|
 |
|
one of the constellation of wits in the reign of queen Anne, and the most learned man of the whole body, was the son of a Scottish clergyman, who bore a near relationship to the noble family of this name and title. He was born at Arbuthnot in Kincardineshire, soon after the Restoration, and received his education at the University of Aberdeen, where he took the degree of M.D. The father of Arbuthnot was one of those members of the church of Scotland, who, not being able to comply with the presbyterian system introduced at the Revolution, were obliged to resign their charges. He retired to a small estate, which he possessed by inheritance; while his sons, finding their prospects blighted in their own country, were under the necessity of going abroad to seek their fortune. John carried his jacobitism, his talents, and his knowledge of physic, to London, where he at first subsisted as a teacher of mathematics. His first literary effort bore a reference to this science: it was an "Examination of Dr Woodward’s Account of the Deluge," a work which had been published in 1695, and which, in Dr Arbuthnot’s estimation, was irreconcilable with just philosophical principles. This publication, which appeared in 1697, laid the foundation of the author’s literary reputation, which not long after received a large and deserved increase by his "Essay on the usefulness of Mathematical Learning." The favour which he acquired by these publications, as well as by his agreeable manners and learned conversation, by degrees introduced him into practice as a physician. Being at Epsom, when Prince George of Denmark was suddenly taken ill, he was called in, and had the good fortune to effect a cure. The Prince immediately became his patron, and, in 1709, he was appointed fourth physician in ordinary to the queen, (prince George’s royal consort,) in which situation he continued till her majesty’s death in 1714. In 1704, Dr Arbuthnot had been elected a member of the Royal Society, in consequence of his communicating to that body a most ingenious paper on the equality of the numbers of the sexes; a fact which he proved by tables of births from 1629, and from which he deduced the reasonable inference that polygamy is a violation of the laws of nature. In 1710, he was elected a member of the Royal College of Physicians.
more >>
|
Popular Poems
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Poets
