his humanity is equal to his wit." "If there were a dozen
Arbuthnots in the world," said Swift, "I would burn 'Gulliver's
Travels.'"

Arbuthnot was of Swift's age, born in 1667, son of a Scotch
Episcopal clergyman, who lost his living at the Revolution. His
sons--all trained in High Church principles--left Scotland to seek
their fortunes; John came to London and taught mathematics. He took
his degree of Doctor of Medicine at St. Andrews in 1696; found use
for mathematics in his studies of medicine; became a Fellow of the
Royal Society; and being by chance at Epsom when Queen Anne's
husband was taken ill, prescribed for him so successfully that he
was made in 1705 Physician Extraordinary, and upon the occurrence of
a vacancy in 17O9 Physician in Ordinary, to the Queen. Swift calls
him her favourite physician. In 171O he was admitted Fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians. That was Arbuthnot's position in
1712-13 when, at the age of forty-five, he wrote this "History of
John Bull." He was personal friend of the Ministers whose policy he
supported, and especially of Harley, Earl of Oxford, the Sir Roger
of the History.

After Queen Anne's death, and the coming of the Whigs to power,
Arbuthnot lost his office at Court. But he was the friend and
physician of all the wits; himself without literary ambition,
allowing friends to make what alterations they pleased in pieces
that he wrote, or his children to make kites of them. A couple of
years before his death he suffered deeply from the loss of the elder
of his two sons. He was himself afflicted then with stone, and
retired to Hampstead to die. "A recovery," he wrote to Swift, "is
in my case and in my age impossible; the kindest wish of my friends