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but there is a certain kind of spleen that is both humane and agreeable, like Jaques in the play.” Thomson has described his abfent moods in the " Castle of Indolence." Stanza x.

With him was fometimes join'd in filent walk,
(Profoundly filent, for they never spoke)
One fhyer fill, who, quite detefted talk,
Oft ftung by spleen, at once away he broke
To groves of pine, and broad o'erfhadowing oak,
There inly thrill'd, he wander'd all alone,
And on himself his penfive fury woke;

He never'd utter'd word, fave when first fhone

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

He lived also in habits of intimacy with Grainger, Sir John Pringle, Mr. Fufeli, and other men of wit and learning.

"I was early acquainted with Dr. Armstrong," the late worthy Dr. Cuming of Dorchester writet Mr. Nichols," have often vifited him at his lodgings, knew many of his intimates, have met him in company, but from my having vifited the Metropolis fo feldom fince my refidence in Dorfet. fhire, I was not fo well acquainted with him as I fhould otherwife have been, or wifhed to be; He always appeared to me (and I was confirmed in that opinion by that of his most intimate friends) a man of learning and genius, of confiderable abilities in his profeffion, of great benevolence and goodness of heart, fond of affociating with men of parts and genius, but indolent and inactive, and therefore totally unqualified to employ the means that usually lead to medical emă ployment, or elbow his way through a crowd of competitors."

As a Poet, his compofitions have great inequalities, fome of them being poffeffed of every re quifite to be fought after in the most perfect composition, while others can hardly be confidered a fuperior to the productions of mediocrity. Much of the merit of his Epifiles to Eumenes, to a Young Critic, and to John Wilkes, Efq. confifts in a fpirited conciseness, a lively representation of chara&er, and a certain sprightliness and turn of wit, which are always pleasing. Bat they feldom rife into a high ftrain of poetry, and are sometimes deficient in grace and cafe. The Epifile to Eumenes, is rather too fatirical for the fubject. In the Epifle to Tafe, he is severely satirical on all pretenders to wit; but he does not treat the subject in so masterly, nor in so poetical a manner as Pope had done before him. In his Day, he feems not to have intended rifing much higher than profe put into numbers. His Winter Piece, in imitation of Shakspeare, has more elevation, but is a turgid and inflated performance.

His Art of Preferving Health, on account of the reputation it has so justly acquired, precludes all criticism. It is of the highest species of didactic poetry, and of a merit and character so great, að to rank with the compositions of Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, Vida, Boileau, Akenside, Dyer, and Grainger. Akenfide has attempted the most rich and poetical form of didactic writing in his "Pleasures of Imagination," and in feveral parts, fucceeded happily, and displayed much gening. Armstrong has not aimed at fo high a strain as Akenfide; but he is more equal, and maintains throughout a chaste and correct elegance.

"To defcribe fo difficult a thing gracefully and poetically," fays Dr. Warton, in his "Reflections on Didactic Poetry," as the effces of a diftemper on the human body, was reserved for Dr. Armftrong, who accordingly hath nobly executed, at the end of his third book of his Art of Preferving Health, where he hath given us that pathetic account of the Sweating Sickness. There is a claffical correctness and ciofenefs of ftyle in this poem, that are truly admirable; and the subject is raised and adorned by numberless poetical images."

"Of all the poetical performances on this fubject, fays Dr. Mackenzie in his "Hiftory of Health," that have come to my hands, Dr. Armstrong's Art of Preferving Health is by far the best. Të quote every charming defeription and beautiful paffage of this poem, one muft tranfcribe the whole. We cannot, however, expect new rules where the principal defign was to raise and warm the heart into a compliance with the folid precepts of the ancients, which he has enforced with great frength and elegance. And, upon the whole, he has convinced us by his own example, that we nght not to blame antiquity for acknowledging

"One power of phyfic, melody, and fong."

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THE WORKS OF ARMSTRONG.

THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH. 1774

IN FOUR BOOKS.

1

1

BOOK I.

AIR.

DAUGHTER of Pæon, queen of every joy,
Hygeia; whofe indulgent fmile fuftains
The various race luxuriant nature pours,
And on th' immortal effences bestows
Immortal youth; aufpicious, O descend!
Thou cheerful guardian of the rolling year,
Whether thou wanton'ft on the western gale,
Or fhak'ft the rigid pinions of the north,
Diffuseft life and vigour through the tracts
Of air, through earth, and ocean's deep domain.
When through the blue ferenity of heaven
Thy power approaches, all the wasteful hoft
Of pain and ficknefs, fqualid and deform'd,
Confounded fink into the lothefome gloom,
Where in deep Erebus involv'd the fiends
Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death,
Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe,
Swarm through the fhudd'ring air: whatever
plagues

Or meagre famine breeds, or with flow wings
Rife from the putrid watry element,

The damp wafte foreft, motionless and rank,
That fmothers earth and all the breathless winds,
Or the vile carnage of th' inhuman field:
Whatever baneful breathes the rotten fouth;
Whatever ills th' extremes or fudden change
Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce;
They fly thy pure effulgence: they and all
The fecret poifons of avenging heaven,
And all the pale tribes halting in the train
Of vice and heedlefs pleafure; or if aught
The comet's glare amid the burning sky,
Mournful eclipfe, or planets ill-combin'd
Portend difaftrous to the vital world;
Thy falutary power averts their rage,
Averts the general bane: and but for thee
Nature would ficken, nature foon would die.

*Hygeia, the goddess of health, was, according to the genealogy of the heathen deities, the daughter of Ef culapius; who, as well as Apello, was diftinguifbed by the name of Paon.

Without thy cheerful active energy No rapture fwells the breast, no poet fings, No more the maids of Helicon delight. Come then with me, O goddefs heavenly gay! Begin the fong; and let it fweetly flow, And let it wifely teach thy wholesome laws: "How beft the fickle fabric to support "Of mortal man; in healthful body how "A healthful mind the longest to maintain." 'Tis hard, in fuch a ftrife of rules, to choose The beft, and those of most extenfive use; Harder in clear and animated fong Dry philofophic precepts to convey. Yet with thy aid the fecret wilds I trace Of nature, and with daring fteps proceed Through paths the mufes never trod before,

Nor should I wander doubtful of my ways Had I the lights of that fagacious mind Which taught to check the peftilential fire, And quell the deadly Python of the Nile. O thou belov'd by all the graceful arts, Thou long the fav'rite of the healing powers, Indulge, O mead! a well-defign'd effay, Howe'er imperfect; and permit that I My little knowledge with my country share, | Till you the rich Afclepian stores unlock, And with new graces dignify the theme.

Ye who amid this feverish world would weag
A body free of pain, of cares a mind;
Fly the rank city, fhun its turbid air;
Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke
And volatile corruption, from the dead.
The dying, fick'ning, and the living world
Exhal'd, to fully heaven's tranfparent dome
With dim mortality. It is not air
That from a thoufard lungs reeks back to thiné
Sated with exhalations rank and fell,
The fpoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw
Of nature; when from shape and texture she
Relapfes into fighting the ments:

It is not air, but floats a naufeous mafs
Of all obfcene, corrupt, offerfive things.
Much moisture hurts; but here a fordid bath,
With ly rancour fraught, relaxes more
The folid frame than fimple moisture can,
3 P iiij

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Befides, immur'd in many a fullen bay
That never felt the freshnefs of the breeze.
This flumb'ring deep remains, and ranker grows
With fickly reft, and (though the lungs abhor
To drink the dun fuliginous abyfs)
Did not the acid vigour of the mine,
Roll'd from fo many thund'ring chimneys, tame
The putrid fteams that overfwarm the fky;
This caufic venom would perhaps corrode
Thofe tender cells that draw the vital air,
In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew'd;
Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawn
In countless pores o'er all the pervious skin
Imbib'd, would poifon the balfamic blood,
And roufe the heart to every fever's rage.
While yet you breathe, away; the rural wilds
Invite; the mountains call you, and the vales;
The woods, the ftreams, and each ambrofial brecze
That fans the ever undulating fky;

A kindly fky! whofe foft'ring power regales
Man, beaft, and all the vegetable reign.
Find then fome woodland fcene where nature
fmiles

Benign, where all her honeft children thrive,
To us there wants not many a happy feat!
Look round the fmiling land, fuch numbers rife
We hardly fix, bewilder'd in our choice,
See where enthron'd in adamantine flate,
Proud of her bards, imperial Windfor fits;
There choofe thy feat, in some afpiring grove
Faft by the flowly-winding Thames; or where
Broader the laves fair Richmond's green retreats,
(Richmend that fees an hundred villas rife
Rural or gay). O from the fummer's rage
O wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides
Umbrageous Ham -Eut, if the busy town
Attract thee ftill to tcil for power or gold,
Sweetly thou mayft thy vacant hours poffefs
In Hampstead, courted by the western wind;
Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood;
Or lofe the world amid the fylvan wilds
Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil'd.
Green rife the Kentish hills in cheerful air;
But on the marfhy plains that Lincoln spreads
Build not, nor reft too long thy wand'ring feet.
For on a ruftic throne of dewy turf,
With bareful fogs her aching temples bound,
Quartana there prefides; a meagre fiend
3 got by Eurus, when his brutal force
Comprefs'd the flothiul naiad of the fens.
From fuch a mixture fprung, this fitful peft
With fev'rish blafts fubdues the fickning hand:
Cold tremors come, with mighty love of rest,
Convu five yawnings, laffitude, and pains
That fting the burden'd brows, fatigue the loins,
And rack the joints and every torpid limb;
Then parching heat fucceeds, till ca pious fweats
O'erflow: a fhort relief from former ills.
Beneath repeated fhocks the wretches pine;
The vigour finks, the habit melts away;
The cheerful, pure, and animated bloom
Dies from the face, with fqualid atrophy
Devour'd, in fallow melancholy clad.
Ar left the forceress, in her fated wrath,
Refigns them to the furies of her train;

The bloated hydrops, and the yellow fiend
Ting'd with her own accumulated gail.

In queft of fites avoid the mournful plain Where offers thrive, and trees that love the lake; Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:

Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll
Fix near the marshy margin of the main,
For from the humid foil and wat'ry reign
Eternal vapours rife; the fpungy air
For ever weeps: or, turgid with the weight
Of waters, pours a founding deluge down,
Skies fuch as thefe let every mortal fhun
Who dreads the dropfy, palfy, or the gout,
Tertian, corrofive fcurvy, or moift catarrh :
Or any other injury that grows

From raw-fpun fibres idle and unftrung,
Skin ill-perfpiring, and the purple flood
In languid eddies loitering into phlegm.

Yet not alone from humid fkies we pine;
For air may be too dry. The íubtle heaven,
That winnows into duft the blaited downs,
Bare and extended wide without a stream,
Too fast imbibes th' attenuated lymph,
Which, by the furface, from the blood exhales.
The lungs grow rigid, and with toil effay
Their flexible vibrations; or, inflam'd,
Their tender ever-moving ftru&ture thaws.
Spoil'd of its limpid vehicle, the blood
A mafs of lees remains, a droffy tide
That flow as Lethe wanders through the veins:
Unactive in the fervices of life,

Unfit to lead its pitchy current through
The fecret mazy channels of the brain.
The melancholic fiend (that worst despair
Of phyfic), hence the ruft-complexion'd man
Purfues, whofe blood is dry, whofe fibres gain
Too ftretch'd a tone: and hence in climes aduft
So fudden tumults feize the trembling nerves,
And burning fevers glow with double rage.
Fly, if you can, thefe violent extremes
Of air: the wholefome is nor moift nor dry.
But as the power of choofing is deny'd
To half mankind, a further task enlues;
How best to mitigate these fell extremes,
How breathe, unhurt, the withering element,
Or hazy atmosphere: though custom moulds
To ev'ry clime the foft Promethean clay;
And he who first the fogs of Effex breath'd
(So kind is native air), may in the fens
Of Effex from inveterate ills revive,
At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.
But if the raw and oczy heaven offend,
Correct the foil, and dry the fources up
Of watery exhalation: wide and deep
Conduct your trenches through the quaking bog:
Solicitous, with all your winding arts,
Betray th' unwilling lake into the ftream;
And weed the forett, and invoke the winds
To break the toils where firangled vapours lie;
Or through the thickets fend the crackling flames-
Meantime, at home, with cheerful fires dipel
The humid air: and let your table fmoke
With folid roaft or bak'd; or what the herds
Of tanier breed fupply; or what the wilds
Yield to the toilfome pleafures of the chafe.

Generous your wine, the boaft of rip'ning years;
But frugal be your cups: the languid frame,
Vapid and funk from yesterday's debauch,
Shrinks from the cold embrace of watery heavens.
But neither thefe, nor all Apollo's arts,
Difarm the dangers of the drooping fky,
Unlefs with exercife and manly toil
You brace your nerves, and spur the lagging blood.
The fatt'ning clime let all the fons of cafe
Avoid; if indolence would wish to live,
Go, yawn and loiter out the long flow year
In fairer fkies. If droughty regions parch
The skin and lungs, and bake the thickening blood;
Deep in the waving forest choose your feat,
Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;
And wake the fountains from their fecret beds,
And into lakes dilate the rapid ftream.

Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,
The moift relaxing vegetable store,
Prevail in each repaft: your food fupplied
By bleeding life, be gently wafted down,
By foft decoction, and a mellowing heat,
To liquid balm; or, if the folid mafs
You choose, tormented in the boiling wave;
That through the thirsty channels of the blood
A fmooth diluted chyle may ever flow.
The fragrant dairy, from its cool recefs,
Its nectar acid, or benign will pour,
To drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowl
Of keen Sherbet the fickle taste relieve.
For with the viscous blood the fimple stream
Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups
Oft diffipate more moisture than they give.
Yet when pale feafons rife, or winter rolls
His horrors o'er the world, thou mayst indulge
In feafts more genial, and impatient broach
The mellow cak. Then, too, the scourging air
Provokes to keener toils than fultry droughts
Allow. But rarely we fuch fkies blafpheme.
Steep'd in continual rains, or with raw fogs
Bedew'd, our feafons droop; incumbent ftill
A ponderous heaven o'erwhelms the finking foul.
Lab'ring with ftorms, in heapy mountains rife
Th' imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian fhades
Had left the dungeon of eternal night,

Till black with thunder all the fouth defcends.
Scarce in a fhowerlefs day the heavens indulge
Our melting clime; except the baleful eaft
Withers the tender fpring, and fourly checks
The fancy of the year. Our fathers talk
Offummers, balmy airs, and fkies ferene.
Good heaven! for what unexpiated crimes
This difmal change! The brooding elements
Do they, your powerful minifter of wrath,
Frepare fome fierce exterminating plague?
Or is it fix'd in the decrees above,
That lofty Albion melt into the main!
Indulgent nature, O diffolve this gloom!

Bind in eternal adamant the winds

That drown or wither: give the genial west
To breathe, and, in its turn, the sprightly north :
And may once more the circling feafons rule
The year; nor mix in every monftrous day.
Meantime, the moist maliguity to fhun
Of Lurden'd skies; mark where the dry champaign

Swells into cheerful hills; where marjoram
And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;
And where the * cynorrhodon with the rofe
For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty foil
Moft fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
There bid thy roofs, high on the baking steep,
Afcend, there light thy hofpitable fires.
And let them fee the winter morn arise,
The fummer evening blufhing in the weft;
While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind
O'erhung, defends you from the bluit'ring north,
And bleak affliction of the peevish eaft.

O! when the growling winds contend, and all
The founding foreft fluctuates in the form;
To fink in warm repofe, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar fleep.
The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarfer ftrain
Of waters rushing o'er the flippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrofial rest.
To please the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is ftudied; for whatever moves
The mind with calm delight, promotes the juft
And natural movements of the harmonious frame.
Befides, the fportive brook for ever shakes
The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with inceffant change
Of pureft element, refreshing ftill
Your airy feat, and uninfected gods.
Chiefly for this I praife the man who builds
High on the breezy ridge, whofe lofty fides
Th ethereal deep with endlefs billows chafes.
His purer manfion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

1

But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain, Involve my hill! And wherefoe'er you build; Whether on fun burut Epfom, or the plains Wash'd by the filent Lee; in Chelfea low, Or high Blackheath, with wint'ry winds affail'd; Dry be your houfe: but airy more than warm. Elfe every breath of ruder wind will ftrike Your tender body through with rapid pains; Fierce coughs will teaze you, hoarseness bin your

voice,

Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows.
Thefe to defy, and all the fates that dwell
In cloifter'd air, tainted with fteaming life,
Let lofty ceilings grace your ample rooms;
And fill at azure noontide may your dome
At every window drink the liquid fky.

Need we the funny fituation here,
And theatres open to the fouth commend?
Here, where the morning's mifty breath infefts
More than the torrid noon: how fickly grow,
How pale the plants in thofe ill-fated vales,
That, circled round with the gigantic heap
Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope
To feel the genial vigour of the fun!
While on the neighbouring hill the rofe inflames
The verdant fpring; in virgin beauty blows
The tender lily, Janguishingly fweet;
O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,

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And autumn ripens in the fummer's ray.
Nor lefs the warmer living tribes demand
The foft'ring fun whofe energy divine
Dwells not in mortal fire; whofe gen'rous heat
Glows through the mafs of groffer elements,
And kindles into life the pond'rous fpheres.
Cheer'd by thy kind invigorating warmth,
We court thy beams, great majesty of day!
If not the foul, the regent of this world,
First-born of heaven, and only lefs than God!

BOOK II.

DIET.

ENOUGH of air. A defart fubject now,
Rougher and wilder, rifes to my fight.
A barren wafte, where not a garland grows
To bind the mufe's brow; not ev'n a proud
Stupendous folitude frowns o'er the heath,
To roufe a noble horror in the foul:
But rugged paths fatigue, and error leads
Through endlefs labyrinths the devious feet.
Farewell, ethereal fields! the humbler arts
Of life; the table, and the homely gods,
Demand my fong, Elysian gales adieu!

The blood, the fountain whence the fpirits flow,
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys
To every particle that moves or lives;
This vital fluid, through unnumber'd tubes
Pour'd by the heart, and to the heart again
Refunded; fcourg'd for ever round and round;
Enrag'd with heat and toil, at laft forgets
Its balmy nature; virulent and thin
It grows; and now, but that a thousand gates
Are open to its flight, it would destroy
The parts it cherish'd and repair'd before.
Befides, the flexible and tender tubes
Melt in the mildeft most nectareous tide
That ripening nature rolls; as in the fiream
Its crumbling banks; but what the vital force
Of plaftic fluids hourly batters down,
That very force thofe plattic particles
Rebuild fo mutable the state of man.
For this the watchful appetite was giv'n,
Daily with fresh materials to repair
This unavoidable expence of iite,
This neceflary wafte of flesh and blood.
Hence the concoctive powers, with various art,
Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle;
The chyle to blood; the foamy purple tide
To liquors, which through finer arteries
To different parts their winding courfe purfue;
To try new changes, and new forms put on,
Or for the public, or fome private use.

Nothing fo foreign, but th' athletic hind
Can labour into blood. The hungry meal
Alone he fears, or aliments too thin;
By violent powers too easily fubdu'd,
Too foon expell'd. His daily labour thaws,
To friendly chyle, the most rebellious mafs
That falt can harden, or the fmoke of years;
Nor does his gorge the lufcious bacon rue,
Nor that which Ceftria fends, tenacious pafte
f folid milk. But ye of fofter clay,

Infirm and delicate and ye, who walle
With pale and bloated floth the tedious day!
Avoid the ftubborn aliment, avoid
The full repaft; and let fagacious age
Grow wifer, leffon'd by the dropping teeth.
Half fubtiliz'd to chyle, the liquid food
Readieft obeys th' affimilating pow'rs;
And foon the tender vegetable mafs
Relents; and foon the young of those that tread
The stedfaft earth, or cleave the green abyfs,
Or pathlefs fky. And if the fteer must fall,
In youth and fanguine vigour let him die;
Nor ftay till rigid age, or heavy ails,
Abfolve him ill requited from the yoke.
Some with high forage, and luxuriant ease,
Indulge the veteran ox; but wiser thou,
From the bald mountain or the barren downs,
Expect the flocks by frugal nature fed;
A race of purer blood, with exercise
Refin'd, and fcanty fare: for, old or young,
The ftall'd are never healthy; nor the cramm'd
Not all the culinary arts can tame
To wholesome food the abominable growth
Of reft and gluttony; the prudent tafte
Rejects like bane fuch lothefome lusciousness.
The languid stomach curses even the pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil:
For more the oily aliments relax

Its feeble tone; and with the eager lymph,
Fond to incorporate with all it meets,
Coily they mix, and fhun with flippery wiles
The woo'd embrace. Th' irrefoluble oil,
So gentle late and blandishing, in floods
Of rancid bile o'er flows: what tumults hence,
What horrors rise, were naufeous to relate.
Choose leaner viands, ye whose jovial make
1oo fast the gummy nutriment imbibes :
Choose fober meals; and roufe to active life
Your cumbrous clay; nor on th' infeebling down,
Irrefolute, protract the morning hours.
But let the man whole bones are thinly clad,
With cheerful cafe and fucculent repast,
Improve his habit if he can; for each
Extreme departs from perfect fanity.

I could relate what table this demands,
Or that complexion; what the various powers
of various foods: but fifty years would roll,
And filty more, before the tale were done.
Befides, there often lurks fome nameless, strange,
Peculiar thing; nor on the skin display'd,
Felt in the pulfe, nor in the habit feen;
Which finds a poifon in the food that most
The temp'rature affe&s. There are, whose blood
Impetuous rages through the turgid veins,
Who better bear the fiery fruits of Ind
Than the moift meion, or pale cucumber.
Of chilly nature others fly the board
Supply'd with flaughter, and the vernal powers
For cooler, kinder, uttenance implore.
Some even the generous nutriment deteft,
Which, in the shell, the fleeping embryo rears.
Some, more unhappy fill, repent the gifts
Of Pales; foft, delicious, and benign:
The balmy quinteffence of every flower,
And every grateful herb that decks the spring;

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