Arbuthnot

Arbuthnot, or ARBUTHNOTT, JOHN, physician and wit, the friend of Swift and Pope, was born at Arbuthnott, in Kincardineshire, 29th April 1667. His father was the (Episcopal) parish minister, who was dispossessed by the Presbyterians after the Revolution. One of John's brothers fought under Dundee at Killiecrankie, and another in Mar's rebellion; John was, according to Chesterfield, 'a Jacobite by prejudice, a republican by reflection and reasoning.' He studied at Aberdeen and University College, Oxford, but took his M.D. degree at St Andrews (1696). He removed soon after to London, and there supported himself by teaching mathematics. In 1697 he published an Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge, which brought him into notice as a man of no common ability. Accident called him into attendance on Prince George of Denmark; in 1705 he was appointed physician-extraordinary to the queen, and her death in 1714 was a severe blow to his prosperity. In 1715, along with Pope, he assisted Gay in Three Hours after Marriage, a farce that, in spite of the trio of wits, proved a complete failure. He pronounced the Harveian oration in 1727, and died 27th February 1735. Arbuthnot was one of the leaders in that circle of wits which adorned the reign of Queen Anne, and was still more nobly distinguished by the rectitude of his morals and the goodness of his heart. He was one of the kindest and trustiest of friends.—'If there were a dozen Arbuthnots in the world,' wrote Swift to Pope in 1725, 'I would burn my Travels.' Utterly careless of literary fame, he was the chief, if not sole author of that brilliant satire, the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, first published in Pope's works (1741); and his too was the celebrated political jeu d'esprit, the History of John Bull (1712), which has so often been imitated. Among his scientific works, the essays On Aliments (1731) and Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies (1732) possess much merit. The latter particularly displays a deep knowledge of physiological laws. See the Life and Works, by G. A. Aitken (1892).