at the service of his friends. In 1712 appeared “Law is a Bottomless Pit, Exemplify’d in the case of the Lord Strutt, John Bull, Nicholas Frog and Lewis Baboon, who spent all they had in a law-suit. Printed from a Manuscript found in the Cabinet of the famous Sir Humphrey Polesworth.” This was the first of a series of five pamphlets advocating the conclusion of peace. Arbuthnot describes the confusion after the death of the Lord Strutt (Charles II. of Spain), and the quarrels between the greedy tradespeople (the allies). These put their cause into the hands of the attorney, Humphrey Hocus (the duke of Marlborough), who does all he can to prolong the struggle. The five tracts are printed in two parts as the “History of John Bull” in the Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1727, preface signed by Pope and Swift). Arbuthnot fixed the popular conception of John Bull, though it is not certain that he originated the character, and the lively satire is still amusing reading. It was often asserted at the time that Swift wrote these pamphlets, but both he and Pope refer to Arbuthnot as the sole author. In the autumn of the same year he published a second satire, “Proposals for printing a very Curious Discourse in Two Volumes in Quarto, entitled, Ψευδολογία Πολιτική; or, A Treatise of the Art of Political Lying,” best known by its sub-title. This ironical piece of work was not so popular as “John Bull.” “’Tis very pretty,” says Swift, “but not so obvious to be understood.” Arbuthnot advises that a lie should not be contradicted by the truth, but by another judicious lie. “So there was not long ago a gentleman, who affirmed that the treaty with France for bringing popery and slavery into England was signed the 15th of September, to which another answered very judiciously, not by opposing truth to his lie, that there was no such treaty; but that, to his certain knowledge, there were many things in that treaty not yet adjusted.”
Arbuthnot was one of the leading spirits in the Scriblerus Club, the members of which were to collaborate in a universal satire on the abuses of learning. The Memoirs of the extraordinary Life, Works, 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 the 3rd of July 1714 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, and in 1727 he delivered the Harveian oration before the Royal College of Physicians. 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 (2nd of August 1734) that in a friendship of twenty years he had found no one reason of complaint from him. Arbuthnot’s youngest son, who had just completed his education, died in December 1731. He never quite recovered his former spirits and health after this shock. On the 17th of July 1734 he wrote to Pope: “A recovery in my case, and at my age, is impossible; the kindest wish of my friends is Euthanasia.” In January 1735 was published the “Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot,” which forms the prologue to Pope’s satires. He died on the 27th of February 1735 at his house in Cork Street, London.
Among Arbuthnot’s other works are:—An Argument for Divine Providence, taken from the constant regularity observed in the Births of both sexes (Phil. Trans. of the Royal Soc., 1710); “Virgilius Restauratus,” printed in the second edition of Pope’s Dunciad (1729); An Essay concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies (1733); An Essay concerning the Nature of Ailments ... (1731); and a valuable Table of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures (1727), which is an enlargement of an earlier treatise (1705). He had a share in the unsuccessful farce of Three Hours after Marriage, printed with Gay’s name on the title-page (1717). Some pieces printed in A Supplement to Dr Swift’s and Mr Pope’s Works ... (1739) are there asserted to be Arbuthnot’s. The Miscellaneous Works of the late Dr Arbuthnot were published at Glasgow in an unauthorized edition in 1751. This includes many spurious pieces.
See The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot (1892), by George A. Aitken.
ARCACHON, a coast town of south-western France, in the department of Gironde, 37 m. W.S.W. of Bordeaux on the Southern railway. Pop. (1906) 9006. Arcachon is situated on the southern border of the lagoon of Arcachon at the foot of dunes covered with splendid pine-woods. It comprises two distinct parts, the summer town, extending for 2½ m. along the shore, and bordered by a firm sandy beach, frequented by bathers, and the winter town, farther inland, consisting of numerous villas scattered amongst the pines.
Owing to the mildness of its climate the winter town is a resort for consumptive patients. The principal industries are oyster-breeding, which is conducted on a very large scale, and fishing. The port has trade with Spain and England.
ARCADE, in architecture, a range of arches, supported either by columns or piers; isolated in the case of those separating the nave of a church from the aisles, or forming the front of a covered ambulatory, as in the cloisters in Italy and Sicily, round the Ducal Palace or the Square of St Mark’s, Venice, round the courts of the palaces in Italy, or in Paris round the Palais-Royal and the Place des Vosges. The earliest examples known are those of the Tabularium, the theatre of Marcellus, and the Colosseum, in Rome. In the palace of Diocletian at Spalato the principal street had an arcade on either side, the arches of which rested direct on the capital without any intervening entablature or impost block. The term is also applied to the galleries, employed decoratively, on the façades of the Italian churches, and carried round the apses where they are known as eaves-galleries. Sometimes these arcades project from the wall sufficiently to allow of a passage behind, and sometimes they are built into and form part of the wall; in the latter case, they are known as blind or wall arcades; and they were constantly employed to decorate the lower part of the walls of the aisles and the choir-aisles in English churches. Externally, blind arcades are more often found in Italy and Sicily, but there are examples in
