And, at this same epoch, the subject of these memoirs began also an
intercourse with the celebrated Dr. Armstrong, as high, then, in the
theory of his art, medicine, as he was far from lucratively prosperous
in its practice. He had produced upon it a didactic poem, “The Art of
Preserving Health,” which young Burney considered to be as nervous
in diction as it was enlightening in precept. But Dr. Armstrong,
though he came from a part of the island whence travellers are by no
means proverbially smitten with the reproach of coming in vain; nor
often stigmatized with either meriting or being addicted to failure,
possessed not the personal skill usually accorded to his countrymen, of
adroitness in bringing himself forward. Yet he was as gaily amiable
as he was eminently learned; and though, from a keen moral sense of
right, he was a satirist, he was so free from malevolence, that the
smile with which he uttered a remark the most ironical, had a cast of
good-humoured pleasantry that nearly turned his sarcasm into simple
sport.