the son of Robert Blackmore of Corsham in Wiltshire, an attorney at law, and was in 1668 entered at Edmund Hall, Oxford. He took his master's degree in 1676, and seems to have resided at the university for thirteen years; after which he travelled on the continent, studied medicine, and was made doctor of physic at Padua. He settled in Cheapside, London, and obtained an extensive practice in the city, becoming fellow of the College of Physicians in 1687. In 1695 his first work appeared. It was a heroic poem in ten books, named "Prince Arthur," which found many readers, and in two years passed through three editions. It was, however, severely attacked and ridiculed by the critics, but has been praised by Locke and Molineux, the latter of whom was especially pleased with the song of "Mopas," which certainly is not destitute of poetic merit. Two years later he published his "King Arthur," in twelve books, which provoked still more attacks than its predecessor. But its author was still attended by professional success, was appointed one of the physicians to King William, and received the honour of knighthood. In 1700 he published a "Paraphrase of the Book of Job," and other parts of scripture, and now ranked Dryden among his bitterest assailants, who, in allusion to the author's confession that his "Prince Arthur" was composed "for the greater part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down the streets," says that his poetry seems attuned "to the rumbling of chariot wheels." He did not seek to conciliate the wits; but assailed them in a poem, published in 1700, named a "Satire on Wit," in which he accuses Dryden of impurity, and the appearance of which was the signal for the publication of upwards of twenty satirical pieces, directed against him by the different writers of the day. But Blackmore, nothing daunted, pursued the tenor of his way, and gave to the world in 1705 another heroic poem, in ten books, named "Eliza," which, however, fell stillborn from the press. "It is never mentioned," says Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, "and was never seen by me, till I borrowed it for the present occasion." A like fate awaited his other "heroic" effort, in which he sought to enshrine "King Alfred" in twelve books (1723); "for," says Johnson, "Alfred took his place by Eliza in silence and darkness; Benevolence was ashamed to favour, and Malice was weary of insulting." His only work of lasting merit appeared in 1712, under the title of "Creation, a Philosophical Poem, demonstrating the existence and providence of God, in seven books." Addison concludes one of his admirable essays on the poetry of Milton, by noticing Blackmore's "Creation" (Spectator, No. 339): "The work," he says, "was undertaken with so good an intention, and is executed with so great a mastery, that it deserves to be looked upon as one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse." It would have been well for Blackmore had he been content with this successful effort, for all his subsequent works were very unpopular, and the neglect with which he was treated as a writer, soon affected his practice as a physician. His prose works we can only name. The subjects are strangely varied, they are the "Lay Monastery," a series of papers in imitation, and intended as a continuation of the Spectator; "Essays upon several subjects;" a "History of the Conspiracy against King William the Third;" "A Discourse on the Plague," &c.; "A Treatise on the Small-Pox," in which he assails the practice of inoculation;" "A Treatise on Consumption," &c.; on the "Spleen and Vapours;" "Gout, Rheumatics, King's Evil, Dropsy, Jaundice," &c.; "Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothesis;" "Modern Arians Unmasked;" "Natural Theology," &c.; "The Accomplished Preacher;" which last work appeared after the author's death, in 1729. Blackmore exhibits in his numerous works (our space has not permitted us to name them all) little genius; but he was ever distinguished for a high and noble purpose; and in all the assaults of which he was the object, there is not a word casting doubt on the integrity of his character.—(Johnson's Lives of the Poets.)—J. B.
BLACKSTONE, John, an apothecary in London, lived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1737 he published a fasciculus of 527 indigenous plants, found in the neighbourhood of Harefield; also a work on some rare English plants, as an addition to Ray's Synopsis. He died in 1753. Hudson gave the name of Blackstonia to the genus afterwards called Chlora by Linnæus.—J. H. B.
BLACKSTONE, William, author of "Commentaries on the Laws of England:" born in London in 1723. His parents died while he was yet an infant. At seven years of age he was sent by an uncle to the charter-house, and at twelve placed on the foundation. At sixteen he entered Pembroke college, Oxford. In 1743 he was elected fellow of All-Souls college, and in three years after was called to the bar. He seems to have failed in obtaining practice, and he retired to Oxford. His connection with the duties and studies of his profession still continued. In 1749 his uncle resigned the recordership of Wallingford, Berks, in his favour. The professorship of civil law in the university of Oxford being vacant, Lord Mansfield, then Mr. Murray, recommended Blackstone to the duke of Newcastle to fill it. His right to the office, if superior fitness constitutes right, could not be denied; however a political adherent of the government, utterly ignorant of law, civil, canon, and common, but considered the best electioneering agent in the whole university, was appointed to expound the pandects which he had never read and could not construe. (Lord Campbell's Lives of C. Justices, vol. ii., p. 379.) The university of Oxford had made no arrangement for instruction in the principles of English law. This led Blackstone to think of suplying the want, and he delivered a course of lectures in Michaelmas term, 1753. The lectures were so successful that the importance of appointing a professor permanently was very generally felt, and funds were supplied, by means of which the Vinerian professorship was founded. Blackstone was now invited to read his lectures to the prince of Wales. His engagement with Oxford made him decline this honour. The reputation of his lectures, and of an edition of the Great Charter, which he published, led to his being employed in the law courts, and his practice soon became very considerable. In 1761 he sat in parliament for Hindon. In 1762 he obtained a patent of precedence, and in 1763 was appointed solicitor-general to the queen. He was offered the chief-justiceship of the common pleas in Ireland, which he declined. About this time he married Sarah, eldest daughter of James Clitheroe, Esq., of Boston house, Middlesex, by whom he had nine children, seven of whom survived him. He was soon after his marriage appointed principal of New Inn hall. This appointment, as well as the Vinerian professorship, he resigned in the following year. In 1765 the first volume of his "Commentaries on the Laws "was published, and three others soon followed. It was impossible that the book, admired as it was, and deserved to be, should not awaken adverse criticism; and three formidable antagonists were soon in the field—Bentham, Priestley, and the formidable shadow to which men have not yet been able to give a more fixed name than that under which his letters appeared in the newspapers of the day—the mysterious Junius. Bentham was one of Blackstone's law class in Oxford. In his lectures, Blackstone had to state not only the rules and maxims of law, but the reasons assigned by the old jurists for these rules and maxims. The reasons assigned by the old jurists are often merely fanciful, and have no real connection with the rules and maxims themselves. A rule existed because some rule or practice should be adopted; and the reason assigned for it was seldom more than a crotchet, invented originally, most probably, to aid the memory. It would perhaps have assisted Bentham's main argument to have honestly stated this, instead of trying to work his readers into the belief that what are called the maxims of the law are supposed by professional lawyers in reality to rest on such grounds. Priestley was displeased at what was said of the dissenters, and there can be no doubt that Blackstone habitually states the existing law, as if any modification or alteration of it could not be contemplated without danger to the whole structure. The attacks of these writers, and yet more the way in which he was dealt with by Junius, aided him with Lord North's ministry. In 1770 he was offered the solicitor-generalship, which he declined. He was then made one of the justices of the common pleas, but to convenience Mr. Justice Yates, who wished to retire from the king's bench to the common pleas, a different arrangement was adopted. On Yates' death, which soon afterwards occurred, he went to the common pleas, where he sat till his death in February, 1780. Blackstone is one of the many eminent English lawyers of high reputation, whom professional occupation did not wholly detach from the studies of polite literature. Every now and then we find some instructive note of his in the variorum editions of Shakspeare, and the "Lawyer's farewell to his Muse," first published in Southey's Specimens of English Poetry, is a very graceful poem. In All-Souls college, Oxford, there is a statue of Blackstone by Bacon, and in one of the chapel windows are his arms. His portrait is in the picture gallery of the university.
