4 ANNIVERSARY ADDRlJSS 



teaching of the ages on their subject. And they 

 are set before us in acceptable, nay, attractive form — 

 adorned with as much of poetic ornament, inspired with 

 as much of poetic emotion, as the nature of the argument 

 admits. What more can we desire ? (The poet's views 

 on this matter, by the way, are well set forth in his 

 essay on " Florid Writing.") In fine, except by those 

 who, in this post-Wordsworthian age, have lost all relish 

 for 18th century blank verse, his book may still be 

 enjoyed as poetry, as it may certainly be studied with 

 profit as a medical or hygienic treatise. At his best the 

 author attains to philosophic breadth of view, and utters 

 his wisdom in sonorous rhetoric. 



Against this, it must be admitted that his muse has 

 not the immaculate character of his, who wrote 



" No line which dying he would wish to blot." 



For Armstrong has incurred, and perhaps deserved, severe 

 censure for the levity and prurience of one of his minor 

 works. It is but fair to add, however, that he afterwards 

 endeavoured to tone down the offending passage ; and 

 that his principal poem — the only one now likely to be 

 read — is quite free from objection on these grounds. 

 Considering him as a local bard, his apostrophe to the 

 river on whose banks his childhood was spent surpasses 

 that of Thomson ; which perhaps, of itself, does not 

 imply a great deal. But I think that, though couched 

 in the half-conventional language of the age, the lines 

 in question have the accent of sincerity. In his worldly 

 circumstances, Armstrong was fairly prosperous, enjoying 

 some preferment from the Government of his day, as 

 physician, first to a Military Hospital, and, later, to the 

 British Army in Germany. He died, comfortably off, in 

 the year 1779. Our district is not so rich in eminent 

 men that we can afford to forget him just yet. 



