JOHN ARBUTHNOT,

WISEST AND WITTIEST OF DOCTORS.

(1667-1735.)

AFTER the lapse of more than a hundred and fifty years the collected works of Dr. John Arbuthnot have been published, and writings which have always been ascribed to Swift or to Pope have at last found their proper author. Not but what students of Queen Anne's time knew all about Dr. Arbuthnot, for his name is preserved in the memoirs and letters of that period, but one had to make a special search for his works among the writings of his contemporaries, for he was absolutely indifferent to his own fame. He was the friend of Swift and Pope, of Addison and Steele, of Gay and Congreve, and these as well as many others have left their testimony concerning his wit and learning and intellectual vigor.

Swift said that Arbuthnot could do everything but walk-he had a bad and slouching gait-and

Pope declared that of all the men he had met with or heard of, Dr. Arbuthnot had the most prolific wit, being superior in that respect to Swift. In his life of Pope, Dr. Johnson says:

It is to be regretted that either honor or pleasure should have been missed by Dr. Arbuthnot, a man estimable for his learning, amiable for his life and venerable for his piety. He 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, discovered and retained a noble ardor of religious zeal.

On another occasion, talking of the eminent writers of Queen Anne's reign, Johnson observed:

I think Dr. Arbuthnot the first man among them. He was the most universal genius, being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning and a man of much humor.

The same opinion has been expressed by many others. "His imagination," says Lord Chesterfield in one of his letters, "was almost inexhaustible, and his knowledge at everyone's service; charity, benevolence and a love of mankind appeared unaffectedly in all he said and did." Macaulay praises him for writing "the most ingenious and humorous political satire extant in

our language," while Thackeray says he was one of the wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest of mankind."

He was born in Scotland in 1667 and educated at Aberdeen. After taking his degree in medicine he established himself in London, where he rapidly gained a reputation for skill in his profession and as a man of science. Before he was thirty he was appointed a court physician, and had apartments in St. James's Palace. He became the favorite physician of Queen Anne. He soon acquired the friendship of all the eminent men of the day, and attended Swift, Pope, Congreve and Gay. One of the finest of Pope's poems, "The Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot," expresses much gratitude to him:

Friend to my life, which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song.

In Dublin Swift laments:

Removed from kind Arbuthnot's aid,
Who knows his art but not his trade,
Preferring his regard for me

Before his credit or his fee.

"If there were a dozen Arbuthnots in the world," writes Swift to Pope, "I would burn my 'Travels,"" meaning the Gulliver writings. And

again he says: "The doctor has more wit than we all have, and his humanity is equal to his wit.'

"

Arbuthnot was a great Tory and took much interest in the politics of the day. His greatest satire, so highly praised by Macaulay, is "The History of John Bull." It was published in

1712, and was aimed at the Duke of Marlborough, who was then all-powerful because of his victories over the French, and charged him with prolonging the war between France and England to make money out of it. John Bull, a name invented by Arbuthnot for England, is an honest clothier, and Nic Frog (Holland) is a linen draper, who has always furnished drapery to the Lord Strutts (Spain). It having come to the knowledge of John Bull and Nic Frog that young Lord

Strutt is about to transfer his custom to old Lewis Baboon (France), they threaten him with a lawsuit and put their case in the hands of an attorney, Humphrey Hocus (the Duke of Marlborough). The suit is brought and waged for years, with no apparent result except that the attorney grows richer all the time at the expense of his clients, or rather of John Bull, who has obligated himself to pay the costs. Everybody is represented as making something out of the suit except honest John, whose ready money,

bonds and mortgages all go into the attorney's pocket.

So keen was the satire and so easily recognized the points made that the whole nation roared with laughter. Sir Walter Scott says: "It was scarcely possible so effectually to dim the luster of Marlborough's splendid achievements as by parodying them under the history of a suit conducted by a wily attorney who made every advantage gained over the defendant a reason for protracting law procedure and enhancing the expense of his client."

The effect of the satire was that parliament soon made peace with France and Spain, and Marlborough was driven from power.

The "Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus" is another of Arbuthnot's amusing satires and is aimed at pedantry and quackery. The votaries of "mind cure" and " faith cure" will find in it some anticipation of their systems.

Dr. Arbuthnot died in 1735, after a happy and prosperous life. Pope and Chesterfield were with him in his last moments. Swift wrote: "The deaths of Mr. Gay and the doctor have been terrible wounds near my heart."