“I Had Not the Honour to Be Born in England”: Armstrong, Wilkes, and The Muncher's and Guzler's Diary

John Armstrong's mock almanac The Muncher's and Guzler's Diary (1748) is now little read, but indicates much about the poet‐physician's attitudes toward the intellectual, educational, and political questions of his day. Having first framed the almanac as a relatively simple satire on prognostication, Armstrong later revised it to respond to his disagreements with the politician John Wilkes, and to criticize English xenophobia and prejudice. Moreover, in The Muncher's and Guzler's Diary, Armstrong relies on aspects of what Srinivas Aravamudan has identified as “Enlightenment Orientalism” to engage with questions of foreignness, cultural belonging, and the circulation of information.