John Armstrong (poet)

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For the poet and journalist (1771-1797), see John Armstrong (journalist/poet).

John Armstrong
Dr. John Armstrong by Sir Joshua Reynolds (c. 1767), courtesy Figge Art Museum, Davenport, USA
Born	1709
Died	1779 (aged 69–70)
Nationality	Scottish
Occupation	poet, physician
Notable work(s)	The Art of Preserving Health (1744)

Dr. John Armstrong (1709–1779) was a poet. He was the son of the minister of Castleton, Roxburghshire, Scotland and studied medicine, which he practised in London.

He is remembered as the friend of James Thomson, David Mallet, and other literary celebrities of the time, and as the author of a poem on The Art of Preserving Health, which appeared in 1744, and in which a somewhat unpromising subject for poetic treatment is gracefully and ingeniously handled. His other works, consisting of some poems and prose essays, and a drama, The Forced Marriage, are forgotten, with the exception of "The Oeconomy of Love and the four stanzas at the end of the first part of Thomson's Castle of Indolence, describing the diseases incident to sloth, which he contributed.

The "Oeconomy Of Love" has been described as an eighteenth-century guide to sex and is particularly interesting in that the lines:

"To shed thy blossoms thro' the desert air, And sow thy perish'd offspring in the winds"

are thought to be a possible inspiration for the more famous lines by Thomas Gray contained in his "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" as follows:

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air"

However John Armstrong's use of floral metaphor in the "Oeconomy of Love" refers to the unnecessary shedding of semen whilst the author cautions young men against sexual practices that he condemns in his role as poet and physician.

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Armstrong (poet)

Wikisource has original works written by or about:
John Armstrong

Works by John Armstrong at Project Gutenberg

Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about John Armstrong.

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 85064410 LCCN: n79062886 ISNI: 0000 0000 8138 3920 GND: 118645846

Persondata
Name	Armstrong, John
Alternative names
Short description	British writer and doctor
Date of birth	1709
Place of birth
Date of death	1779
Place of death

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