BLOUNT, CHARLES (1654-1693), English deist, was born at Upper Holloway. His father, Sir Henry Blount (1602-82), was the author of a Voyage to the Levant, describing his own travels. He gave his son a careful education, and is said to have helped him in his Anima Mundi (1679), which gave great offence by the sceptical views on immortality expressed in it. It was suppressed by order of the bishop of London, but a re issue was permitted. Blount was an admirer of Hobbes, and published his "Last Sayings" (1679), a pamphlet consisting of extracts from The Leviathan. His best-known book, The Two First Books of Philostratus concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus . . . (168o), is said to have been prohibited in chiefly on account of the notes, which are stated by Bayle (note, s.v. Apollonius) to have been taken mainly from a ms. of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Blount contributed materially to the re moval of the restrictions on the freedom of the press, with two pamphlets (1693) by "Philopatris," mainly derived from Milton's Areopagitica.
Shortly before his death a collection of his pamphlets and private papers was printed with a preface by Charles Gildon, under the title of the Oracles of Reason. His Miscellaneous Works (1695) is a fuller edition by the same editor.