ARMSTRONG, REV. JOHN, a Scottish | the notices in various other works appear to poet and political writer, was born at Leith, in 1771, and educated successively at the Grammar-school of that place, and at the High School and University of Edinburgh, where he received particular marks of attention from the masters and professors, and obtained the degree of A.M. Being an ardent lover of the belles lettres, he perused the principal authors in that department of literature before leaving college; and he also published, at the age of eighteen, in 1789, a volume of "Juvenile Poems," containing also a prose "Essay on the best Means of Punishing and Preventing Crimes," for which, in the month of January in the above year, he had received the gold medal offered by the Edinburgh Pantheon Society for the best prose composition. He also wrote the songs which were introduced during the procession, about the close of the same year, on the occasion of Lord Napier, as Grand MasterMason of Scotland, laying the foundation-stone of the new University buildings. He had previously entered himself as a student of divinity, and had made considerable progress in qualifying himself to become a preacher in the Church of Scotland: he was also engaged as private tutor in a highly respectable family in Edinburgh. Not satisfied with so limited a sphere of action as his native country offered, he removed to London in 1790, with the hope of supporting himself by literary pursuits. At first he was not very successful; but having engaged himself at a small weekly salary to write for one of the daily papers, his ability soon procured him more lucrative newspaper engagements. He still continued to write poems, many of which appeared in the daily papers; and, in 1791, he published, under the name Albert, a volume of "Sonnets from Shakspeare," some of which had been previously printed. Watt also mentions, under "Albert," in the "Bibliotheca Britannica," a work published in London in 1790, called "Confidential Letters from the Sorrows of Werter." Though so fully engaged, Armstrong still cherished the hope of obtaining some permanent situation as a preacher, and frequently occupied the pulpits of some of the principal dissenting (probably Presbyterian) ministers in the metropolis; but while the matter of his sermons was of a superior order, his manner was awkward, and his speech defective. The excessive fatigue occasioned by his numerous engagements brought on a decline, and having retired to his father's dwelling at Leith, he died there on the 21st of July, 1797, having just entered his twentyseventh year. His private character, and the honourable independence and liberality of his principles, are highly eulogized in a brief memoir which appeared in the Monthly Magazine for August, 1797 (pp. 153, 154), and in the Gentleman's Magazine for the following month (pp. 731, 732), from which be entirely derived. J. T. S. ARMSTRONG, JOHN, was born on the 8th of May, 1784, at Ayres Quay, near the united towns of Bishopwearmouth and Sunderland in the county of Durham. His father was the superintendent of some glassworks, and was an uneducated man, but esteemed for his abilities and integrity. John was the only survivor of several children. His education was neglected till he was eight years of age, when he was put under the care of a good master, and pursued his studies with ardour and success. He early manifested an inclination for the medical profession, and accordingly, on his leaving school at the age of sixteen, he was put on trial with a surgeon and apothecary at Monkwearmouth. This situation he soon quitted, contrary to the wishes of his parents, and for the next two or three years led a desultory life at home. At the age of eighteen or nineteen the savings of an affectionate mother furnished the means for his entering as a medical student in the University of Edinburgh, where he passed three seasons absorbed in his professional pursuits. In June, 1807, he took the degree of M.D., his thesis being " De Causis morborum hydropicorum, rationeque iis medendi." In the same year he settled in lodgings at Bishopwearmouth, and there commenced the practice of his profession. He started with few or no resources beyond his own abilities; nevertheless, at the end of four years we find him physician to the Sunderland Infirmary, living in a large house, setting up his carriage, and marrying the daughter of a gentleman of his native county. He had become the popular physician of his town and neighbourhood. His first appearance as an author was in a paper communicated to the "Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for January, 1813," on "The Brain-Fever produced by Intoxication;" and this was soon followed by a volume on "The Puerperal Fever," which at once gained for its author a reputation beyond the limits of his own neighbourhood. Forty-three cases of puerperal fever had occurred within a few months in the practice of five medical men of Sunderland, and of these cases only five had terminated fatally. The unusual success of the treatment was attributed by Dr. Armstrong to the bold and novel measure of very free bleeding and purging in the stage of excitement. In 1816 he published his work on "Typhus." It became immediately popular, passed through three editions in three years, and made his name well known, so that a contemporary reviewer writes, "there is scarcely a practitioner even in our most sequestered villages who has not read Dr. Armstrong, or who does not profess to act upon his maxims." (Edinburgh Med. and Surg. and the event was attributed rather to unworthy motives on the part of the examiners than to any imperfection in the knowledge of so popular an author. Thus it happened that he was, soon afterwards, elected Physician to the Fever Hospital, the trustees sus laws which required the physicians to be members of the Royal College. In 1821 he joined with Mr. Edward Grainger in establishing the Webb-street School of Medicine, where he lectured on the practice of physic, and contributed no little to the success of the school. His lectures were exceedingly popular. He was confident and earnest in his manner; his language was fluent and expressive; and his general arguments well illustrated by reference to particular facts. Such merits were marred, however, by occasional bursts of egotistical and bombastic declamation. He Journal.) These maxims consisted chiefly in recommending active depletion in the early stage of typhus, a practice which had been previously gaining ground among well-informed physicians, but possessed all the attractions of novelty and boldness for the profession in general. His advice was pro-pending, on his account, one of their byebably good at the time it was given, but he erred in laying down absolute rules of treatment, instead of restricting their application to the then prevailing epidemic. No judicious physician in the present day would treat typhus as Dr. Armstrong recommended, and he himself lived to see a fever prevail in which active depletion was quite inadmissible. A more unequivocal and lasting benefit was conferred on medical science by his distinction of the simple, inflammatory, and congestive forms of fever, and by his clear description of their successive stages. The same volume contains a chapter on Inflammation, in which he applies the term sub-regarded himself as a great discoverer-a acute to those forms of inflammation where the symptoms and effects are milder than in the acute, while the duration of the disorder is not such as to entitle it to the term chronic. This distinction, one of practical importance in reference to the treatment, had been previously established by Corvisart in inflammation of the pericardium, but had not been stated with respect to inflammatory diseases in general. His professional ambition keeping pace with his growing reputation, he repaired to London in February, 1818, and established himself in lodgings in Great James-street. This was a trying period of his life, for he was living alone, having left his wife and children behind him at Durham. Nevertheless, his success was as remarkable, and almost as rapid, as it had been in Sunderland, and that in spite of an event which would have very differently affected the fortunes of most men. On commencing practice in London it was necessary to become a licentiate of the College of Physicians. Dr. Armstrong accordingly presented himself for examination, and to the surprise of every one he was rejected. It seems strange that a distinguished writer and practical physician should have been unable to produce the little knowledge which was usually required on these occasions; yet there is no doubt that such was the fact. The mode of conducting the examination orally in Latin may partly explain the failure of an imperfectly educated man; but no circumstances have transpired which can justify the resentment subsequently entertained by Dr. Armstrong, however natural the feeling may have been in one possessed of so large a share of self-esteem. It is probable that this rejection rather promoted than retarded his professional success; for the College of Physicians was unpopular among those medical practitioners whose support is most valuable to a young physician, great reformer of medicine; and lectured in such a spirit as he conceived to be becoming in a modern Sydenham. He professed the utmost contempt for medical learning, and indulged in an unmeaning ridicule of schools and colleges. He spoke of Cullen and other writers in terms which displayed more ignorance of their works than fairness of criticism. Besides his lectures on the practice of physic he delivered a course on the Materia Medica. These pretensions of Dr. Armstrong to new and more enlightened views in medical science were much discussed among his professional brethren, and not the less keenly as his practice rapidly increased. But so opposite were the opinions entertained of his merits, that while one party regarded him as little better than a charlatan, another revered him as the founder of a new system of medicine. Neither party was just the former saw only the arrogance of his pretensions and his want of learning, the latter was unduly impressed with the assumed novelty of his views. But whatever be the merits of Dr. Armstrong's published opinions, he was deservedly valued as a practical physician. Exclusively devoted to his profession, kind and attentive to his patients, acute in observing and prompt in acting, he well earned his extraordinary professional success. In private life he was retiring, and seems to have been most amiable. In the summer of 1824 his health had been seriously affected, but the signs of confirmed disease did not appear till December, 1828. He rallied under the influence of country air, and returned to his extensive practice; but he gradually declined, and died of consumption on the 12th of December, 1829, at the age of forty-five years. The following is a list of his writings:1. "Facts and Observations relative to the Fever commonly called Puerperal," 1st ed. 1813; 2nd ed. 8vo., London, 1819. 2. "Practical Illustrations of Typhus Fever, of the Common Continued Fever, and of Inflammatory Diseases," &c., 1st ed. 1816; 3rd and last ed., 8vo., London, 1819. 3. "Practical Illustrations of the Scarlet Fever, Measles, Pulmonary Consumption, and Chronic Diseases, with Remarks on Sulphureous Waters," 8vo. London, 1818; another ed. in the same year. 4. "An Address to the Members of the Royal College of Surgeons on the Injurious Conduct and Defective State of that Corporation, with reference to Professional Rights, Medical Science, and the Public Health," 8vo. London, 1825. 5. "Four Fasciculi on the Morbid Anatomy of the Bowels, Liver, and Stomach, illustrated by plates." The work was never completed, owing to his professional engagements and the state of his health. Also the following papers in medical journals:-6. "On the Brain-Fever produced by Intoxication" (Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Jan. 1813). 7. "Case of Brain-Fever following Intoxication; with some Observations" (Ibid., April, 1813). 8. "Case of diseased Cervical Vertebræ, terminating by Anchylosis; with Observations on the Treatment of Caries of the Spine; and an outline of a Carriage, partly upon a new construction, for the use of patients labouring under that disease" (Ibid., Oct. 1813). 9. "Case of Cynanche Laryngea, successfully treated" (Ibid., July, 1814). 10. "Additional Facts and Observations relative to the Puerperal Fever which appeared at Sunderland and several places in 1813" (Ibid., Oct. 1814). 11. " Brief Hints relative to the Improvement of the Pathology and Treatment of those Chronic Diseases usually termed Nervous" (Ibid., Oct. 1815). 12. " Some Observations on the Origin, Nature, and Prevention of Typhus-Fever" (Medical Intelligencer, May, 1822). 13. "Some Observations on the Utility of Opium in certain Inflammatory Disorders" (Transactions of the Associated Apothecaries of England and Wales, July, 1823). He also published Annual Reports of the Fever Hospital, alternately with Dr. Cleverley. His lectures appeared in the "Lancet," 1825; and again, after his death, in a separate form, edited by one of his pupils" Lectures on the Morbid Anatomy, Nature and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Diseases, by the late John Armstrong, M.D., edited by Joseph Rix," 8vo. London, 1834. There is an excellent review of the Life and Works of Dr. Armstrong in the "British and Foreign Medical Review," Jan. 1836. (Memoir of the Life and Medical Opinions of J. Armstrong, M.D., &c. By Francis Boott, M.D. 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1834.) G. E. P. ARMSTRONG, MOSTYN JOHN, a geographer, of whose personal history we find no notice whatever, published in 1776, in a small 6 octavo volume for the pocket, "An actual Survey of the Great Post Roads between London and Edinburgh,” consisting of maps and letter-press. In the following year he issued, in small quarto, a "Scotch Atlas," the maps of which were accompanied by very brief letter-press descriptions; and Watt, who misspells his name Martyn,' mentions also an "Essay on the Contour of the Coast of Norfolk, but more particularly of the Marum Banks and Sea Breaches so loudly and justly complained of," which was published as a quarto pamphlet at Norwich in 1791. J.T.S. ARMSTRONG, SIR THOMAS, was born at Nymegen, in Holland, where his father is said to have been engaged in the service of the British government. During the Protectorate he was residing in England, and, being known as an active royalist, he suffered much from the enmity of Cromwell, by whom he was imprisoned in Lambeth palace for about a year. Having, by some accidental means, obtained his liberty, he was sent to Brussels by the adherents of Charles II., then in exile, with bills of exchange and other important papers, a service for which he was honoured with knighthood and other marks of royal favour. On his return to England he was seized and committed prisoner to the Gatehouse, whence he was subsequently removed to the Tower. He was liberated on the death of Cromwell, and after the Restoration he was made lieutenant of one of the troops of horse-guards, and gentleman or captain of the horse to the king. Having unfortunately killed a gentleman, named Scroop, with whom he had become embroiled in a playhouse quarrel, he left the country for some years; but he went in the honourable guise of an attendant upon the king's natural son, Mr. James Crofts, who was subsequently made Duke of Monmouth; and, while serving under him in Flanders, Armstrong gained the character of an active and accomplished officer. On the conclusion of the war, he returned to England, where, after a time, his intimate connection with the Duke of Monmouth rendered him obnoxious to the court, involved him in the suspicion of being one of his principal advisers, and led to his implication in what is commonly called the Rye-house plot, for which Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney suffered. From Bishop Sprat's account of the plot, which, having been written and published avowedly at the command of Charles II., must be received as an exparte statement, Armstrong might be supposed to be the boldest and most persevering of all the parties concerned in it; but whatever might be his real share in the transaction, his energetic character made him a particular object of the royal displeasure, and he became implicated in a rumoured design for surprising the royal guards. For some time he evaded the attempts made to arrest him, by concealing himself in England, but at length he escaped Jeffreys told him that the offer had been to Holland, and assumed the name of Mr. made to Holloway by the special grace and Henry Lawrence. He was, however, cap- mercy of the king, and not as a matter of tured at Leiden, by virtue of a warrant right; and the attorney-general, Sir Robert granted by the States for the apprehension Sawyer, observed, as recorded by Sprat, “that of such of the conspirators as might have the prisoner at the bar deserved no sort of escaped from England, and he was given up indulgence or mercy from the king; for not to the English minister, Mr. Chudleigh, for a only that when he was seized beyond sea, sum of 5000 gilders, or about 500l. English, letters of fresh communication with foreign such a reward having been offered by procla- ministers and other people were taken about mation for his arrest; and when taken he for- him, but also because it appeared to his magot in his hurry to claim protection from the jesty by full evidence positively given, that Dutch government as a natural-born subject after the disappointment of the meeting at of the States, which Burnet says he might the Rye, by God's providence in the fire at have done. He was immediately sent to Newmarket, Armstrong was one of the perLondon, and committed to Newgate, where sons that actually engaged to go upon the he was loaded with irons, and treated with king's hasty coming to town, and to destroy extraordinary rigour. The vessel which him by the way as he came.' Had the guilt brought him from Holland arrived at Green- of Armstrong been as clear and evident as wich, according to No. 1937 of the "Lonwas pretended, it can scarcely be imagined, don Gazette," late at night, on the 10th of as observed in the "State Trials," that his June, 1684, and he was taken to prison on the prosecutors would have been so backward to following morning. On the 12th he was taken waive the outlawry, or have put so strained a before the Privy Council, and on the 14th sense on the statute, in order to deprive him brought to the bar of the Court of King's of a trial, and probably the quaint remark of Bench, to receive an award of execution upon the "Western Martyrology, or Bloody Asan outlawry which had been passed upon him sizes," that Armstrong had not so fair play while in Holland. The evidence which had as Holloway, "because they knew he'd been brought forward to support the charge make better use on't," indicates the true reaof high treason was anything but satisfactory, son of the severity exercised towards him. either as regards the matters alleged, which In pressing his claim to a trial, Armstrong were chiefly mere conversations with the declared that he asked nothing but the benefit other suspected parties, or the character of of the law, to which Jeffreys, with what even the witnesses, whose credit, according to his partial biographer admits looks like bruBurnet, "was so blasted, that it seems the tality, replied, "That you shall have, by court was afraid that juries would not now the grace of God! See that execution be be so easy as they had been." It was there- done on Friday next, according to law: you fore determined not to risk a trial, but to shall have the full benefit of the law." Woolproceed summarily upon the outlawry. Arm- rych strangely endeavours to palliate this strong pleaded his right to traverse the in- conduct by asserting that Armstrong had dictment, or to appeal and have the benefit "almost infuriated" the judge, by a complaint of a trial, under the Act 5 and 6 Edw. VI. that he had been stripped of his clothes and cap. 2, which provides that if a person who money, and thereby prevented from obtaining had been outlawed when beyond sea should legal assistance, although the Privy Council render himself at the bar within a year after had offered to hear counsel on his behalf. Lady the outlawry, he should be allowed to do so. Armstrong, on behalf of her husband, endeaThe lord chief justice, Sir George Jeffreys, voured to obtain a writ of error, and for that over-ruled his plea on the ground that he had purpose delivered to the Lord Keeper North, been brought to the bar in custody, and had Jeffreys, and the Attorney-General, a paper not rendered himself voluntarily; and al- which is printed in the notes to the "State though it was replied that several months Trials;" but the application was rejected, and were wanting before the year allowed by the the judgment of the court was carried into statute of Edward VI. would expire, so that effect on Friday, the 20th of June, only ten abundance of time remained after the period days after Armstrong's arrival in England, of his arrest for deliberating upon the matter, when he was taken to Tyburn, and there and surrendering himself, Jeffreys adhered hanged, quartered, and beheaded. His head to his opinion, and refused to allow Armstrong was subsequently displayed at Westminster counsel to argue the point of law raised by Hall, between those of Cromwell and Bradhim, a refusal which, Burnet observes, " was shaw, and his quarters were publicly exhibited thought a very impudent piece of injustice." in three several places in London, and at StafArmstrong also urged the precisely similar ford, which town he had represented in Parcase of Holloway or Halloway, another person liament. The barbarous treatment to which implicated in the same plot, to whom, shortly Armstrong himself was subjected was extendbefore, a trial had been actually offered, al-ed to his daughters also, and one of them was though he declined it, and preferred throw-struck by the gaoler while on her knees iming himself upon the mercy of the king; but ploring her father's blessing. VOL. III. 2 M 66 At the place of execution Sir Thomas | sufficient ground for such an explanation of Armstrong delivered to the sheriffs a paper, his treatment, seeing that he was the last which is printed at length in the " Biogra- person executed for the conspiracy, so that phia Britannica," and also, from a manuscript he could have divulged little that was not copy found by a descendant of his family known before, and also that we have no among other old papers, and called his evidence of any offer of mercy having been dying speech," in the eighty-first volume held out to him. If any such expectations of the "Gentleman's Magazine," part i. were really entertained by his prosecutors, pp. 337-339. In this document Armstrong they were completely disappointed by the relates the hardships which he suffered under dignified manner in which Armstrong met Cromwell for his adherence to the royal his death, professing his adherence to the cause, in order to show the utter absurdity of Protestant religion, and calmly asserting his a story which had been industriously circu- innocence and his sense of the injustice of lated by Charles, to the effect that on his which he was the victim. visit to him at Brussels he had been acting as a spy for Cromwell, and had even been sent to murder him. The king went so far as to say that he had taxed Armstrong with this design, and, on his confession, had promised never to speak of it more-an engagement from which he deemed himself free when Armstrong became dead in the eyes of the law. Burnet relates that " Armstrong took this heavily; and in one paper which I saw, written in his own hand, the resentments upon it were sharper than I thought became a dying penitent. So," he adds, "when that was represented to him, he changed it; and in the paper he gave to the sheriffs he had softened it much." In this softened reply, which is the only one, as far as we are aware, which was ever made public, he pleads that the harsh imprisonments which he had experienced from the Protector afforded evidence of treatment very unlike that of a spy or pensioner of his own party, and he distinctly denies ever having been in any design either to kill the king or to alter the government of England. What I am accused of," he observes, "I know no otherwise than by reports and prints, which I take to be uncertain;" but in replying as well as he could to charges so imperfectly known to him, he says that he could have proved the base reflections of Lord Howard, by which he was implicated in the plot for the assassination of the king, to be a notorious falsehood. Bishop Sprat, who styles Armstrong "a debauched atheistical bravo," pleads his alleged ingratitude towards the king, and the supposition that he had been the chief instrument of perverting many other persons, and therefore been the author of many treasons besides his own, as a sufficient justification of Charles in not going "out of the way of the law, for showing any distinguishing act of grace" to him. Burnet, who also says that he had led a very vicious life, although his account of his demeanour on the approach of death would leave a different impression, intimates that the court hoped, by dealing summarily with him, to drive him, by the fear of dying, to make some revelations or discoveries relating to the plot; but it is shown, in the Biographia Britannica," that there is no 66 After the Revolution, a Committee was appointed by the House of Commons, in consequence of a petition from Armstrong's widow (who was niece to the Earl of Clarendon) and her daughters, to inquire into his case. This Committee, which was appointed in November, 1689, came to the decision that " a writ of error for the reversal of a judgment in felony or treason is the right of the subject, and ought to be granted at his desire, and is not an act of grace or favour, which may be denied or granted at pleasure ;" and they declared that as his plea was refused improperly, his execution upon the attainder by outlawry" was illegal, and a murder by pretence of justice." Sir Robert Sawyer, who had taken so conspicuous a part against him as attorney-general, was expelled from the House of Commons in January, 1689-90, for his share in the transaction; but though a bill was brought in to reverse the attainder, and to award compensation to Armstrong's heirs out of the estates of his judges and prosecutors, the session terminated before it could be passed, and the matter was not resumed by the new parliament which was called shortly after. The attainder was subsequently reversed by a writ of error in the Court of King's Bench, in the sixth year of William and Mary, at the suit of Lady Armstrong, upon a technical defect in the record of outlawry, of which Armstrong himself might have taken advantage, had not a writ of error been refused to him. In the case of Roger Johnson, tried in Michaelmas term, in the second year of George II., Armstrong's case was cited as precedent not fit to be followed, and the prisoner, being allowed a trial, was acquitted. (Biographia Britannica; Burnet, History of his Own Time; Sprat, True Account and Declaration of the Horrid Conspiracy against the late King, his present Majesty, and the Government; Cobbett, State Trials, x. 105 124; Western Martyrology; Woolrych, Memoirs of the Life of Judge Jeffreys, p. 125.) J. T. S. ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM, of GILNOC KIE, known by the cognomen of "Christie's Will," was a lineal descendant of Johnie Armstrong, who was executed by order of King James V., of Scotland. [ARMSTRONG, JOHN, of |