ARMSTRONG, John, M.D. author of the well-known poem, entitled, "The Art of Preserving Health," was born, about 1709, in the parish of Castleton, Roxburghshire, where his father and brother were successively ministers. He might almost be styled a poet by right of birth-place, for the parish of Castleton is simply the region of Liddesdale, so renowned for its heroic lays, the records of deeds performed by the border rievers, among whom the family of the poet bore a distinguished rank. The rude and predatory character of this district had, however, passed away before the commencement of the eighteenth century; and young Armstrong, though his lullabies were no doubt those fine old ballads which have since been published by Sir Walter Scott, seems to have drawn from them but little of his inspiration. It was as yet the fashion to look upon legendary verses as only fit for nurses and children; and nothing was thought worthy of the term poetry, unless it were presented in trim artificial language, after the manner of some distinguished classic writer. It is therefore by no means surprising, that Armstrong, though born and cradled in a land full of beautiful traditionary poetry, looked upon it all, after he had become an educated man, as only Doric trash, and found his Tempe in the bowers of Twickenham instead of the lonely heaths of Liddesdale.
The only allusion to his native scene is to be found in the following passage of "The Art of Preserving Health;" a warm and elegant apostrophe, and no doubt testifying his affectionate recollection of
the school-boy spot,
We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot,—
but still deficient in characteristic painting, and unpardonably so in its total silence as to the romantic history of the country, and its spirit-stirring ballads.
But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale
Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue,
Not less delightful, the prolific stream
Affords. The chrystal rivulet that o'er
A stony channel rolls its rapid surge,
Swarms with the silver fry. Such, through the bounds
Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent;
Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains, such
The Esk o'erhung with woods: and such the stream,
Ou whose Arcadian banks I first drew air,
Liddal, till now, except in Doric lays
Tuned to her murmurs by her love-sick swains,
Unknown in song: though not a purer stream,
Through woods more flowery, more romantic groves,
Rolls toward the western main. Hail, sacred flood!
May still thy hospitable swains be blest
In rural innocence; thy mountains still
Teem, with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods
For ever flourish; and thy vales look gay
With painted meadows, and the golden grain!
Oft with thy blooming sons, when life was new,
Sportive and petulant, and charmed with toys,
In thy transparent eddies have I laved:
Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks,
With the well-imitated fly to hook
The eager trout, and with the slender line
And yielding rod solicit to the shore
The struggling panting prey; while vernal clouds—
And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool,
And from the deeps called forth the wanton swarms.
