medicis, tum poeticis facultatibus præstantem, Johannem Armstrong, M. D'.

Dr. Armstrong's fame as a poet must depend entirely on his Art of Preserving

2 He had been acquainted with Mr. Fuseli for many years; and Mr. Isaac Reed informed me that it is to this gentleman he alludes in the following passage in one of his Sketches, published in 1770, On the Influence of Climate upon Genius." As to history (painting) itself, besides some promising specimens of it at home, perhaps even this barren age has produced a genius; not indeed of British growth; unpatronized, and at present almost unknown; who may live to astonish, to terrify, and delight all Europe." C.

3 Nichols' Life of Bowyer, p. 281, 252, 4to. edit. I am happy to inform my readers, that they may soon expect an enlarged edition of this valuable collection of literary history, in four volumes

STO. C.

• Ibid. p. 583.

Health, which, although liable to some of the objections usually offered against didactic poetry, is yet free from the weightiest; and in this respect he may be deemed more fortunate, as he certainly is superior to Philips, Dyer, and Grainger. The Art of Preserving Health is so different from those which are mechanical, that his Muse is seldom invited to an employment beneath her dignity. The means of preserving health are so intimately connected with the mind, and depend so much on philosophy, reflection, and observation, that the author has full scope for the powers of fancy, and for many of those ornamental flights which are not only pleasing, but constitute genuine poetry. In considering the varieties of air and exercise, he has seized many happy occasions for picturesque description; and when treating on the passions, he has many striking passages of moral sentiment, which are vigorous, just, and impressive. In Book II. on Diet, we discover more judgment than poetical inspiration, and he seems to be aware that the subject had a natural tendency to lower his tone. He seems therefore intent in this book principally to render useful precepts familiar, and if possible to make them take hold of the imagination. There are however descriptive passages even here that are very grand. It would perhaps be difficult to select from these volumes an image more finely conceived and uniformly preserved, than where he inculcates the simple precept, that persons who have been exhausted for want of food ought not to indulge when plenty presents itself:

-While the vital fire

Burns feebly, heap not the green fuel on;
But prudently foment the wandering spark
With what the soonest feeds its kindred touch:

Be frugal ev'n of that: a little give

At first that kindled, add a little more:

Till, by deliberate nourishing, the flame
Reviv'd, with all its wonted vigour glows 5.

s I have great pleasure in referring the reader to an elaborate criticism on this poem, by Dr. Aikin, prefixed to an ornamented edition, published by Messrs. Cadell and Davies in 1803.

POEMS

OF

DR. ARMSTRONG.

THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH.

BOOK I.-AIR.

DAUGHTER of Pæon, queen of every joy,
Hygeia; whose indulgent smile sustains
The various race luxuriant Nature pours,
And on th' immortal essences bestows
Immortal youth; auspicious, O descend!
Thou cheerful guardian of the rolling year,
Whether thou wanton'st on the western gale,
Or shak'st the rigid pinions of the North,
Diffusest life and vigour through the tracts
Of air, thro' earth, and ocean's deep domain.
When thro' the blue serenity of Heaven
Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host
Of Pain and Sickness, squalid and deform'd,
Confounded sink into the loathsome gloom,
Where in deep Erebus involv'd the Fiends
Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death,
Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe,
Swarm thro' the shuddering air: whatever
plagues

Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings
Rise from the putrid wat'ry element,
The damp waste forest, motionless and rank,
That smothers earth, and all the breathless
winds,

Or the vile carnage of th' inhuman field;
Whatever baneful breathes the rotten South;
Whatever ills th' extremes or sudden change
Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce;
They fly thy pure effulgence: they and all
The secret poisons of avenging Heaven,
And all the pale tribes halting in the train
Of Vice and heedless Pleasure: or if aught
The comet's glare amid the burning sky,

'Hygeia, the goddess of health, was, according to the genealogy of the heathen deities, the daughter of Esculapius; who, as well as Apollo, was distinguished by the name of Pæon.

Mournful eclipse, or planets ill combin'd,
Portend disastrous to the vital world;
Thy salutary power averts their rage,
Averts the general bane: and but for thee
Nature would sicken, nature soon would die.

Without thy cheerful active energy
No rapture swells the breast, no poet sings,
No more the maids of Helicon delight.
Come then with me, O goddess, heav'nly gay!
Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow,
And let it wisely teach thy wholesome laws:
"How best the fickle fabric to support
Of mortal man; in healthful body how
A healthful mind the longest to maintain."
'Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to choose
The best, and those of most extensive use;
Harder in clear and animated song
Dry philosophic precepts to convey.
Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace
Of Nature, and with daring steps proceed
Thro' paths the Muses never trod before.

Nor should I wander doubtful of my way,
Had I the lights of that sagacious mind
Which taught to check the pestilential fire,
And quell the deadly Python of the Nile.
O thou belov'd by all the graceful arts,
Thou long the fav'rite of the healing powers,
Indulge, O Mead! a well-design'd essay,
Howe'er imperfect: and permit that I
My little knowledge with my country share,
Till you the rich Asclepian stores unlock,
And with new graces dignify the theme.

Ye who amid this feverish world would wear
A body free of pain, of cares a mind;
Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;
Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke
And volatile corruption, from the dead,
The dying, sick'ning, and the living world
Exhal'd, to sully Heaven's transparent dom
With dim mortality. It is not air
That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,
Sated with exhalations rank and fell,
The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw
Of nature; when from shape and texture she

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