BLACKMORE. SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE is one of those men whofe writings have attracted much notice, but of whofe life and manners very little has been communicated, and whofe lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends. He was the son of Robert Blackmore of Corsham in Wiltshire, ftyled by Wood Gentleman, and supposed to have been an attorney having been for fome time educated in a country-school, he was fent at thirteen to Westminster; and in 1668 was entered at Edmund-Hall in Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. June 3, 1676, and resided thirteen years; a much longer time than it is ufual to spend at the university. He afterwards travelled: at Padua he was made doctor of phyfic; and, after having wandered about a year a year and a half on the Continent, returned home. In fome part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school; an humiliation with which, though it certainly lafted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him, when he became confpicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been once a school-mafter is the only reproach which all the perfpicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life. When he first engaged in the study of phyfic, he enquired, as he fays, of Dr. Sydenham what authors he should read, and was directed by Sydenham to Don Quixote; which, faid he, is a very good book; I read it fill. The perverfeness of mankind makes it often mifchievous in men of eminence to give way to merriment. The idle and the illiterate will long fhelter themselves under this foolish apophthegm. Whether |