are to entertain and improve those we are among, or to receive those benefits ourselves; which whoever will consider, cannot easily run into either of these two errors; because, when any man speaks in company, it is to be supposed he does it for his hearers' sake, and not his own; so that common discretion will teach us not to force their attention if they are not willing to lend it; nor, on the other side, to interrupt him who is in possession, because that is in the grossest manner to give the preference to our own good sense. There are some people, whose good manners will not suffer them to interrupt you, but, what is almost as bad, will discover abundance of impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have done, because they have started something in their own thoughts, which they long to be delivered of. Meantime, they are so far from regarding what passes, that their imaginations are wholly turned upon what they have in reserve, for fear it should slip out of their memory; and thus they confine their invention, which might otherwise range over a hundred things full as good, and that might be much more naturally introduced. There is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by practising among their intimates, have introduced into their general conversation, and would have it pass for innocent freedom or humour; which is a dangerous experiment in our northern climate, where all the little decorum and politeness we have, are purely forced by art, and are so ready to lapse into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It seems to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring the scum of the people, made it a court entertainment, of which I have heard many particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious: although it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point of honour in the other extreme, when the smallest word misplaced among gentlemen ended in a duel. (From An Essay on Conversation.) ARBUTHNOT [John Arbuthnot, born in 1667, was connected with the family of Lord Arbuthnot, and was the son of the minister of Arbuthnot in Kincardineshire, who was deprived in 1689 on account of adhering to the Episcopalian order. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen, and at University College, Oxford, and took the degree of M.D. at St. Andrews University. He published early in life some scientific treatises, and, settling in London, he first employed himself in teaching mathematics, and afterwards in his profession. In 1705, he was appointed Physician to the Queen, and soon after became one of the brilliant galaxy of wits who were connected with the Court and the Tory Party-Swift, Pope, Gay, and Prior being amongst the number. On the death of the Queen and the fall of the Tories he lost his appointment at Court, and became suspected of Jacobite leanings-his family having always adhered to that cause, and one of his brothers having fought at Killiecrankie. The later part of his life was spent in the quiet pursuit of his profession, and in the indulgence of a literary taste, with little thought of literary profit or fame. He died in 1735.] IN the little circle of wits who made the age of Anne so memorable. Arbuthnot occupied a position absolutely unique. He possessed a scientific knowledge to which none of the others could make any pretence. Whatever disagreements and jealousies might affect the rest, Arbuthnot stood at all times aloof from quarrels, with no thought of himself, able to share their designs and rival their wit, but yet advancing no claim to fame, and content rather to be the helper in the plans of others, to soothe their jealousies, appease their discontent, and compose their anger by the placid influence of his own unfailing humour. It is no small niche that he has attained in the temple of Fame as the friend and adviser of Swift and Pope-addressed by Pope as "Friend to my life," and named by Swift as the one man, of whom, had the world contained a dozen, Gulliver's Travels would have been burnt. But this is not Arbuthnot's only title to a high place in English literature, Swift recognised him as his rival : "Arbuthnot is no more my friend It was indeed for his personal qualities—the strength, as well as the weakness, that endeared him to them-that his friends prized him most. "There is a passage in Bede," says Swift, highly commending the piety and learning of the Irish in that age, where, after abundance of praises, he overthrows them all by lamenting that, alas, they kept Easter at a wrong time of the year. So our doctor hath every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable or useful: but alas, he hath a sort of slouch in his walk." But strong as was the affection he inspired, Arbuthnot commanded respect by his own genius. Utterly careless as to the fate of his work-allowing much of it to be lost, and suffering many vagrant pages that were unworthy of him to be attributed to his hand, Arbuthnot has yet left enough that is indubitably his, to give him a high place in the literature of humour. His scientific work was sound so far as it went. As a mathematician, Berkeley places him in the first rank. He valued too highly the scientific achievements of his age to overwhelm it all in the indiscriminate satire which Swift poured out upon the Royal Society. The short extract given below from his early work On the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning (1700) shows that he could rightly estimate the place of Sir Isaac Newton. But to this he adds a power of irony and homely wit, and also—what is a less entertaining, but perhaps also a rarer gift—that of travestying the arguments of superficial and pedantic philosophy. The most important humorous works of Arbuthnot are two. The first is Law in a Bottomless Pit: or the History of John Bull, in which he portrays the outbreak and the fortunes of the war with France in the story of John Bull, and his embroilments with his family and his neighbours. It was first published in four separate parts, each with its own title, and afterwards issued as a whole under its better known name. The form of the story often reminds us of the manner in which Swift, in the Tale of a Tub, recounts the adventures of Peter, Martin, and Jack; but while the real value of Swift's satire lies in the digressions, Arbuthnot's never goes beyond the beaten track of the story. There is therefore no comparison between the vast range of Swift's satire and the definite and narrow aim which Arbuthnot pursues: but it may be doubted whether, within this smaller range, the episodes are not more dramatic and the individuality of the characters better sustained by Arbuthnot. The next of his achievements in humour is the fragment (for it is little more) entitled The Memoirs of Scriblerus. This was part of a scheme in which Swift, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot were to have shared, "to have ridiculed all the false tastes in learning, under the character of a man of capacity enough, that had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously in each" (Pope). The others, however, failed to do their part. Swift says that Arbuthnot alone was capable of carrying out the plan: and the others felt, perhaps, that they were without the necessary equipment of scientific knowledge. What Arbuthnot has left us is not only by far the best of his work, but shows how high was the range of his humour, which could unite the grave irony of Swift, in the travesty of an elaborate argument, with the dramatic characterisation of Sterne, who in Tristram Shandy has drawn not a little inspiration from the early chapters of Arbuthnot's fragment. The book was not published until 1741, six years after Arbuthnot's death. Unlike We have also many specimens of Arbuthnot's letters. those of his friend Pope, these were written with no thought of being published, but they remain as admirable models of an epistolary style-familiar, playful, and easy, but always with the added interest of a background of warm affection and half humorous melancholy. H. CRAIK. NEWTON'S DISCOVERY BUT though the industry of former ages had discovered the periods of the great bodies of the universe, and the true system and order of them, and their orbits pretty near; yet was there one thing still reserved for the glory of this age and the honour of the English nation, the grand secret of the whole machine; which, now it is discovered, proves to be (like the other contrivances of infinite wisdom) simple and natural, depending upon the most known and most common property of matter, viz.: gravity. From this the incomparable Mr. Newton, has demonstrated the theories of all the bodies of the solar system, of all the primary planets and their secondaries, and among others, the moon, which seemed most averse to numbers; and not only of the planets, the slowest of which completes its period in less than half the age of a man, but likewise of the comets, some of which it is probable spend more than 2000 years in one revolution about the sun; for whose theory he has laid such a foundation, that after ages, assisted with more observations, may be able to calculate their returns. In a word, the precession of the equinoctial points, the tides, the unequal vibration of pendulous bodies in different latitudes, etc., are no more a question to those that have geometry enough to understand what he has delivered on those subjects: a perfection in philosophy that the boldest thinker durst hardly have hoped for; and, unless mankind turn barbarous, will continue the reputation of this nation as long as the fabric of nature shall endure. After this, what is it we may not expect from geometry joined to observations and experiments? (From An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning.) |