John Arbuthnot

(1667 - 1735)

The Scots polymath John Arbuthnot was Queen Anne’s physician and a founding member—along with Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope—of the Scriblerus Club, a literary circle that ridiculed the pretensions of scholarly jargon and “the abuses of human learning in every branch.” Samuel Johnson called Arbuthnot “the most universal genius, being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning, and a man of much humor.” Arbuthnot was not interested in fame, however, and much of his writing is not attached to his name—or was included in more famous writers’ canons.