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; firft in the Lay Monaftery; then in the Effay; and then in the Preface to a Medical Treatife on the Spleen. 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 profes

One

As the feveral combinations of fplene→ "tic madnefs and folly produce an infinite

variety of irregular understanding, so the amicable accommodation and alliance be"tween feveral virtues and vices produce an

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equal diversity in the dispositions and man❝ners of mankind; whence it comes to país, "that as many monftrous and abfurd pro

ductions are found in the moral as in the in"tellectual world. How furprifing is it to "obferve among the leaft culpable men, fome "whofe minds are attracted by heaven and "earth, with a feeming equal force; fome

"who

"who are proud of humility; others who are "cenforious and uncharitable, yet felf-deny❝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 gene"rous and unjuft, impious lovers of their

country, and flagitious heroes, good-natured έσ 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 none of the whole mafs, either good or "bad, are intirely exempted from fome ab"furd mixture.'

He about this time (Aug. 22, 1716) became one of the Elects of the College of Phy ficians; 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

I

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

The lovers of mufical devotion have always wifhed 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 those of many others, who, by the same attempt, have obtained only the praise of meaning well,

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

Epic Mufe, and he dignified Alfred (1723) with twelve books. But the opinion of the fiation was now fettled; a hero introduced by Blackmore was not likely to find either refpect ør kindness; Alfred took his place by Eliza in filence and darknefs: 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 leaft known enough to be ridiculed; the two laft had heither 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 de fpifed as a poet, was in time neglected as à phyfician; his practice, which was once invi diously great, forfook him in the latter part of his life; but being by nature, or by principle, averfe from idleness, he employed his unwelcome leisure in writing books on physic, and teaching others to cure thofe whom he could himself cure no longer. I know not whether I can enumerate all the treatifes by which he has endeavoured to diffuse the art of healing; for there is fcarcely any diftemper, of dread

ful

ful name, which he has not taught his reader how to oppofe. He has written on the fmall-pox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on confumptions, the spleen, the gout, the rheumatism, the king's-evil, the dropfy, the jaundice, the stone, the diabetes, and the plague.

Of those books, if I had read them, it could not be expected that I should be able I have been told to give a critical account.

that there is something in them of vexation and discontent, discovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade phyfick from its fublimity, and to represent it as attainable without much previous or concomitant learning. By the tranfient glances which I have thrown upon them, I have observed 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.

"As