BLA I LOCK, the Rev. TIIONAS, D.D. a poet and a minister of the established church of Scotland. He was born in the year 1721, at Annan, in the county of Dumfries, but was soon afterwards removed to the town of Dumfries, where he spent the greater part of his early years. Before he was six months old he lost his eye-sight in the small-pox. This mis fdrtune, which threatened to render him incapable of useful exertion, and leave him a burden to his family, seems to have been really the foundation of his future eminence. Endowed by nature with a lively fancy and a retentive memory, and shut out from that intercourse with the external world which sight would have af forded. him, his active mind was compelled to seek ' employment in the exercise of its own powers. In this he was assisted by the indulgent care of his fa. ther, an intelligent tradesman, who fostered the incli nation lie early showed for books, by'reading for his amusement whenever the intervals of business would permit, and by directing his taste to the best authors that lay within his reach. Though in his early years his father's limited circumstances did not permit him to enjoy the advantage of being educated at a gram mar school, yet, by the assistance of his companions, whom the gentleness of his dispositions had warmly attached to him, he acquired some knowledge of the Latin tongue. The information thus obtained, the very circumstance of his blindness gave him an op portunity to impress more forcibly on his mind, by depriving him of the common means of relaxation. This may in some measure account for the remarka ble progress which with such slender opportunities he made in his studies. Even at the early age of twelve, his poetical attempts, one of is preserved in his poems, gave the promise of future excellence ; and from that period he found in the cultivation of the muses, a delightful employment for the powers of his mind, and a protection from that tedium, to which the situation of the blind, when endued with sensibi lity, peculiarly subjects them. Before he had reached his twentieth year, 'he was fortunate enough to acquire a new and advantageous connection, by the marriage of his sister. This young woman, who possessed froni nature, together with a very lovely person and at tractive manners, all the innocent simplicity and gen tleness of heart which characterised her domestic cir cle, had received from paternal indulgence an educa. tion superior to her station; and had begun to contri bute her share to the support of the family expenses by her skill in needle-work, when she became knows to Mr M'Murdo, the son of a distinguished clergy man in that neighbourhood. This gentleman, who had a short time before successfully commenced bu siness as a brewer in Dumfries, and who joined to the most fascinating manners an enlightened and ac complished mind, having, on a further acquaintance, discovered that Miss Blacklock's virtues were not infe rior to her personal charms, made her his wife, and thus opened to young Blacklock an intercourse with a more polished society than he had hitherto been ac customed to. An event in itself so fortunate, was rendered still more opportune by the shock which he was destined a short time afterwards to receive from the sudden and accidental death of his father. A fire having broken out in Mr M'Murdo's brewery, the good old man fell a victim to the boldness of his ef forts in saving his son-in•law's property, and perished in the midst of the flames. This melancholy occur rence Blacklock pathetically laments in a poem writ ten soon afterwards, which is strongly descriptive of the state of his feelings, and places his character in A very interesting point of view. It is entitled, A Soliloquy, and was occasioned by the following cir cumstance : During his father's life, the affectionate attentions of parental love had not suffered go out of doors without a guide, and by an amiable but injudicious tenderness had fostered his natural um ditr, leaving him constantly dependant on the good offices of others for the power of moving even to a trifling distance. The death of his father, however,
subjected him to many privations ; and he now found it necessary to make exertions to which he had for merly been unaccustomed. When he, at any time, was induced to go from home alone, he had a favou rite dog, which was his constant companion, and ser ved to alleviate the forlorn and solitary feeling which his present condition inspired. Having one day wan dered from the door, he lost his way, and was on the point of stepping into a draw-well of considerable depth, covered carelessly with rotten boards, where lie must have been irrecoverably lost, had not his lit tle attendant, by the sound of its feet on the cover, warned him of his danger. This accident forcibly called to his mind all the miseries of his helpless si tuation, and gave rise to a production, which, for pathos, tenderness, and sublimity, rivals the most happy efforts of the British muse. The piety and resignation to the will of heaven so beautifully expressed in the concluding part of this poem, and which formed a striking trait in his charac ter, did not pass unrewarded. He remained with his mother fof about a year after his father's death, and began to be distinguished, even beyond the circle of his own immediate friends and acquaintances, as a young man of uncommon parts and genius. At the end of this period, Dr Stevenson, an eminent physi cian in Edinburgh, being accidentally at Dumfries, became acquainted with young Blacklock's talents, and formed the benevolent design of giving to his na tural abilities the advantage of a liberal education. Under this respectable patron, he commenced his stu dies at the grammar school of Edinburgh in the year 1741, where lie continued till the breaking out of the rebellion in 1745. ;During this period, he was intro duced to Mr Alexander, the lord provost of the city, a gentleman who was connected with Mr M'Murdo in some commercial speculations. In this family lie had an opportunity of making himself master of the French language, which was the vernacular tongue of Mrs Alexander. Before leaving the metropolis, he became an author, by publishing a volume of poems in octavo. Soon afterwards he retired to Dumfries, where he resided during the national disturbances of that period in the house of his brother-in-law Mr M'Murdo. Dumfries was at this period fortunate in being the residence of several enlightened and inge nious men, in whose society Blacklock had an oppor tunity of tasting the charms of friendship, of impro ving his acquaintance with the world, and of consi derably increasing the store of his ideas. Amongst these, besides the circle of this amiable family, in which he was an inmate, it may be proper to mention Mr Jameson, the episcopal clergyman, a worthy and ingenious man, with whom he contracted an intimate friendship ; collector Gordon of Halbeths, himself a poet, who afterwards wrote an account of his life; and Mr Carlyle of Drungans, a gentleman who was bred to the law, but whose acquirements extended far beyond the limits of his profession. On the restoration of public tranquillity, Blacklock returned to the metropo lis, where he continued his studies for six years longer. In the year 1754, a second edition of his poems in octavo was published at Edinburgh, and two years r afterwards, a quarto edition came out by subscription ' in London. In the publication of the London edi tion, the celebrated David Hume, and Mr Spence, professor of poetry at Oxford, took a warm and ac tive interest. This latter gentleman prefixed to that edition a very elaborate and ingenious account of Blacklock's life, character, and writings, which he had published separately two years before.