ARBUTHNOT, JOHN (1667-1735), British physician and wit, the friend of Swift and Pope, was born at Arbuthnot, Kin cardineshire. The son of an episcopalian minister who had been deprived of his living, he supported himself for some time in London by teaching mathematics, and then in 1692 entered Uni versity College, Oxford. He was graduated M.D. at St. Andrews in 1696. His papers on mathematical subjects, notably an Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning (1701), brought him an F.R.S. He became a fashionable physician, and later became royal physician in ordinary to Queen Anne; but his memory lives for the wit and varied learning which made him the chosen friend and counsellor of Swift and Pope, and for his genius as a Tory pamphleteer. Arbuthnot fixed the popular conception of John Bull, though he did not invent the character, in the five tracts printed as "The History of John Bull" in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (5727), the preface to which is signed by Pope and Swift.
Arbuthnot was one of the leading spirits in the Scriblerus Club, whose members were to collaborate in a universal satire on the abuses of learning. The Memoirs of the extraordinary Life, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus, of which only the first book was finished, first printed in Pope's Works (1741), was chiefly the work of Arbuthnot, who is at his best in the whimsical account of the birth and education of Martin. Swift, writing on July 3 to Arbuthnot, says: "To talk of Martin in any hands but yours, is a folly. You every day give better hints than all of us together could do in a twelvemonth; and to say the truth, Pope who first thought of the hint has no genius at all to it, to my mind; Gay is too young; Parnell has some ideas of it, but is idle ; I could put together, and lard, and strike out well enough, but all that relates to the sciences must be from you." The death of Queen Anne put an end to Arbuthnot's position at court, but he still had an extensive practice. Lord Chesterfield and William Pulteney were his patients and friends; also Mrs. Howard (Lady Suffolk) and William Congreve. His friendship with Swift was constant and intimate ; he was friend and adviser to Gay; and Pope wrote (Aug. 2 1734) that in a friendship of twenty years he had found no one reason of complaint from him. Arbuthnot's youngest son died in Dec. 1731. He never quite re covered his former spirits and health after this shock. On July 17 he wrote to Pope: "A recovery in my case, and at my age, is impossible ; the kindest wish of my friends is Euthanasia." In Jan. 1735 was published the "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," which forms the prologue to Pope's satires. He died on Feb. 27 1735 at his house in Cork Street, London.
The Miscellaneous Works of the late Dr. Arbuthnot were published at Glasgow in an unauthorized edition in 1751. This includes many spurious pieces. See also The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot (1892) , by George A. Aitken.