Dr. John Armstrong, littérateur, and associate of Smollett, Thomson, Wilkes, and other celebrities / Lewis M. Knapp.

  • Knapp, Lewis M. (Lewis Mansfield)
Date:
[1944?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. John Armstrong, littérateur, and associate of Smollett, Thomson, Wilkes, and other celebrities / Lewis M. Knapp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    finished portrait. I have not seen the original, but I possess a clear photo¬ graph165 of it. Reynolds did the portrait, it seems, in 1767.166 It reveals a pensive, melancholy, and sensitive face, and suggests patrician pride and stubbornness, and certainly a touch of Puckish humor. It shows strength and individuality. Various engravings167 of Armstrong were made, all apparently after his death. Before giving a final appraisal of Armstrong’s personality I must sum¬ marize a few of his central attitudes toward literature and society which are tersely and entertainingly expressed in his poems, Of Benevolence (1751); and Taste (1753); and in his prose Sketches (1758). These three works are all readable and revealing for one who wishes to know the whole story of the culture of the mid-eighteenth century. They show Armstrong’s dislike of current trends in life and literature. He attacked turgid, florid, and obscure writing. He opposed newly coined words and modernized spelling. He pleaded for independence in literary judgments. Pope and Dryden he championed. “Shakespeare,” he insisted, “had the most musical ear of all the English poets.” Italian music was trivial, whereas the “Welch, the Scotch, the Irish music reaches the heart.” Along with a strongly humanitarian attitude toward the underprivileged, he showed repeatedly his contempt for the English mob, the “mobility” as he called it. Generally speaking, Armstrong was a conservative, but not a reactionary in all respects. In medical ideas he was a progressive: in his Medical Essays he advocated the value of scientific observation rather than that of conventional theory. The amplified account of Armstrong’s activities offered in the fore¬ going pages has added outline, detail, and color to the faded portrait of his external life. And through the portrait the voice of the living man is audible at times in his letters, verse, and prose, when Armstrong broke 165 The photograph, which is 7 inches high and 5f inches wide, is No. 5 in a series. It appears to have been torn out of a bound pamphlet, sales’ catalogue, or a book. 166 See Edward Hamilton, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Engraved Works of Sir Joshua Rey¬ nolds (London, 1874), p. 2. Hamilton stated that Armstrong’s picture was painted in 1767, and that it was in the possession of the Marquess of Bute. For further information on Rey¬ nold’s painting, or paintings, of Armstrong see Art Prices Current, new series, vols. i, v, x, xvi, and xvm, covering the years 1921-22 to 1938-39. 1671 have an engraving by T. [J.?] Coocke. In Armstrong’s Poetical Works (Edinburgh: Apollo Press, 1781), a volume in Bell’s Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, there is an engraving “by Trotter from an Original Picture by Sr. J. Reynolds in the possession of Mf Coutts.” This follows very faithfully my photograph of Reynolds’ painting. The Catalogue of the Valuable and Extensive Collection of Prints, Books of Prints, Drawings &c of Caleb Whitefoord, Esq. F. R. S. & F. A. S. Deceased . . . sold Thurs. May 10, 1810 in Br. Mus. lists the following: “Item 645, p. 43, Dr Armstrong by Cook circle 8vo. Item 646, p. 43, Dr. Armstrong, by Fisher, with verses; the suffrage of the wise, etc.”
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