poems, the ancient names of nations or places, which he often introduces, are pronounced by chance. He afterwards travelled at Padua he was made doctor of phyfick; and, after having wandered about a year and a half on. the Continent, returned home.

In fome part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school; an humiliation, with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him, when he became confpicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been once a fchool-master is the only reproach which all the perfpicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life.

When he first engaged in the ftudy of phy fic, he enquired, as he fays, of Dr. Sydenham what authors he should read, and was directed by Sydenham to Don Quixote; which, faid he, is a very god book; I read it fill. The perverfeness of mankind makes it often mifchievous in men of eminence to give way to

mer

merriment. The idle and the illiterate will long shelter themselves under this foolish apophthegm.

Whether he rested fatisfied with this direction, or fought for better, he commenced physician, and obtained high eminence and extensive practice. He became Fellow of the College of Phyficians, April 12, 1687, being one of the thirty which, by the new charter of king James, were added to the former Fellows. His refidence was in Cheapfide, and his friends were chiefly in the city. In the early part of Blackmore's time, a citizen was a term of reproach; and his place of abode was another topick to which his adverfaries had recourfe, in the penury of fcandal.

Blackmore, therefore, was made a poet not by neceffity but inclination, and wrote not for a livelihood but for fame; or, if he may tell his own motives, for a nobler purpose, to engage poetry in the cause of Virtue.

I believe it is peculiar to him, that his firft publick work was an heroick poem.

He was not known as a maker of verses, till he published (in 1695) Prince Arthur, in ten books, written, as he relates, by fuch catches and farts, and in fuch occafional uncertain hours as his profeffion afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-boufes, or in paffing up and down the streets. For the latter part of this apology he was accused of writing to the rumbling of his chariot-wheels. He had read, he says, but little poetry throughout his whole life; and for fifteen years before had not written an hundred verfes, except one copy of Latin verfes in praife of a friend's book.

He thinks, and with some reason, that from fuch a performance perfection cannot be expected; but he finds another reason for the severity of his cenfurers, which he expreffes in language fuch as Cheapfide easily furnished. I am not free of the Poets Company, having never kiffed the governor's hands: mine is therefore not fo much as a permiffionpoem, but a downright interloper. Thofe gentlemen who carry on their poetical trade in a joint flock, would certainly do what they could to fink and ruin an unlicenfed adventurer, notwithstanding I disturbed none of their factòries,

nor

nor imported any goods they had ever dealt in. He had lived in the city till he had learned its

note.

That Prince Arthur found many readers, is certain; for in two years it had three editions; a very uncommon inftance of favourable reception, at a time when literary curiofity was yet confined to particular claffes of the nation. Such fuccefs naturally raised animosity; and Dennis attacked it by a formal criticism, more tedious and disgusting than the work which he condemns. To this cenfure may be opposed the approbation of Locke and the admiration of Molineux, which are found in their printed Letters. Molineux is particularly delighted with the fong of Mopas, which is therefore fubjoined to this narrative.

It is remarked by Pope, that what raises the hero often finks the man. Of Blackmore it may be faid, that as the poet finks, the man rises; the animadverfions of Dennis, infolent and contemptuous as they were, raised in him no implacable refentment: he and his critick were afterwards friends; and in

one of his latter works he praises Dennis as equal to Boileau in poetry, and fuperior to him in critical abilities.

1

He feems to have been more delighted with praise than pained by cenfure, and, inftead of flackening, quickened his career. Having in two years produced ten books of Prince Arthur, in two years more (1697) he fent into the world King Arthur in twelve. The provocation was now doubled, and the refentment of wits and criticks may be fuppofed to have increafed in proportion. He found, however, advantages more than equivalent to all their outrages; he was this year made one of the phyficians in ordinary to king William, and advanced by him to the honour of knighthood, with a present of a gold chain and a medal.

The malignity of the wits attributed his knighthood to his new poem; but king William was not very ftudious of poetry, and Blackmore perhaps had other merit for he fays, in his Dedication to Alfred, that he had a greater part in the fucceffion of the house of Hanover than ever he had boafted.

What