and Candid Disquisitions relating to the Church of England," and a number of occasional pieces, chiefly of a controversial character. Blackburne died in 1787.—J. S., G.
* BLACKIE, John Stuart, professor of Greek in the university of Edinburgh, was born at Glasgow in 1809. At an early age he was taken from that city to Aberdeen, where, in a private school, he commenced his education. At the age of twelve he was sent as a student to Marischal college, Aberdeen, and was a student of arts for five years in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He then attended theological classes for three years. In 1829 he went to the continent; first to Göttingen and Berlin, in Germany, and then to Rome, where he spent fifteen months. His first publication was written in Italian. It was styled "Osservazioni sopra un antico Sarcophago," and was published in the Annali del Instituto Archæologico, Roma, 1831. On his return to Scotland he studied law, having given up the idea of entering the church, and passed advocate in 1834. About this time his translation of Faust appeared, which Lewes, in his life of Goethe, quotes as being on the whole the best poetical translation. For some time afterwards, he was principally engaged in contributing to the Foreign Quarterly Review, Tait, Blackwood, and the Westminster Review, the study of literature proving more congenial to him than that of law. In 1841 Mr. Blackie was appointed professor of humanity in Marischal college, Aberdeen, an office in which he remained for eleven years. At this time began his labours in the cause of educational reform, which he endeavoured to advance by public lectures, and by pamphlets and newspaper articles. His pamphlets were entitled—"An Appeal to the Scottish People on the improvement of their Scholastic and Academical Institutions;" "A Plea for the Liberties of the Scottish Universities;" "University Reform; with a Letter to Professor Pillans." He also published two lectures, one in English, and the other in Latin, "On the Studying and Teaching of Languages." At this time he contributed largely to the Classical Museum, and published separately one of his articles "On the Rhythmical Declamation of the Ancients." In 1850 appeared his translation of Æschylus, which was at once recognized as the most faithful and most spirited, and therefore the best translation of the complete works of Æschylus in English. In 1852 he was elected to the professorship of Greek in Edinburgh university. His first publication after his election was "The Pronunciation of Greek; Accent and Quantity; a Philological Inquiry," 1852. In 1853 he travelled in Greece, living in Athens for two months and a half, and acquiring a fluent use of the living Greek language. He gave some of the results of his studies there in an introductory lecture "On the Living Language of Greece." In 1857 appeared his "Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, with other Poems." During the whole period of his Greek professorship, he has been actively employed in helping forward the cause of education. On this subject he addressed a letter to the town council of Edinburgh "On the Advancement of Learning in Scotland." He has also contributed occasionally to Blackwood, the North British Review, the Westminster, and the Cambridge Philological Journal, and an essay of his on Plato has appeared in the Edinburgh Essays, and articles on Æschylus and Homer in the Encyclopædia Britannica. His latest work is "On Beauty; Three Discourses delivered in the University of Edinburgh, with an Exposition of the Doctrine of the Beautiful according to Plato," 1858.—J. D.
BLACKLOCK, Rev. Thomas, D.D., a person whose history has created considerable interest, because of the talents which he displayed, and acquirements at which he arrived, under the most disadvantageous circumstances both of birth and accident. He was the son of a Cumberland bricklayer, who settled in Annan, Dumfriesshire, and was wholly dependent for his subsistence and that of his family on his personal labour. Thomas, his son, was born in 1721, and lost his sight by small-pox when only six months old. His father, an intelligent as well as industrious man, spent much of his leisure in reading to and conversing with his son, and in this way he became acquainted with the works of many of the best authors in the English language, and particularly with those of some of the poets, for which he had a great relish. In his twelfth year he produced verses indicating considerable talent, and continued courting the muses ever after. He was also rapturously fond of music, in which he became a great proficient. While he was in his nineteenth year, his father was accidentally killed, leaving him in a state of helplessness and poverty. Nevertheless he expressed himself with great piety and resignation in a soliloquy he wrote upon the occasion. Some of his attempts at verse had been seen by Dr. Stevenson, a physician in Edinburgh, who had him brought to the metropolis in 1741, and educated there at his own expense. His studies were interrupted by the rebellion in 1745, and he returned for a time to his native place. Before doing so, he published a volume of his poems, which the public received with approbation, more particularly on account of the special circumstances in which they were produced. On returning to Edinburgh he resumed his studies, and after passing through the literary classes, entered the divinity hall, with the view of becoming a minister in connection with the established church of Scotland. In 1754 he republished his poems with additions; and in 1756 a quarto edition was published in London by subscription, Hume the historian, and Spence, professor of poetry at Oxford, exerting themselves to promote the sale for the benefit of the author. Having finished his theological course, he was licensed as a preacher of the gospel in 1759; and, through the influence of the earl of Selkirk, obtained a crown presentation to the parish of Kirkcudbright, over which he was ordained minister in 1762. This is the first known instance in which a person deprived of sight was held competent to discharge the functions of the ministry in connection with the established church, and is likely to be the last, for the general assembly has recently refused license to an individual similarly situated. The parishioners among whom the poet was settled, were opposed to church patronage in the abstract, and more especially to the exercise of it in favour of a blind man. His style of preaching, which was philosophical and abstruse, was also disliked; and these facts coming to his knowledge, induced him, after two years' retention of it, to relinquish his appointment, and accept a very moderate annuity in lieu of it. He removed to Edinburgh, and sustained himself respectably by receiving young gentlemen into his house as boarders, whose studies he assisted, while preparing for the classes in the high school and college. The university of Aberdeen conferred the degree of D.D. upon him in 1766. He died 7th July, 1791, in the 70th year of his age. His principal poetical works are—"A Panegyric on Great Britain," 8vo, 1773, and "The Grahame," a heroic poem in four cantos, 4to, 1774. Henry Mackenzie, author of the Man of Feeling, who published a posthumous volume of Blacklock's poetry, commends his "Ode to Aurora on Melissa's birthday "as a compliment and tribute of affection to the tender assiduity of an excellent wife, which he had not anywhere seen more happily conceived or more elegantly expressed. But his poetry is regarded generally as tame, languid, and commonplace. The marvel respecting it is, that it should abound with accurate descriptions of nature, which the author was incapable of contemplating. His prose works, which display energy of thought and accuracy of expression, consist, besides two sermons, of "An Essay towards Universal Etymology, or the Analysis of a Sentence," 8vo, 1756, and two dissertations, entitled "Paraclesis, or Consolations deduced from Natural and Revealed Religion," one original, the other a translation from a work ascribed to Cicero. Dr. Blacklock has had a number of biographers, the later and more full are Dr. Anderson and Mr. Gordon.—W. M'K.
BLACKLOE, Thomas, first professor of theology in the college of Douay, and afterwards canon of the London chapter founded by Bishop. He opposed in the chapter the authority, derived only from Rome, of Bishop's successors, Richard Smith and Gage, and succeeded in driving the former from the kingdom, and in causing the latter to resign his office. He published some pieces which were condemned by the inquisition, and having attacked the jesuits in his "Institutiones Ethicæ," he was also censured by the faculty of theology at Douay. His "De Medio Animarum Statu" had the fate of its predecessor, and his "De Obedientiæ et Gubernationis Fundamentis," was condemned by the parliament of 1661.—J. S., G.
BLACKMORE, John, an English mezzotinto engraver, born in the great foggy city of London about 1740. Some well-scraped plates by his son are still preserved. He chiefly engraved Reynolds, his gross impudent Sam Foote, and his caricaturist Bunbury, for example.—W. T.
BLACKMORE, Sir Richard, a very voluminous writer of poetry, medicine, history, and philosophy, whose works are more remarkable for their size and good purpose than for their genius, was physician to King William III. and Queen Anne. He was
