DR. ARBUTHNOT'S WIFE.
[TO TR. EDITOR OF TER " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—The writer of the article on Dr. Arbuthnot in the Spectator of July 30th, has spoken in so kindly a manner both of Arbuthnot and of his biographer, that I am loth to cavil at anything he says ; but is it not rather hard upon Mrs. Arbuthnot to suggest the assertion that Arbuthnot doubtless had a happy married life, "seems to be a little hazardous," because we know practically nothing of her ? Any rashness on my part consisted rather in underestimating our know- ledge of the lady. Mrs. Arbuthnot was on very friendly terms with Pope and with Swift, to whom on one occasion she sent her "kind love and service," with a wish that he was well married. But it is as the mother of Arbuthnot's children that we best know her ; and the love those children felt towards their father and towards each other is a tolerably sure indication of the happy married life of their parents. Mrs. Arbuthnot was in all probability a Scotchwoman, who was concerned chiefly with her "bairns," and went little into society; while Arbuthnot, being a Scotehman, would in-, stinctively say little of those who were dearest to him —I am,
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