had his father lived, might perhaps never have opened to him.

He lived with his mother for about a year after his father's death, and began to be distinguished as a young man of uncommon parts and genius. These were at that time unafsisted by learning; the circumstances of his family affording him no better education than the smattering of Latin which his companions had taught him, and the perusal and recollection of the few English authors which they or his father in the intervals of his profefsional labours had read to him. Poetry, however, though it attains its highest perfection in a cultivated soil, grows perhaps as luxuriantly in a wild one. Το poetry, as we have before mentioned, he was devoted from his earliest days; and about this time several of his poetical productions began to be handed about, which considerably enlarged, the circle of his friends and acquaintance. Some of his compositions being fhewn to Dr Stevenson, an eminent physician of Edinburgh, who was accidentally at Dumfries on a professional visit, that gentleman formed the benevolent design of carrying him to the Scotch metropolis, and giving to his natural endowments the afsistance of a classical education. He came to Edinburgh in the year 1741, and was enrolled a student of divinity in the university there, though at that time without any particular view of entering into the church. In that university he continued his studies under the patronage of Dr Stevenson, till the year 1745, and in the following year, a volume of yis poems in 8vo. was first published. During

May 29. the national disturbances, which prevailed during those years, he returned to Dumfries, where he resided with Mr M'Murdo, a gentleman who had married his sister, in whose house he was not only treated with all the kindness and affection of a brother, but had an opportunity, from the society which it afforded, of considerably increasing the store of his ideas. After the close of the rebellion, and the complete restoration of the peace of the country, he returned again to the metropolis, and pursued his studies for six years longer. During this last residence in Edinburgh, among other literary acquaintance, he obtained that of the celebrated David Hume, who, with all that humanity and benevolence for which he was distinguished, attached himself warmly to Mr Blacklock's interests, and was afterwards particularly useful to him in the publication of the 4to. edition of his poems, which came out by subscription in London in the year 1756. Previously to this, a second edition in 8vo. had been published at Edinburgh in 1754. To the 4to. edition, Mr Spence, professor of Poetry at Oxford, who had conceived a great regard for the author, prefixed a very elaborate and ingenious account of his life, character, and writings; an account which would have rendered the present imperfect sketch equally unnecefsary and afsuming, had it not been written at a period so early as to include only the opening events of a life for which it is meant to claim the future notice and favour of the public.

In the course of his education at Edinburgh, he acquired a pro ciency in the learned languages, and

became more a master of the French tongue than was common there, from the social intercourse to which he had the good fortune to be admitted in the house of Provost Alexander, who married a native of France. At the university he attained a knowledge of the various branches of philosophy and theblogy, to which his course of study naturally led, and acquired at the same time a considerable fund of learning and information in those various departments of science and belles letters, from which his want of sight did not absolutely preclude him.

In 1757, he began a course of study, with a view to give lectures in oratory to young gentlemen intended for the bar or the pulpit. On this occasion he wrote to Mr Hume, informed him of his plan, and requested his afsistance in the prosecution of it. But Mr Hume doubting the probability of its succefs, he abandoned the project; and then, for the first time, adopted the decided intention of going into the church of Scotland. After applying closely for a considerable time to the study of theology, he passed the usual trials in the prefbytery of Dumfries, and was by that prefbytery licenced to preach the gospel in the year 1759. As a preacher he obtained high reputation, and was fond of composing sermons, of which he has left some volumes in manuscript, as also a Treatise on Morals, both of which it is in contemplation with his friends to publish.

The tenor of his occupations, as well as the bent of his mind and dispositions, during this period of his life, will appear in the following plain and unstu

died account, contained in a letter from a gentleman, who was then his most intimate and constant companion, the reverend Mr Jameson, formerly minister of the episcopal chapel at Dumfries, afterwards of the English congregation at Dantzig, and who now resides at Newcastle upon Tyne.

"His manner of life, (says that gentleman) was se uniform, that the history of it during one day or one week, is the history of it during the seven years that our personal intercourse lasted. Reading, music, walking, conversing, and disputing on various topics in theology, ethics, c. employed almost every hour of our time. It was pleasant to hear him engaged in a dispute, for no man could keep his temper better than he always did on such occasions, I have known him frequently very warmly engaged for hours together, but never could observe one angry word to fall from him. Whatever bis antagonist might say, he always kept his temper. *Semper paratus et refellere sine pertinacia, et re** felli sine iracundia." He was, however, extreme, ly sensible to what he thought ill usage, and equally so whether it regarded himself or his friends. But his resentment was always confined to a few satirical verses, which were generally burnt soon after.

"The late Mr Spence (the Editor of the 4to edition of his poems,) frequently urged him to writę a tragedy; and afsured him that he had interest enough with Mr Garrick to get it acted. Various subjects were proposed to him, several of which he approved of, yet he never could be prevailed on to

begin any thing of that kind *. It may seem remarkable, but, as far as I know, it was invariably the case, that he never could think or write on any subject proposed to him by another.

"I have frequently admired with what readiness and rapidity he could sometimes make verses. I have known him dictate from thirty to forty verses, and by no means bad ones, as fast as I could write them; but the moment he was at a lofs for a rhyme or a verse to his liking, he stopt altogether, and could very seldom be induced to finish what he had begun with so much ardour."

This account sufficiently marks that eager sensibility, chastened at the same time with uncommon gentleness of temper, which characterised Dr Blacklock, and which indeed it was impofsible to be at all in his company without perceiving. In the science of mind, that is that division of it which perhaps one would peculiarly appropriate to poetry, at least to all those lighter species which rather depend on quickness of feeling, and the ready conception of pleasing images, than on the happy arrangement of parts, or the skilful construction of a whole, which are efsential to the higher departments of the poetical art. The first kind of talent is like those

* Mr Jameson was probably ignorant of the circumstance of his writing, at a subsequent period, a tragedy; but upon what subject, his relation, from whom I received the intelligence, cannot recollect. The manuscript was put into the hands of the late Mr Crosbie, then a eminent advocate at the bar of Scotland, but has never since been recovered.