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wards the perpetual and inceffant enemy of Blackmore.

One of his Effays is upon the Spleen, which is treated by him fo much to his own fatisfaction, that he has published the fame thoughts in the fame words; first in the Lay Monaftery; then in the Effay; and then in the Preface to a Medical Treatife on the Spleen. One paffage, which I have found already twice, I will here exhibit, because I think it better imagined, and better expreffed, than could be expected from the common tenour of his profe:

"As the feveral combinations of fplene"tic madness and folly produce an infinite "variety of irregular understanding, fo the "amicable accommodation and alliance be66 tween several virtues and vices produce an “equal diversity in the dispositions and man“ners of mankind; whence it comes to pass, "that as many monftrous and abfurd pro❝ductions are found in the moral as in the in"tellectual world. How furprising is it to "obferve among the leaft culpable men, fome "whofe minds are attracted by heaven and "earth, with a feeming equal force; fome

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"who are proud of humility; others who are "cenforious and uncharitable, yet felf-deny

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ing 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 unjust, impious lovers of their country, and flagitious heroes, good-natured fharpers, immoral men of honour, and li"bertines 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 แ none of the whole mafs, either good or bad, are intirely exempted from fome ab"furd mixture.'

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He about this time (Aug. 22, 1716) be came one of the Elects of the College of Physicians; and was soon after (Oct. 1) chosen 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

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principle of all Religion, he thought his undertaking imperfect, unlefs he likewife enforced the truth of Revelation; and for that purpose added another poem on Redemption. He likewise wrote, before his Creation, three books on the Nature of Man.

The lovers of musical 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) a new Verfion of the Pfalms of David, fitted to the tunes ufed in Churches; which, being recommended by the archbishops and many bishops, obtained a license for its admiffion into public 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 praise of meaning well.

He was not yet deterred from heroick poetry; there was another monarch of this island, for he did not fetch his heroes from foreign countries, whom he confidered as worthy of the

Epic Muse, 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 respect 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 critics; the fecond 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 feizes one part of a character corrupts all the reft by degrees. Blackmore, being defpifed 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, averse from idleness, he employed his unwelcome leisure in writing books on physic, and teaching others to cure those whom he could himself cure no longer. I know not whether I can enumerate all the treatises by which he has endeavoured to diffuse the art of healing; for there is scarcely any diftemper, of dread

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ful name, which he has not taught his reader how to oppose. He has written on the fmall-pox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on confumptions, the fpieen, the gout, the rheumatism, the king's-evil, the dropfy, the jaundice, the ftone, the dia→ betes, and the plague.

Of thofe books, if I had read them, it could not be expected that I should be able to give a critical account. I have been told that there is fomething in them of vexation and discontent, difcovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade physick from its fublimity, and to reprefent 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 transmitted knowledge. Of this indecent arrogance the following quotation from his Preface to the Treatise 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.

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