And here the gout, half tyger, half a snake,
Raged with a hundred teeth, a hundred stings;
which was changed to—
The sleepless gout here counts the crowing cocks,
A wolf now gnaws him, now a serpent stings.
When Thomson was seized with the illness of which he died, Armstrong was one of those who were sent for to attend him.
In 1751, he published Benevolence, an Epistle to Eumenes; and in 1753, Taste, an Epistle to a Young Critic. In the next year, he wrote the Forced Marriage, a tragedy, which Garrick did not think fitted for the stage. It was printed in 1770, with such of his other writings as he considered worthy of being collected. In this book, which he entitled Miscellanies, in two volumes, first appeared the second part of Sketches or Essays on Various Subjects, by Launcelot Temple, Esq.; the former had been published in 1758. Wilkes was supposed to have contributed something to these lively trifles, which, under an air of impertinent levity, are sometimes marked by originality and discernment. His poem called Day, an epistle which he had addressed to Wilkes in 1761, was not admitted by the author to take its place among the rest. For the dispute which gave rise to this omission he was afterwards sorry; and in his last illness declared, that what he had got in the army he owed to the kindness of Wilkes; and that although he had been rash and hasty, he still retained a due sense of gratitude. In attacking Wilkes, he contrived to exasperate Churchill also, who was not to be provoked with impunity, and who revenged himself in the Journey. In 1771, he published a Short Ramble through some parts of France and Italy. In the neighbourhood of Leghorn he passed a fortnight with Smollett, to whom he was always tenderly attached. Of his book I regret the more that I cannot speak from my own knowledge, because the journey which it narrates is said to have been made in the society of Mr. Fuseli, with whom it is not easy to suppose that any one could have travelled without profiting by the elegance and learning of his companion. I have no better means of bringing my reader acquainted with some Medical Essays which he published in 1773; but from the manner in which they are spoken of in the Biographical Dictionary [2], it is to be feared that they did not conduce to his reputation or advancement. He died in September, 1779, in consequence, as it is said, of a contusion which he received when he was getting into a carriage. His friends were surprised to find he had laid by three thousand pounds, which had been saved chiefly out of his half-pay.
Armstrong appears to have been good-natured and indolent, little versed in what is called the way of the world, and, with an eagerness of ostentation which looks like the result of mortified vanity, a despiser of the vulgar, whether found among the little or the great.
His Art of Preserving Health is the only production by which he is likely to be remembered. The theme which he has chosen is one, in which no man who lives long does not at some time or other feel an interest; and he has handled it with considerable skill. In the first Book, on Air, he has interwoven very pleasing descriptions both of particular places and of situations in general, with reference to the effects they may be supposed to have on health. The second, which treats of Diet, is necessarily less attractive, as the topic is less susceptible of ornament; yet in speaking of water, he has contrived to embellish it by some lines, which are, perhaps, the finest in the poem.
Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander through your gelid reign.
I burn to view th' enthusiastic wilds
By mortals else untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thund'ring o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient song.
Here from the desart, down the rumbling steep,
First springs the Nile: here bursts the sounding Po
In angry waves: Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the East:
And there, in Gothic solitude reclin'd,
The cheerless Tanais pours his hoary urn.
What solemn twilight! What stupendous shades
Enwrap these infant floods! Through every nerve
A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear
Glides o'er my frame. The forest deepens round;
And more gigantic still th' impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom.
Are these the confines of another world?
A land of Genii? Say, beyond these wilds
What unknown regions? If indeed beyond
Aught habitable lies.
This has more majesty, and more to fill the imagination, than the corresponding paragraph in Thomson's Autumn.
Say then where lurk the vast eternal springs, &c.—771.