Arbuthnot, John
Entry updated 23 March 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1667-1735) Scots physician (to Queen Anne and her royal family), mathematician, author and Satirist, a member of the Royal Society that was mocked by his friend Jonathan Swift in the third book of Gulliver's Travels (1726; rev 1735); Arbuthnot is thought to have amiably provided suggestions and hints to improve this extended Parody, while preferring not to receive credit. His own early contribution to the Gulliver mythos was An Account of the State of Learning in the Empire of Lilliput [for subtitle see Checklist below] (1728 chap), published anonymously. In this pamphlet, Gulliver discusses the contents of the Library of Lilliput with its Chief Librarian, the whole being a vehicle for Arbuthnot to express his views on the classicism-versus-modernism debate, as Swift himself had done in The Battle of the Books (1704).
Arbuthnot was a founder in 1714 of the informal Scriblerus Club of writers, whose other members included Swift and the poets John Gay (1685-1732) and Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and whose publications as Martinus Scriblerus (mostly written by Arbuthnot) included English-language prototypes of the Club Story and a further addition to the Gulliver canon, in which Scriblerus sets off on his own travels to explore the lands discovered by Swift's protagonist. Arbuthnot also created the character of John Bull as a satirical personification of England and the English national character. [DRL]
John Arbuthnot
born Kincardineshire, Kingdom of Scotland: April 1667 [baptized 29 April]
died London: 27 February 1935
works (highly selected)
- An Account of the State of Learning in the Empire of Lilliput: Together with the History and Character of Bullum the Emperor's Library-Keeper; Faithfully Transcribed Out of Captain Lemuel Gulliver's General Description of the Empire of Lilliput, Mention'd in the 69th Page of the First Volume of His Travels (London: Printed for J Roberts, 1728) [chap: pamphlet: pb/]
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