Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot

The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot is a satire in poetic form written by Alexander Pope and addressed to his friend John Arbuthnot, a physician. It was first published in 1735 and composed in 1734, when Pope learned that Arbuthnot was dying. Pope described it as a memorial of their friendship.^[1] It has been called^[2] Pope's "most directly autobiographical work", in which he defends his practice in the genre of satire and attacks those who had been his opponents and rivals throughout his career.^[3]

Both in composition and in publication, the poem had a chequered history. In its canonical form, it is composed of 419 lines of heroic couplets.^[4] The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot is notable as the source of the phrase "damn with faint praise," which has subsequently seen so much common usage that it has become a cliché or idiom. Another of its notable lines is "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"