Thomas Blacklock, D.D., the blind poet, was born of humble parentage at Annan, and lost his sight through small-pox before he was six months old. Educated at Edinburgh, he was minister of Kirkcudbright (1762–64), and then took pupils to board with him in Edinburgh till his death. It was a letter of his that arrested Burns on the eve of his departure for the West Indies. The first volume of his own poor poems appeared in 1746; and a collected edition in 1793.
Personal
He soon appeared what I have ever since found him, a very elegant Genius, of a most affectionate grateful disposition, a modest backward temper, accompanied with that delicate Pride, which so naturally attends Virtue in Distress. His great Moderation and Frugality, along with the Generosity of a few persons, particularly Dr. Stevenson and Provost Alexander, had hitherto enabled him to subsist. All his good qualities are diminished, or rather perhaps embellished by a great want of Knowledge of the World.
He never could dictate till he stood up; and as his blindness made walking about without assistance inconvenient or dangerous to him, he fell insensibly into a vibratory sort of motion with his body, which increased as he warmed with his subject and was pleased with the conception of his mind.
Doctor Blacklock belonged to a set of critics, for whose applause I had not dared to hope.
All those who ever acted as his amanuenses agree in this rapidity and ardour of composition which Mr. Jameson ascribes to him.
Through the genial society of Edinburgh, with its vigorous speaking and drinking, its stalwart race of men of letters, law, and fashion, flits the somewhat pathetic figure of the gentle and helpless Dr. Blacklock. He was to be seen led along the crowded High Street, every one making way respectfully for the blind man, and led carefully up the slippery staircases, whose dirt and darkness could not vex his sight, though the odours might afflict his acuter sense of smell. In the best company he was welcomed, and all forgot the plainness of that pock-pitted face in the amiable expression that gave it charm. In the Meadows friends would find him in the forenoon, leaning on the arm of Robert Heron, the discarded assistant to Dr. Blair—a versatile literary hack, a threadbare taper, who, after an evening’s debauch on a meagre supply of potatoes and green peas, with large potations of whiskey, had risen from his garret bed to take his venerated friend out for a stroll. Blacklock’s reputation was considerable for genius and for fine literary judgment. To-day we must deny him genius, but may allow him taste…. To everybody Blacklock endeared himself; for he was a very good man, though a very poor poet. Young men he drew from obscurity, educated, and started in life, who never forgot the unhumorous, guileless man, who knew nothing of the world except its goodness. With a temper which nothing could ruffle, he worked with his boarders over Greek and Latin, and entered into all their entertainments with childlike pleasure, while the keenest pleasure of his boarders was to do kindly services for him. In his placid home there would meet at breakfast or in the evening all who had any pretence to wit and culture. There were heard the chatter of Mrs. Cockburn, the lively tongue of the Duchess of Gordon, with the voices of Adam Ferguson, Lord Monboddo, Dr. Robertson, as they sat at tea; while the boarders handed scones and cookies to the company, and listened eagerly as great men and bright women discussed and jested, making the little room noisy with their talk and merry with their laughter.
General
The 104th Psalm is esteemed one of the most sublime in the whole book, [A New Version of the Psalms of David]…. There have not been less than forty different Versions, and Paraphrases of this Psalm, by poets of very considerable eminence, who seem to have vied with one another for the superiority. Of all these attempts, if we may trust our own judgment, none have succeeded so happily as Mr. Blacklock, a young gentleman now resident at Dumfries in Scotland. This Paraphrase is the more extraordinary, as the author of it has been blind from his cradle, and now labours under that calamity; it carries in it such elevated strains of poetry, such picturesque descriptions, and such a mellifluent flow of numbers, that we are persuaded the reader cannot be displeased at finding it inserted here.
Few men blessed with the most perfect sight can describe visual objects with more spirit and justness than this blind man.
He [Dr. Johnson] talked of Mr. Blacklock’s poetry, so far as it was descriptive of visible objects; and observed that, “as its authour had the misfortune to be blind, we may be absolutely sure that such passages are combinations of what he has remembered of the works of other writers who could see. That foolish fellow, Spence, has laboured to explain philosophically how Blacklock may have done, by means of his own faculties, what it is impossible he should do. The solution, as I have given it, is plain. Suppose, I know a man to be so lame that he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a different room from that in which I left him; shall I puzzle myself with idle conjectures, that perhaps his nerves have by some unknown change all at once become effective? No, Sir, it is clear how he got into a different room: he was carried.”
As an author, under disadvantages which seem unsurmountable to nature, Blacklock has eminently distinguished himself. Though blind from his infancy, the impulse of curiosity and the vigorous exertion of his talents conducted him to uncommon knowledge. He acquired tongues and arts by the ear, in many of which he excelled. There was no science with which he was not acquainted; he was familiar with the learned languages, and he knew with accuracy those of modern Europe that are the most cultivated. Among philosophers he has attained a conspicuous rank…. As a poet, though not of the highest rank, he is entitled to a rank not inferior to Addison, Parnell, and Shenstone.
His verses are extraordinary for a man blind from his infancy; but Mr. Henry Mackenzie, in his elegant biographical account of him, has certainly over-rated his genius; and when Mr. Spence, of Oxford, submitted Blacklock’s descriptive powers as a problem for metaphysicians to resolve, he attributed to his writings a degree of descriptive strength which they do not possess. Denina carried exaggeration to the utmost when he declared that Blacklock would seem a fable to posterity, as he had been a prodigy to his contemporaries. It is no doubt curious that his memory should have retained so many forms of expression for things which he had never seen; but those who have conversed with intelligent persons who have been blind from their infancy, must have often remarked in them a familiarity of language respecting the objects of vision which, though not easy to be accounted for, will be found sufficiently common to make the rhymes of Blacklock appear far short of marvelous. Blacklock on more than one occasion, betrays something like marks of blindness.
The series of conjectures by which Mr. Spence has endeavoured to account for this poet’s capability of producing animated descriptions of external nature, can scarcely be regarded as altogether satisfactory; when such a faculty is displayed by a poet blind from his infancy, it is chiefly to be referred to his accurate recollection of the descriptive language employed by other poets; but what notions he himself attaches to words expressive of the visible qualities of objects, it might be extremely difficult for a blind poet to explain.
We read all concerning him with strong interest except his poetry, for this is generally tame, languid, and commonplace.
In the short memoir which we have of him, written by Mackenzie, there are a great many special quotations made, and lines selected, to show that, notwithstanding his blindness, he was capable of describing nature. This, of course, must have been simply in imitation of the lavish colours, the purple evenings and rosy mornings of the poets: but there is a pathetic correctness in his enumeration of the yellow crocuses and purple hyacinths, which touches the heart.
Blacklock’s poems are mere echoes of the poetical language of his time, and show little more than a facility for stringing together rhymes. He would, we are told, dictate thirty or forty verses as fast as they could be written down. Whilst doing so he acquired a trick of nervous vibration of his body which became habitual. By Hume’s advice Blacklock abandoned a project of lecturing on oratory, and studied divinity.
He has in truth little claim to remembrance except such as can be founded upon a pathetic story and an amiable and virtuous character.
