to forget, when the business of the world removes them from its immediate influence, had been to him extended over those years when to the helplessness of a child he added the sense and feelings of a man. To his keenly susceptible mind this stroke must therefore have been peculiarly afflicting. And it was attended not only with regret on account of remembered benefits, but also by the anticipation of future evils. A means of livelihood was indeed suggested by Blacklock's love of music: as he played well on the violin and flute, and even composed pieces with taste, it was proposed that he should follow this art as a profession. " But the unhappy situation in which he was then placed," says the authority upon which this statement is given,[1] " made him dread consequences to which he could never reconcile his mind. The very thought that his time and talents should be prostrated to the forwarding of loose mirth and riot inspired him with an honest indignation/' Unable to bring down his mind to this occupation,—the only one which seemed within his reach, deprived of the stay on which he had hitherto leaned, blind and feeble, no wonder that the fate of a houseless beggar sometimes presented itself as what might possibly happen to himself. Burns occasionally indulged in similar forebodings; but when he depicts his unhappy fortune, and doggedly exclaims,
"The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only but to beg!"
we must be excused for iron-heartedly recollecting that he was an able-bodied man, who, as his brother Gilbert records, never met with his match in mowing the hardest of all rustic labour. A man so gifted, yet so complaining, meets with little sympathy, as he is entitled to none: but with poor Blacklock the dread of dying a houseless wanderer was more than a mere rhetorical flourish or the indulgence of a groundless querulousness. While we read the lines in which he unfolds his fears, we perceive that anguish wrung his heart in writing them, and we know that his situation justified his apprehensions.
"Dejecting prospect! soon the hapless hour
May come perhaps this moment it impends
Which drives me forth to penury and cold,
Naked, and beat by all the storms of heaven,
Friendless and guideless to explore my way;
Till on cold earth this poor unsheltered head
Reclining, vainly from the ruthless blast
Respite I beg, and in the shock expire."
Although gloomy anticipations like these sometimes intruded, Blacklock did not permit them to overwhelm him, but calming his fears, and resting with a pious confidence in the awards of a protecting Providence, he continued to live with his mother for a year after his father's death.
Some of his poems had by this time got abroad and made him known beyond his own immediate circle of friends. We shall not pretend to deny that die circumstance of his blindness had some effect, in addition to the intrinsic merits of these productions, in making them be sought after and dispersed among literary persons. On account of their being the verses of a blind poet, they were no doubt read by many who were little able to appreciate their real excellencies, and who, having gratified their curiosity, did not concern themselves about the con-
- ↑ An article in the Gentleman's Magazine, which, after being read over to Dr Blacklock, slightly altered, and two notes added at his request, was reprinted in the Scots Magazine for 1754, The authority may therefore be considered to be that of Dr Blacklock himself. From internal evidence it appears very certain, that this article was a contribution to Mr Urban from, his frequent correspondent Dr Johnson.
