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/328

 292 ARBUTHNOT. basket at Paris. His ftay there, however, was but very fhort ; he returned to London, and having loft his former re- fidence at St. James's, took a houfe in Dover ftreet. In 1727, he published " Tables of ancient Coins, Weights, " and Mea(ures," in 410. He continued to practice phyfic with g^od reputation, and diverted his leilure hours in writ- ing papers of wit and humour. He contributed in 1732 to- wards detecting and punifhing the fcandalous frauds and abufes that had been carried on, under the fpecious name of " The Charitable Corporation." The fame year he pub- Jifhed his " EfFay concerning the Nature of Aliment?, the " Choice of them, &c." which was f 'Mowed the year after by the " Effects of Air on Human Bodies.'' He was ap- parently led to the fubjedls of thefe treatifes by the confide- raiion of his own cafe, an afthma, which gradually increaf- ing with his ye*rs, became (hortly after defperate and incur- able. In 17 34 he retired to H^mpfte^d, in hopes of finding ibmefmall iclief for this affliction; but he died at his houfe in Cork-ftreet, Burlington gardens, Feb. 1735. He was a married man and had children, particularly George and Annej the former enjoyed a place of confiderable profit in the exchequer office, and was one of the executors to Pope's Will, and the other a legatee. Pope, in a letter to Digby, dated Sept. i, 1722, tells him, that the firft time he faw the doctor, Swift obferved to him, that he was a man who could do every thing but waik. He appears to have been in all refpedts a moft ac>omj_>li{hed and amiable perfon. He has fhewn himfelf equal to any of his contemporaries in humour, vivacity and learning ; and he was fuperior to moft roen in the moral duties of life, in ads of humanity and benevolence. His letter to Pope, written, as it were upon his death-bed, and which no one can read with- out the tendered emotion, di (covers fuch a noble fortitude of mind at the approach of his diiTolution, as could be infpired only by a clear confcience, and the calm ret.-ofpedt of an un- interupted feries of virtue, in 1751, came out, in two vols, 8vo. printed at Giafgow, " The mifcellaneous woiksof the " Jate Dr. Arbuthnot," which are faid to comprehend, with what is inferted in Swift's hiifcellajiies, all his pieces of wit and humour : but the genui.nenefs of many pieces in that collection is more than aprocryprul ; and a collection of the works of Dr. Arbuthnot is ftill a cieiideratum in literature, which, we are happy to perceive bv the fecoud edition of the BiagraphiaBmannica, will probably be foon lupplied. ARC