Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/105

 How different would have been the allusions of a Leyden or a Scott to the land of Jock o' the Side and Hobbie Noble!

Armstrong was educated for the medical profession at the university of Edinburgh, under the elder Monro. In 1732, he took his degrees as M. D. with much reputation, the subject of his treatise being Tabes Purulenta. He had ere this period addicted himself to the composition of verses. We are informed, that, to relieve the tedium of a winter spent in "a wild romantic country"—probably Liddesdale—he wrote what he intended for an imitation of Shakspeare, but which turned out to resemble rather the poem of "Winter," then just published by Thomson. The bard of the Seasons, hearing of this composition, which so strangely and so accidentally resembled his own, procured a sight of it by means of a mutual friend, and, being much pleased with it, brought it under the notice of Mr David Mallet, Mr Aaron Hill, and Dr Young, all of whom joined with him in thinking it a work of genius. Mallet even requested the consent of the author to its publication, and undertook that duty, though he afterwards gave up the design.

Armstrong was probably led by this flattering circumstance to try his fortune in London, where his countrymen Thomson and Mallet had already gained literary distinction. In 1735, he is found publishing, in that capital, a humorous attack upon empirics, in the manner of Lucian, entitled, "An Essay for abridging the study of physic, to which is added, A Dialogue betwixt Hygeia, Mercury, and Pluto, relating to the Practice of Physic, as it is managed by a certain illustrious Society; and an Epistle from Usbeck the Persian to Joshua Ward, Esq." The essay, besides its sarcastic remarks on quacks and quackery, contains many allusions to the neglect of medical education among the practising apothecaries; but the author had exhausted his wit in it, and the dialogue and epistle are consequently flat and insipid. In 1737, he published a serious professional piece, styled, "A Synopsis of the History and Cure of the Venereal Disease," 8vo., inscribed in an ingenious dedication to Dr Alexander Stuart, as to "a person who had an indisputable right to judge severely of the performance presented to him." He probably designed the work as an introduction to practice in this branch of the medical profession; but it was unfortunately followed by his poem, entitled, "The Œconomy of Love," which, though said to have been designed as merely a burlesque upon certain didactic writers, was justly condemned for its warm and alluring pictures, and its tendency to inflame the passions of youth. It appears by one of the "Cases of Literary Property," that Andrew Millar, the bookseller, paid fifty pounds for the copy-right of this poem; a sum ill-gained, for the work greatly diminished the reputation of the author. After it had passed through many editions, he published one, in 1768, in which the youthful luxuriances that had given offence to better minds were carefully pruned.

In 1744, Dr Armstrong made some amends for this indiscretion, by publishing "The Art of Preserving Health," a didactic poem in blank verse, extending through four books, each of which contains a particular branch of the subject This very meritorious work raised his reputation to a height which his subsequent efforts scarcely sustained. It is written in a taste which would not now be considered very pure, or elegant; but yet, when the subject and the age are considered, there is amazingly little to be condemned. Dr Warton has justly remarked the refined terms in which the poet, at the end of his third book, ha? described an English plague of the fifteenth century, entitled, " The Sweating Sickness." "There is a classical correctness and closeness of style in this poem," says Dr Warton, "that are truly admirable, and the subject is raised and adorned by numberless poetical images." Dr Mackenzie, in his History of Health, be-