fon, formerly minifter of the Epifcopal chapel at Dumfries, afterwards of the English congregation at Dantzic, and who now refides at New castle upon Tyne. "His manner of life (fays that gentleman) was fo uniform, that the history of it during one day, or one week, is the hiftory of it during the feven years that our perfonal intercourfe lafted. Reading, mufic, walking, converfing, and difputing on va rious topics, in theology, ethics, &c. employed almost every hour of our time. It was pleasant to hear him engaged in a difpute, for no man could keep his temper better than be always did on fuch occafions. I have known him frequently very warmly engaged for hours together, but never could obferve one angry word to fall from him. Whatever his antagonist might fay. he always kept his temper. "Semper paratus et refellere fine pertinacia, et refelli fine ira"cundia." He was, however, ex tremely fenfible to what he thought ill ufage, and equally fo, whether it regarded himself or his friends. But his refentment was always confined to a few fatirical verfes, which were generally burnt foon after." ་་ could think or write on any fubject propofed to him by another. I have frequently admired with what readiness and rapidity he could fometimes make verfes. I have known him dictate from thirty to forty verfes, and by no means bad ones, as faft as I could write them; but the moment he was at a lofs for a rhime or a verfe to his liking, he ftopt altogether, and could very feldom be induced to finish what. he bad begun with fo much ardour." This account fufficiently marks that eager fenfibility, chaften'd at the fame time with uncommon gentleness of temper, which characterifed Dr Blacklock, and which indeed it was impoffible to be at all in his company without perceiving. Inthe fcience of mind, this is that divifion of it which perhaps one would peculiarly appropriate to poetry, at leaft to all thofe lighter fpecies which rather depend on quicknefs of feeling, and the ready conception of pleafing images, than on the happy arrangement of parts, or the fkilful construction of a whole, which are effential to the higher departments of the poetical art. The firft kind of talent is like thofe warm and light foils which produce their annual crops in fuch abundance; the lait, like that deeper and firmer mould on which the roots of eternal forefts are fixed. Of the firft we have feen many happy inftances in that fex which is fuppofed lefs capable of ftudy or thought; from the laft is drawn that mafculine fublimity of genius which could build an Iliad or a Paradife Loft. All thofe who ever acted as his amanuenfes, agree in this rapidity and "The late Mr Spence (the editor of the quarto edition of his poems) frequently urged him to write a tragedy; and affured him that he had in tereft enough with Mr Garrick to get it acted. Various fubjects were propofed to him, feveral of which he approved of, yet he never could be prevailed on to begin any thing of that kind *. It may feem remarkable, but as far as I know, it was invariably the cafe, that he never P * Mr Jamefon was probably ignorant of the circumftance of his writing, at a fubfequent period, a tragedy; but upon what fubject, his relation, from whom I received intelligence, cannot recollect. The manufcript was put into the hands of the late MrCrabie, then an eminent advocate at the bar of Scotland, but has never fince been recovered. and ardour of compofition which Mr Jamefon afcribes to him in the account I have copied above. He never could dictate till he ftood up; and as his blindnefs made walking about without affiftance inconvenient or dangerous to him, he fell infenfibly into a vibratory fort of motion of his body, which increafed as he warmed with his fubject, and was pleafed with the conceptions of his mind. This motion at last became habitual to him, and though he could fometimes reftrain it when on ceremony, or in any public appearance, fuch as preaching, he felt a certain uneafinefs from the effort, and always returned to it when he could indulge it without impropriety. His features were hurt by the disease which deprived him of fight; yet even with thofe difadvantages, there was a certain placid expreflion in his phyfiognomy which marked the benevolence of his mind, and was extremely calculated to procure him attachment and regard. In 1762, he married Mifs Sarah Johnston, daughter of Mr Jofeph Johnston furgeon in Dumfries, a man of eminence in his profeffion, and of a character highly refpected; a connection which formed the great folace and bleffing of his future life, and gave him, with all the tendernefs of a wife, all the zealous care of a guardian and a friend. This event took place a few days before his being ordained minifter of the town and parish of Kirkcudbright, in confe quence of a prefentation from the crown, obtained for him by the Earl of Selkirk, a benevolent nobleman, whom Mr Blacklock's fituation and genius had interested in his behalf. But the inhabitants of the parish, whether from that violent averfion to patronage, which was then fo univerfal in the fouthern part of Scotland, from fome political difputes which at that time fubfifted between them and his noble patron, or from thofe prejudices which fome of them might naturally enough entertain against a paftor deprived of fight, or perhaps from all thofe caufes united, were fo extremely difinclined to receive him as their minifter, that after a legal difpute of nearly two years, it was thought expedient by his friends, as it had always been wished by himself, to compromise the matter, by refigning his right to the living, and accepting a moderate annuity in its ftead. With this flender provifion he removed in 1764 to Edinburgh; and to make up by his induftry a more comfortable and decent fubfiftence, he adopted the plan of receiving a certain number of young gentlemen, as boarders,into his houfe, whofe ftudies in languages and philofophy, he might, if neceffary, affift. In this fituation he continued till the year 1787, when he found his time of life and ftate of health required a degree of quiet and repofe which induced him to difcontinue the receiving of boarders. In 1767, the degree of Doctor in divinity was conferred on him by the University and Marischal college of Aberdeen. In the occupation which he thus exercifed for fo many years of his life, no teacher was perhaps ever more agreeable to his pupils, nor mafter of a family to its inmates than Dr Blacklock. The gentlenefs of his manners, the benignity of his difpofition, and that warm interest in the happiness of others which led him fo conftantly to promote it, were qualities that could not fail to procure him the love and regard of the young people committed to his charge; while the fociety, which efteem and respect for his character and his genius often affembled at his houfe, afforded them an advantage rarely to be found in establishments of a fimilar kind. The writer of this account has frequently been a witnefs of the family-fcene at Dr Blacklock's; has feen the good man amid ft eager to do him all the little offices of kindness which he seemed so much to merit and to feel. In this fociety he appeared entirely to forget the privation of fight, and the melancholy which, at other times, it might produce. He entered, with the chearful playfulness of a young man, into all the fprightly narrative, the fportful fancy, the humorous jeft that arofe around him. It was a fight highly gratifying to philanthropy, to fee how much a mind endowed with knowledge, kindled by genius, and above all, lighted up with innocence and piety, like Blacklock's, could overcome the weight of its own calamity, and enjoy the content, the happiness, and the gaiety of others. Several of thofe inmates of Dr Black lock's house retained, in future life, all the warmth of that impreffion which his friendship at this early period had made upon them; and in various quarters of the world he had friends and correfpondents from whom no length of time or diftance of place had ever estranged him. amidst the circle of his young friends, Companionship and fympathy bring forth thofe gay colours of mirth and chearfulness which they put on for á while, to cover perhaps that fadness which we have no opportunity of witneffing. Of a blind man's condi tion we are particularly liable to form a mistaken eftimate; we give him credit for all thofe gleams of delight which fociety affords him, without placing to their full account thofe dreary moments of darkfome folitude to which the fufpenfion of that fociety condemns him. Dr Blacklock had from nature a conftitution delicate and nervous, and his mind, as is almost always the cafe, was in a great degree fubject to the indifpofition of his body. He frequently complained of a lowness and depreffion of fpirits, which neither the attention of his friends, nor the unceafing care of a most affectionate wife, were able entirely to remove. The imagination we are so apt to envy and admiré ferves but to irritate this disorder of the mind; and that fancy in whofe creation we fo much delight, can draw, from fources unknown to common men, fubjects of difguft, difquietude, and affliction. Mufic, which to the feeling and the penfive, in whatever fituation, is a fource of extreme delight, but which to the blind must be creative, as it were, of idea and of fentiment, he enjoyed highly, and was himself a tolerable performer on feveral inftruments, particularly on the flute. He generally carried in his pocket a small Flageolet*, on which he played his favourite tunes; and was not difpleased when asked in company to play or to fing them; a natural feeling for a blind man who thus adds a fcene to the drama of his society. He was occafionally fubject to deafness, which tho' he feldom felt it in any great degree, was fufficient, in his fituation, to whom the fenfe of hearing was almoft the only channel of communication with the external world, to caufe very lively uneafinefs. Amidft these indifpofitions of body, however, and difquietudes of mind, the gentleness of his temper never forfook him, and he felt all that refignation and confidence in the fupreme Being which his earliest and his lateft life equally acknowledged. In fummer 1791, he was feized by a feverish Of the happiness of others, how ever, we are incompetent judges. P 2 * His firft idea of learning to play on this inftrument he used to afcribe to a circum, ftance rather uncommon, but which, to a mind like his, fufceptible at the fame time and creative, might naturally enough arife, namely, a Dream, in which he thought he met with a fhepherd's boy on the fide of a paftoral hill, who brought the most exquifite mufic from that little inftrument, feverish disorder, which at first seem`ed of a flight, and never rofe to a "very violent kind; but a frame fo little robuft as his was not able to refift it, and after about a week's illnefs it carried him off on the 7th day of July 1791. His wife furvives him, to feel amidst the heavy affliction of his lofs, that melancholy confolation which is derived from the remembrance of his virtues. Of the writings of Dr Blacklock, I think it unneceffary to enter into any particular criticifm or account. Prefixed to a volume of poems, the character of that volume will generally be fuppofed to contain a partial eftimate of its merits; and he must be very indolent indeed who will be guided in his reading of the text by the directions of the comment. It may be allowed me, however, to exprefs my opinion in general, that in this collection of poems, the reader will find thofe qualities of fancy, tendernefs, and fometimes fublimity in the thoughts, of elegance, and often force in the language, which characterise the genuine productions of the poetical talent. One other praife, which the good will value, belongs to thofe poems in a high degree; they breathe the pureft fpirit of piety, virtue, and benevolence, These indeed are the mufes of Blacklock; they infpire his poetry, as they animated his life; and he never approaches the facred ground on which they dwell, without an expanfion of mind, and an elevation of language. His peculiar fituation I do not mean to plead as an apology for defects in his compofitions. I am futh ciently aware of a truth which authors or their apologifts are apt to forget, that the public expects enter. tainment, and liftens but ill to excufes for the want of it. But the circumstances of the writer's blind nefs will certainly create an interest in his productions beyond what those of one poffeffed of fight could have excited, especially in fuch paffages of his works as are defcriptive of visible objects. It is obferved, and I think very truly, by Dr Reid, that there is very little of the knowledge acquired by thofe who fee, that may not be communicated to a man born blind; and he illuftrates his remark by the example of the celebrated Sanderfon, Another writer * feems difpofed to extend a fimilar obfervation to fome of thofe pleasures of which the sense of fight is commonly understood to be the only channel; and he appeals, in proof of his doctrine, to the poetry of Dr Blacklock: "Here (fays he) is a poet doubtlefs as much affected by his own descriptions as any that reads them can be; and yet he is affected with this ftrong enthufiáẩm, by this of which he neither has, nor can poffibly have any idea, further than that of a bare found." The fame author mentions, as a confirmation of his doctrine, the scientific acquirements of Sanderfon, which he feems to think explicable on the fame principles with Dr Blacklock's poetry. But, in truth, there appears to be very little analogy between the two cafes; nor does the genius of Sanderfon furnish by any means fo curious a fubject of philofophical difquifition as that of Blacklock. The ideas of extenfion and figure, about which the fpeculations of the geometer are employed, may be conveyed to the mind by the fenfe of touch as well as by that of fight; and (if we except the phænomena of colour) the cafe is the fame with all the fubjects of our reafoning in natural philofophy. But of the pleasures which poetry excites, fo great a proportion arifes from allufion to visible objects, and from defcriptions * Burke, in his Treatife on the Sublime and Beautiful. fcriptions of the beauty and fublimity of nature; fo much truth is there in the maxim" ut pictura poefis," that the word imagination, which in its primary fenfe has a direct reference to the eye, is employed to express that power of the mind, which is confidered as peculiarly charac. teristic of poetical genius; and therefore, whatever be the degree of pleasure which a blind poet receives from the exercise of his art, the pleasure muft, in general, be perfectly different in kind from that which he imparts to his readers. Sanderson, we are told, though blind, could lecture on the prifmatic Spectrum, and on the theory of the rainbow; but to his mind the names of the different colours were merely fignificant of the relative arrange, ment of the spaces which they occu pied, and produced as little effect on his imagination as the letters of the alphabet which he employed in his geometrical diagrams. By means of a retentive memory, it might have been poffible for him to acquire a knowledge of the common poetical epithets appropriated to the different colours: it is even conceivable, that by long habits of poetical reading, he might have become capable of producing fuch a defcription of their order in the spectrum as is contained in the following lines of Thomfon: "Firft the flaming red "Sprung vivid forth; the tawny orange "And next delicious yellow; by whofe next, But fuppofing all this poffible, how different must have been the effect of the deicription on his mind from what it produced on that of Thomson? or what idea could he form of the rapture which the poet felt in recalling to his imagination the innumerable appearances in the earth and heavens, of which the philofophic principles he referred to afford the explanation? "fide "Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing 66 green: "Then the pure blue, that fwells th' "autumnal fkies, "Etherial play'd; and then of fadder "hue "froft; "Emerg'd the deepen'd Indico, as when "The heavy-fkirted evening droops with "While the last gleamings of refracted "light Dy'd in the fainting violet away.' 22 Yet, though it be evidently im poffible that a description of this fort, relating entirely to the peculiar perceptions of fight, fhould convey to a blind man the fame kind of pleasure which we receive from it, it may be eafily imagined, that the fame words which in their ordinary acceptation exprefs vifible objects, may, by means of early affociations, become to fuch a perfon the vehicle of many other agreeable or difagreeable emotions. Thefe affociations will probably vary greatly in the case of different individuals, according to the circumstances of their education, and the peculiar bent of their genius. Dr Blacklock's affociations in regard to colours, were (according to his own account) chiefly of the moral kind.-But into this enquiry, which opens a wide field of fpeculation to the metaphyfician, I do not mean to enter. I fhall content myself with remarking, that in other arts, as well as those which addrefs themselves to fight, the fame diftinction is to be found. What may be termed the arithmetic and mathematics of mufic and of the scale, depend |