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"whose minds are attracted by heaven and earth, "with a feeming equal force; fome who are proud of humility; others who are cenforious and unchari"table, yet self-denying and devout; fome who join contempt of the world with fordid avarice; and "others, who preferve a great degree of piety, with "ill-nature and ungoverned paffions: nor are inftances "of this inconfiftent mixture lefs frequent among bad men, where we often, with admiration, fee perfons "at once generous and unjuft, impious lovers of their country, and flagitious heroes, good-natured fharpers, "immoral men of honour, and libertines who will "fooner die than change their religion; and though "it is true that repugnant coalitions of fo high a degree are found but in a part of mankind, yet none "of the whole mafs, either good or bad, are intirely "exempted from fome abfurd mixture."

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He about this time (Aug. 22, 1716) became one of the Elects of the College of Phyficians; and was foon after (Oct. 1) chofen Cenfor. He feems to have arrived late, whatever was the reason, at his medical honours.

Having fucceeded fo well in his book on Creation, by which he established the great principle of all Religion, he thought his undertaking imperfect, unless he likewise enforced the truth of Revelation; and for that purpose added another poem on Redemption. He had likewife written, before his Creation, three books on the Nature of Man,

The lovers of mufical devotion have always wished for a more happy metrical verfion than they have yet obtained of the book of Pfalms; this with the piety of Blackmore led him to gratify, and he produced

(1721)

(1721) a new Verfion of the Pfalms of David, fitted to the Tunes used in Churches; which, being recommended by the archbishops and many bifhops, obtained a licence for its admiffion into publick worship; but no admiffion has it yet obtained, nor has it any right to come where Brady and Tate have got poffeffion. Blackmore's name must be added to thofe of many others, who, by the fame attempt, have obtained only the praife of meaning well.

He was not yet deterred from heroick poetry; there was another monarch of this ifland, for he did not fetch his heroes from foreign countries, whom he confidered as worthy of the Epic mufe, and he dignified Alfred (1723) with twelve books. But the opinion of the nation was now fettled; a hero introduced by Blackmore was not likely to find either refpect or kindness; Alfred took his place by Eliza in filence and darkness benevolence was afhamed to favour, and malice was weary of infulting. Of his four Epic Poems, the first had fuch reputation and popularity as enraged the criticks; the second was at least known enough to be ridiculed; the two last had neither friends nor enemies.

Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which if it seizes one part of a character corrupts all the reft by degrees. Blackmore, being despised as a poet, was in time neglected as a physician; his practice, which was once invidiously great, forfook him in the latter part of his life; but being by nature, or by principle, averfe from idleness, he employed his unwelcome leisure in writing books on phyfick, and teaching others to cure those whom he could himself cure no longer. I know not whether I can enumerate all the treatifes by which

he

he has endeavoured to diffuse the art of healing; for there is fcarcely any distemper, of dreadful name, which he has not taught his reader how to oppose. He has written on the fmall-pox, with a vehement invec tive against inoculation; on confumptions, the fpleen, the gout, the rheumatifm, the king's-evil, the dropfy, the jaundice, the ftone, the diabetes, and the plague.

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Of thofe books, if I had read them, it could not be expected that I fhould be able to give a critical account. I have been told that there is fomething in them of vexation and difcontent, difcovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade phyfick from its fublimity, and to represent it as attainable without much previous or concomitant learning. By the tranfient glances which I have thrown upon them, I have obferved an affected contempt of the Ancients, and a fupercilious derifion of tranfmitted knowledge. Of this indecent arrogance the following quotation from his Preface to the Treatife on the Small-pox will afford a fpecimen; in which, when the reader finds, what I fear is true, that when he was cenfuring Hippocrates he did not know the difference between aphorifm and apophthegm, he will not pay much regard to his determinations concerning ancient learning.

"As for this book of Aphorifms, it is like my lord "Bacon's of the fame title, a book of jefts, or a grave "collection of trite and trifling obfervations; of which

though many are true and certain, yet they fignify "nothing, and may afford diverfion, but no inftruc❝tion; most of them being much inferior to the fay"ings of the wife men of Greece, which yet are fo low and mean, that we are entertained every day " with

"with more valuable fentiments at the table-converfa ❝tion of ingenious and learned men."

I am unwilling, however, to leave him in total difgrace, and will therefore quote from another Preface a paffage lefs reprehenfible.

"Some gentlemen have been difingenuous and unjuft to me, by wrefting and forcing my meaning in "the Preface to another book, as if I condemned and "exposed all learning, though they knew I declared "that I greatly honoured and esteemed all men of fu"perior literature and erudition; and that I only un"dervalued falfe or fuperficial learning, that fignifies "nothing for the fervice of mankind; and that, as to " phyfick, I exprefsly affirmed that learning must be

joined with native genius to make a physician of the "first rank; but if thofe talents are feparated, I af"ferted, and do still infist, that a man of native faga"city and diligence will prove a more able and useful "practifer, than a heavy notional fcholar, encumbered "with a heap of confused ideas."

He was not only a poet and a physician, but produced likewise a work of a different kind, A true and impartial Hifiory of the Confpiracy against King William, of glorious Memory, in the Year 1695. This I have never seen, but suppose it at least compiled with integrity. He engaged likewife in theological controverfy, and wrote two books against the Arians; Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothefis; and Modern Arians unmasked. Another of his works is Natural Theology, or Moral Duties considered apart from Pofitive; with fome Obfervations on the Defirablenefs and Neceffity of a fupernatural Revelation. This was the last book that he publifhed. He left behind him The accomplished Preacher,

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or an Effay upon Divine Eloquence; which was printed after his death by Mr. White of Nayland in Effex, the minister who attended his death-bed, and teftified the fervent piety of his last hours. He died on the eighth of October, 1729,

BLACKMORE, by the unremitted enmity of the wits, whom he provoked more by his virtue than his dulnefs, has been expofed to worse treatment than he deserved; his name was fo long used to point every epigram upon dull writers, that it became at last a byeword of contempt: but it deferves observation, that malignity takes hold only of his writings, and that his life paffed without reproach, even when his boldness of reprehenfion naturally turned upon him many eyes defirous to efpy faults, which many tongues would have made hafte to publish. But those who could not blame, could at leaft forbear to praife, and therefore of his private life and domeftick character there are no memorials..

As an author he may justly claim the honours of magnanimity. The inceffant attacks of his enemies, whether serious or merry, are never difcovered to have disturbed his quiet, or to have leffened his confidence in himself; they neither awed him to filence nor to caution; they neither provoked him to petulance, nor depreffed him to complaint. While the diftributors of literary fame were endeavouring to depreciate and degrade him, he either defpifed or defied them, wrote on as he had written before, and never turned afide to quiet them by civility, or reprefs them by confutation.

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