Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/327

 A R B U T II N O T. 291 his highnefs recovering employed him always after w.irdsas his phyfician. In confequcncc of this, upon the indiipofi- tion of Dr. Ilannes, he was appointed phyfician in ordinary to queen Anne 1709, and admitted a fellow of the college, as he had been fome years of the royal fociety. His gentle manners, pi lite learning, and excellent talents entitled him to an intimate correfpondence and friendfhip with the celebrated wiis of his time, Pope, Swift, Gay, and Parnell, whom he met as a member of the Scriblems Club. Jn 1714 he engaged with Pope and Swift in a defign to write a fatire on the abufe of human learning in every branch, which was to have been executed in the humorous manner of Cervantes, the original author of this fpecies of latire, under the hiftory of feigned adventures. But this project was put a ftop to by the queen's death, when they had only drawn out an imperfedt effay towards it, under the title of the firft book of the 4 ' Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. [ A ]"Wartnr- ' firft part of a work, projected in concert by Pope, S/.'ift, " and Arbuthnot. Their purpofe was to cenfure the abufes " They were difpetfed, the defign was never completed; " and Warburton lamenis its mifcarriage, as an event very " difaftrous to polite letters. If the whole may beeftimated " by this fpecimen, which feems to be the production of Ar- " of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which 44 known; nor can the fatire be underftood but by the learn- " reafon, the joint production of thefe great writers has ne- " ver attained any notice from mankind." The queen's death, and the difafters which fell upon his friends on that occafion, deeply afteted our author's fpirits ; and to divert his melancholy, he paid a vifit to his brother, a [A] Dr. Warburton tells us, that the employment for that they all had in travels of Gulliver, the treat! fe of the common. Arbnthnot was Ikilleii in profound, of literary criticifm on Vir- every thing which related to Icience, gil, and the memoirs of a parifh clerk, Hope was mailer of the fine arts, and are only fo many detached parts and frag- Swift excelled in the k ;yu ledge uf the rnents of this woik. The fame writer world: wit they hud all in equal mea- declares, that polite letters never loft fure, and that I" large, that no age more than by thedeteat of thif fcheme, perhaps ever produced thiee men to in which each of this illuftrious trium- whom nature had more bountifully be- virate would have found exercife for his (lowed it, or art brought it to higher own peculiar talent, befides conftant perfection. U 2 banker
 * " Thefe Memoirs," lays Dr. Johnfon, "extend only to thej^ ^
 * of learning by a fictitious life of an infatuated fcholar.
 * ' buthnot, with a few touches perhaps by Pope, the want
 * c the writer ridicules are fo little pratifed, that they are not
 * ed ; he raifes phantoms of ablurdity, and then drives them.
 * c away. He cures dileafcs that were never felt. For this