Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/100

70 production of three great writers has never attained any notice from mankind." With the opinion of Dr Johnson we entirely coincide, so far as the Scriblerus is concerned; but we think that Arbuthnot was unfortunate in the part of the design which he selected, and that, in satirising more palpable follies, he might have been more successful. The success of Swift, in ridiculing mankind in general in his Gulliver is surely a sufficient reason, if no other existed, for the lamentation of Warburton.

At the death of the Queen, when it pleased the new government to change all the attendants of the court, the immortal suffered with the mortal; Arbuthnot, displaced from his apartments at St James's, took a house in Dover-street, remarking philosophically to Swift, that he "hoped still to be able to keep a little habitation warm in town." His circumstances were never so prosperous or agreeable after this period. With the world at large, success makes merit—and the want of it the reverse—and it is perhaps impossible for human nature to think so highly of a man who has been improperly deprived of some external mark of distinction and honour, as of him who wears it without so much desert. The wit, left to his own resources, and with a rising family to support, seems to have now lived in some little embarrassment.

In 1717, Arbuthnot, along with Pope, gave assistance to Gay, in a farce entitled, "Three Hours after Marriage," which, strange to say, was condemned the first night. A rival wit wrote upon this subject:—

The failure is easily explained, and the explanation partly involves Arbuthnot's character as a literary wit. The satire of the principal character was too confined, too extravagant, and too unintelligible to a general auditory to meet with success on the stage. It would thus appear that Arbuthnot, like many other similar men, had too refined a style of wit in his writings—not that broad, open, palpable humour which flashes at once upon the conceptions of all men, but something too rich and rare to be generally appreciated. His learning led his mind to objects not generally understood or known; and, therefore, when he wrote, he was apt to excite the sympathies of only a very limited class.

In 1722, Dr Arbuthnot found it necessary for his health to indulge in a visit to Bath. He was accompanied on this occasion by a brother, who was a banker at Paris, and whose extraordinary character called forth the following striking description from Pope: "The spirit of philanthropy, so long dead to our world, seems revived in him: he is a philosopher all 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 on 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." About this time, the Doctor thus described himself in a letter to Swift: "As for your humble servant, with a great stone in his right kidney, and a family of men and women to provide for, he is as cheerful in public affairs as ever."

Arbuthnot, in 1723, was chosen second censor of the Royal College of Physicians; in 1727, he was made an Elect, and had the honour to pronounce the Harveian oration for the year. In 1727, also appeared his great and learned work entitled, "Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, explained and exemplified in several Dissertations." He continued to practice physic with good reputation, and diverted his leisure hours by writing papers of wit and humour.