JOHN ARMSTRONG was born in 1709, in the parish of Castleton, Roxburghshire, a parish of which his father was minister. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, took his medical degree in 1732, and soon afterwards commenced the practice of his profession in London, "the proper place," says one of his biographers, "for a man of accomplishments." His success as a physician was by no means great; necessity, perhaps, as well as inclination, prompted the employment of his pen. Some medical pamphlets, and a licentious production in verse," the Economy of Love," which at a more matured age he "revised and corrected," were followed, in 1744, by the great work on which his reputation depends,-"The Art of Preserving Health." The publication of this poem was succeeded by one on "Benevolence," another on "Taste," and another entitled "Day," written in Germany, where the author was physician to the forces. From the year 1763 he continued to reside in London, cultivating intercourse with the Muses and their favourites, rather than striving to attain distinction in his professional career. He attributes his failure less to his natural indolence and inactivity than to a dislike to adopt the petty artifices by which popularity is achieved; "he could not intrigue with nurses, nor associate with the various knots of pert, insipid, well-bred, impertinent, good-humoured, malicious gossips that are often found so useful in introducing a young physician into practice." It is certain, however, that he was indisposed to exertion in ways more worthy of greatness; and the portrait drawn of him by his friend Thomson, in the "Castle of Indolence," affords collateral proof that he preferred a life of "lazy ease" to one of labour and excitement:

He never uttered word, save when first shone

The glittering star of eve-thank heaven, the day is done."

Armstrong died in 1779; entitled to the gratitude of mankind for the useful lessons he had inculcated, in a form which renders them at once attractive and impressive. It is unnecessary here to comment upon any of his productions, except that which established his fame, and alone sustains it. The work was one that required no ordinary skill, judgment, and genius. To describe the various ailments of the human frame, and the remedies suggested by knowledge and experience, in language at once clear, comprehensive, graceful, and poetical, appears a task so full of difficulties, that the reader must be made acquainted with the manner in which they have been overcome to be at all conscious of the triumph achieved by the physician-poet. "The Art of Preserving Health" is divided into four books; they treat of AIR, DIET, EXERCISE, and THE PASSIONS; and the object of the writer is to explain how much delight and enjoyment each is capable of yielding, but how necessary it is to give to each its proper direction, that each may work its natural and fitting purpose. If some of the topics are in themselves interesting and suited to verse, others would seem of a directly opposite character: loathsome diseases, disgusting habits, frightful appearances, are however so treated as to lose all that repulses, and indeed invite to the consideration how they are to be avoided. He commenced his work with a full consciousness of the difficulties against which he had to contend, striving

in clear and animated song

Dry philosophic precepts to convey,"

and he proceeded, in a clear and lucid style, setting aside all pedantic jargon, all the set phrases of the schools, to write so that what he wrote might be comprehended.

In purauing, however, with firm purpose the main object of his design, he by no means overlooked the graces and descriptions that might impress upon the mind of the general reader the more weighty didactic truths it was his business to inculcate. The poem abounds in passages of exceeding beauty; the external appearances of nature are described with as much elegance as accuracy; and his comments on the workings of the human mind, when enslaved by habit or passion, are as vigorous as just. The meanest or most unpleasing topic upon which he treats becomes dignified and impressive; the naiads of renowned rivers rehearse the praises of a draught of

The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base.
And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass,
Descend the Babylonian spires are sunk ;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires crush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old;
And all those worlds that roll around the Sun,

rectly opposite character: loathsome diseases, disgusting

are however so treated as to lose all that repulses, and indeed invite to the cons ation how they are to be avoided. He commenced his work with a full consciousness of the difficulties against which he had to contend, striving

and he proceeded, in a clear and lucid style, setting aside all pedantic jargon, all the set phrases of the schools, to write so that what he wrote might be comprehended. In pursuing, however, with firm purpose the main object of his design, he by no means overlooked the graces and descriptions that might impress upon the mind of the general reader the more weighty didactic truths it was his business to inculcate. The poem abounds in passages of exceeding beauty; the external appearances of nature are described with as much elegance as accuracy; and his comments on the workings of the human mind, when enslaved by habit or passion, are as vigorous as just. The meanest or most unpleasing topic upon which he treats becomes dignified and impressive; the naiads of renowned rivers rehearse the praises of a draught of

WHAT does not fade? the tower that long had stood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base.
And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass,
Descend the Babylonian spires are sunk;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires crush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old;
And all those worlds that roll around the Sun,

Again involve the desolate abyss:

'Till the great FATHER through the lifeless gloom
Extend his arm to light another world,

And bid new planets roll by other laws.
For through the regions of unbounded space,
Where unconfin'd Omnipotence has room,
Being, in various systems, fluctuates still
Between creation and abhorr'd decay :
It ever did, perhaps, and ever will.

New worlds are still emerging from the deep;
The old descending, in their turns to rise.

*

But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue, Not less delightful, the prolific stream

Affords.

The crystal rivulet, that o'er

A stony channel rolls its rapid maze,

Swarms with the silver fry. Such, through the bounds Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent;

Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; such The Esk, o'erhung with woods; and such the stream On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air,

Liddel; till now, except in Doric lays

Tun'd to her murmurs by her love-sick swains,
Unknown in song; though not a purer stream,

Through meads more flowery, more romantic groves,
Rolls toward the western main. Hail, sacred flood!
May still thy hospitable swains be blest

In rural innocence; thy mountains still

Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods
For ever flourish; and thy vales look gay
With painted meadows, and the golden grain!
Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new,
Sportive and petulant, and charm'd with toys,
In thy transparent eddies have I lav'd:
Oft trac'd with patient steps thy fairy banks,
With the well-imitated fly to hook

The eager trout, and with the slender line

And yielding rod solicit to the shore

The struggling panting prey while vernal clouds
And tepid gales obscur'd the ruffled pool,