PEDAGOGUES TURNED DOCTORS.
In the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton, is a monumental stone
engraved with the following inscription:--
"Qui medicus doctus, prudentis nomine clarus,
Eloquii splendor, Pieridumque decus,
Virtutis cultor, pietatis vixit amicus;
Hoc jacet in tumulo, spiritus alta tenet."
It is in memory of John Bond, M.A., the learned commentator on Horace
and Persius. Educated at Winchester school, and then at New College,
Oxford, he was elected master of the Taunton Grammar-school in the
year 1579. For many years he presided over that seminary with great
efficiency, and sent out into the world several eminent scholars. On
arriving, however, at the middle age of life, he relinquished the
mastership of the school, and turned his attention to the practice of
medicine. His reputation and success as a physician were great--the
worthy people of Taunton honouring him as "a wise man." He died August
3, 1612.
More than a century later than John Bond, schoolmaster and physician,
appeared a greater celebrity in the person of James Jurin, who, from
the position of a provincial pedagogue, raised himself to be regarded
as first of the London physicians, and conspicuous amongst the
philosophers of Europe. Jurin was born in 1684, and received his early
education at Christ's Hospital--better known to the public as the
Bluecoat school. After graduating in arts at Cambridge, he obtained
the mastership of the grammar-school of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, January,
1710. In the following year he acquired the high academic distinction
of a fellowship on the foundation of Trinity College; and the year
after (1712) he published through the University press, his edition of
Varenius's Geography, dedicated to Bentley. In 1718 and 1719 he
contributed to the Philosophical Transactions the essays which
involved him in controversies with Keill and Senac, and were, in the
year 1732, reprinted in a collected form, under the title of
"Physico-Mathematical Dissertations." Another of his important
contributions to science was "An Essay on Distinct and Indistinct
Vision," added to Smith's "System of Optics." Voltaire was not without
good reason for styling him, in the _Journal de Savans_, "the famous
Jurin."
Besides working zealously in his school, Jurin delivered lectures at
Newcastle, on Experimental Philosophy. He worked very hard, his
immediate object being to get and save money. As soon as he had laid
by a clear thousand pounds, he left Newcastle, and returning to his
University devoted himself to the study of medicine. From that time
his course was a prosperous one. Having taken his M.D. degree, he
settled in London, became a Fellow of the College of Physicians, a
Fellow of the Royal Society (to which distinguished body he became
secretary on the resignation of Dr. Halley in 1721), and a Physician
of Guy's Hospital, as well as Governor of St. Thomas's. The friend of
Sir Isaac Newton and Bentley did not lack patients. The
consulting-rooms and ante-chambers of his house in Lincoln's Inn
Fields received many visitors; so that he acquired considerable
wealth, and had an estate and an imposing establishment at Clapton.
Nichols speaks of him in one of his volumes as "James Jurin, M.D.,
sometime of Clapton in Hackney." It was, however, at his town
residence that he died, March 22, 1750, of what the _Gentleman's
Magazine_ calls "a dead palsy," leaving by his will a considerable
legacy to Christ's Hospital.
One might make a long list of Doctors Pedagogic, including poor Oliver
Goldsmith, who used to wince and redden with shame and anger when the
cant phrase, "It's all a holiday at Peckham," saluted his ears.
Between Bond and Jurin, however, there were two tutors turned
physicians, who may not be passed over without especial attention.
Only a little prior to Jurin they knew many of his friends, and
doubtless met him often in consultation. They were both authors--one
of rare wit, and the other (as he himself boasted) of no wit; and they
hated each other, as literary men know how to hate. In every respect,
even down to the quarters of town which they inhabited, they were
opposed to each other. One was a brilliant talker and frequented St.
James's; the other was a pompous drone, and haunted the Mansion-house:
a Jacobite the one, a Whig the other. The reader sees that these two
worthies can be none other than Arbuthnot and Blackmore.
A wily, courtly, mirth-loving Scotchman, Arbuthnot had all the best
qualities that are to be ordinarily found in a child of North Britain.
Everybody knew him--nearly every one liked him. His satire, that was
only rarely tinctured with bitterness--his tongue, powerful to mimic,
flatter, or persuade--his polished manners and cordial bearing, would
alone have made him a favourite with the ladies, had he not been what
he was--one of the handsomest men about town. (Of course, in
appearance he did not approach that magnificent gentleman, Beau
Fielding). In conversation he was frank without being noisy; and there
hung about him--tavern-haunting wit though he was--an air of
simplicity, tempering his reckless fun, that was very pleasant and
very winning. Pope, Parnell, Garth, Gay, were society much more to his
taste than the stately big-wigs of Warwick Hall. And next to drinking
wine with such men, the good-humoured doctor enjoyed flirting with the
maids of honour, and taking part in a political intrigue. No wonder
that Swift valued him as a priceless treasure--"loved him," as he
wrote to Stella, "ten times as much" as jolly, tippling Dr. Freind.
It was arm in arm with him that the Dean used to peer about St.
James's, jesting, snarling, laughing, causing dowagers to smile at
"that dear Mr. Dean," and young girls, up for their first year at
Court--green and unsophisticated--to blush with annoyance at his
coarse, shameless badinage; bowing to this great man (from whom he
hoped for countenance), staring insolently at that one (from whom he
was sure of nothing but enmity), quoting Martial to a mitred courtier
(because the prelate couldn't understand Latin), whispering French to
a youthful diplomatist (because the boy knew no tongue but English),
preparing impromptu compliments for "royal Anna" (as our dear worthy
ancestors used to call Mrs. Masham's intimate friend), or with his
glorious blue eyes sending a glance, eloquent of admiration and
homage, at a fair and influential supporter; cringing, fawning,
flattering--in fact, angling for the bishopric he was never to get.
With Arbuthnot it was that Swift tried the dinners and wine of every
hotel round Covent Garden, or in the city. From Arbuthnot it was that
the Dean, during his periods of official exile, received his best and
surest information of the battles of the cliques, the scandals of the
Court, the contentions of parties, the prospects of ministers, and
(most important subject by far) the health of the Queen.
Some of the most pleasant pictures in the "Journal to Stella" are
those in which the kindly presence of the Doctor softens the asperity
of the Dean. Most readers of these pages have accompanied the two
"brothers" in their excursion to the course the day before the
horse-races, when they overtook Miss Forrester, the pretty maid of
honour, and made her accompany them. The lady was taking the air on
her palfrey, habited in the piquant riding-dress of the period--the
natty three-cornered cocked hat, ornamented with gold lace, and
perched on the top of a long flowing periwig, powdered to the
whiteness of snow, the long coat cut like a coachman's, the waistcoat
flapped and faced, and lastly the habit-skirt. One sees the belle at
this time smiling archly, with all the power of beauty, and shaking
the handle of her whip at the divine and the physician. So they took
her with them (and they weren't wrong in doing so). Then the old Queen
came by, gouty and hypochondriac. Off went the hats of the two
courtiers in the presence of her Majesty. The beauty, too, raised her
little three-cornered cock-boat (rising on her stirrup as she did so),
and returned it to the summit of the flowing wig, with a knowing
side-glance, as much as to say, "See, sirs, we women can do that sort
of thing quite as gracefully as the lords of the creation." (Oh, Mr.
Spectator, how could you find it in you to quarrel with that costume?)
Swift was charmed, and described enough of the scene to make that
foolish Stella frantically jealous; and then, prudent, canny
love-tyrant that he was, added with a sneer--"I did not like her,
though she be a toast, and was dressed like a man." And you may be
sure that poor little Stella was both fool enough and wise enough both
to believe and disbelieve this assurance at the same time.
Arbuthnot owed his success in no degree whatever to the influence of
his family, and only in a very slight degree to his professional
knowledge. His father was only a poor episcopalian clergyman, and his
M.D. degree was only an Aberdeen one. He rose by his wit, rare
conversational powers, and fascinating address, achieving eminence at
Court because he was the greatest master of fence with the weapon that
is most used in courts--the tongue. He failed to get a living amongst
rustic boors, who appreciated no effort of the human voice but a
fox-hunter's whoop. Dorchester, where as a young man he endeavoured
to establish himself in practice, refused to give him an income, but
it doubtless maintained more than one dull empiric in opulence. In
London he met with a different reception. For a time he was very poor,
and resorted to the most hateful of all occupations--the personal
instruction of the ignorant. How long he was so engaged is uncertain.
Something of Goldsmith's "Peckham" sensibility made him not care in
after-life to talk of the days when he was a teacher of
mathematics--starving on pupils until he should be permitted to grow
fat on patients.
The patients were not long in coming. The literary reputation he
obtained by his "Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge,"
elicited by Woodward's "Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth,"
instead of frightening the sick from him, brought them to him.
Accidentally called in to Prince George of Denmark, when his Royal
Highness was suddenly taken ill at Epsom, he made himself so agreeable
that the casual introduction became a permanent connection. In 1709,
on the illness of Hannes (a physician who also understood the art of
rising in spite of obstacles) he was appointed physician-in-ordinary
to Queen Anne.
To secure the good graces of his royal patient, and rise yet higher in
them, he adopted a tone of affection for her as a person, as well as
loyal devotion to her as a queen. The fall of Radcliffe warned him
that he had need of caution in dealing with the weak-minded,
querulous, crotchety, self-indulgent invalid.
"What's the time?" asked the Queen of him one day.
"Whatever it may please your Majesty," answered the court-physician,
with a graceful bow.
After all, the best testimony of a man's merit is the opinion held of
him by those of his acquaintance who know him intimately--at home as
well as abroad. By all who came within the circle of Arbuthnot's
privacy he was respected as much as loved. And his associates were no
common men. Pope, addressing him as "the friend of his life," says:--
"Why did I write? what sin, to me unknown,
Dipp'd me in ink?--my parents' or my own?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
I left no calling for this idle trade,
No duty broke, no father disobey'd.
The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,
To help me through this long disease, my life,
To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach the being you preserved to bear."
Pope's concluding wish--
"Oh, friend! may each domestic bliss be thine."
was ineffectual. Arbuthnot's health failed under his habits of
intemperance, and during his latter years he was a terrible sufferer
from asthma and melancholy. After the Queen's death he went for the
benefit of his health on the continent, and visited his brother, a
Paris banker. Returning to London he took a house in Dover Street,
from which he moved to the residence in Cork Street, Burlington
Gardens, where he died Feb. 27, 1734-5. He died in straitened
circumstances; for unlike his fellow-countryman, Colonel Chartres, he
had not the faculty of saving. But with failing energies, an
excruciated frame, and the heart-burden of a family unprovided for, he
maintained a philosophic equanimity, and displayed his old unvarying
consideration for all who surrounded him.
Arbuthnot's epitaph on Colonel Chartres (almost as well known as
Martinus Scriblerus) is a good specimen of his humour:--
"Here continueth to rot,
The Body of Francis Chartres.
Who, with an indefatigable constancy,
And inimitable Uniformity of life,
Persisted,
In spite of Age and Infirmities,
In the practice of every Human Vice,
Excepting Prodigality and Hypocrisy:
His insatiable Avarice exempting him from the First,
His matchless impudence from the Second.
Nor was he more singular in the Undeviating Pravity
Of his manners, than successful
In accumulating Wealth:
For, without Trade or Profession,
Without trust of public money,
And without bribe-worthy service,
He acquired, or more properly created,
A ministerial estate.
He was the only person of this time
Who could cheat without the Mask of Honesty,
Retain his primæval meanness when possessed of
Ten thousand a-year:
And having duly deserved the Gibbet for what he did,
Was at last condemned to it for what he could not do.
Oh, indignant reader!
Think not his life useless to mankind:
Providence connived at his execrable designs,
To give to After-age a conspicuous
Proof and Example
Of how small estimation is exorbitant Wealth
In the sight of God, by His bestowing it on
The most unworthy of Mortals."
The history of the worthy person whose reputation is here embalmed is
interesting. Beginning life as an ensign in the army, he was drummed
out of his regiment, banished Brussels, and ignominiously expelled
from Ghent, for cheating. As a miser he saved, and as a usurer he
increased, the money which he won as a blackleg and card-sharper.
Twice was he condemned to death for heinous offences, but contrived to
purchase pardon; and, after all, he was fortunate enough to die in his
own bed, in his native country, Scotland, A. D. 1731, aged sixty-two.
At his funeral the indignant mob, feeling that justice had not been
done to the dear departed, raised a riot, insulted the mourners, and,
when the coffin was lowered into the grave, threw upon it a
magnificent collection of dead dogs!
In a similar and scarcely less magnificent vein of humour, Arbuthnot
wrote another epitaph--on a greyhound:--
"To the memory of
Signor Fido,
An Italian of Good Extraction:
Who came into England,
Not to bite us, like most of his countrymen,
But to gain an honest livelihood:
He hunted not after fame,
Yet acquired it:
Regardless of the Praise of his Friends,
But most sensible of their love:
Tho' he liv'd amongst the great,
He neither learn'd nor flatter'd any vice:
He was no Bigot,
Tho' he doubted of none of the thirty-nine articles;
And if to follow Nature,
And to respect the laws of Society,
Be Philosophy,
He was a perfect Phi losopher,
A faithful Friend,
An agreeable Companion,
A loving Husband,
Distinguished by a numerous Offspring,
All of which he lived to see take good _courses_;
In his old age he retired
To the House of a Clergyman in the Country,
Where he finished his earthly Race,
And died an Honour and an Example to the whole Species.
Reader,
This stone is guiltless of Flattery,
For he to whom it is inscribed
Was not a man,
But a
Greyhound."
In the concluding lines there is a touch of Sterne. They also call to
mind Byron's epitaph on his dog.
These epitaphs put the writer in mind of the literary ambition of the
eminent Dr. James Gregory of Edinburgh. His great aim was to be _the_
Inscriptor (as he styled it) of his age. No distinguished person died
without the doctor promptly striking off his characteristics in a
mural legend. For every statue erected to heroes, real or sham, he
composed an inscription, and interested himself warmly to have it
adopted. Amongst the public monuments on which his compositions may be
found are the Nelson Monument at Edinburgh, and the Duke of
Wellington's shield at Gibraltar. On King Robert Bruce, Charles Edward
Stuart, his mother, Sir James Foulis de Collington, and Robertson the
historian, he also produced commemorative inscriptions of great
excellence. As a very fair specimen of his style the inscription on
the Seott Flagon is transcribed:--
"Gualterum Scott,
De Abbotsford,
Virum summi Ingenii
Scriptorem Elegantem
Poetarum sui seculi facile Principem
Patriæ Decus
Ob varia ergo ipsam merita
In civium suorum numerum
Grata adscripsit Civitas Edinburgensis
Et hoc Cantharo donavit
A. D. MDCCCXIII."
Sir Richard Blackmore, the other pedagogue physician, was one of those
good, injudicious mortals who always either praise or blame too
much--usually the latter. The son of a Wiltshire attorney, he was
educated at Westminster School and Oxford, taking his degree of M.A.
June, 1676, and residing, in all, thirteen years in the university,
during a portion of which protracted period of residence he was
(though Dr. Johnson erroneously supposed the reverse) a laborious
student. On leaving Oxford he passed through a course of searching
poverty, and became a schoolmaster. In this earlier part of his life
he travelled in France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy, and
took his doctor's degree in the University of Padua. On turning his
attention to medicine, he consulted Sydenham as to what authors he
ought to read. "Don Quixote," replied the veteran. A similar answer
has been attributed to Lord Erskine on being asked by a law student
the best literary sources for acquiring legal knowledge and success.
The scepticism of the reply reminds one of Garth, who, to an anxious
patient inquiring what physician he had best call in in case of his
(Garth's) death, responded, "One is e'en as good as t'other, and
surgeons are not less knowing."
As a poet, Blackmore failed, but as a physician he was for many years
one of the most successful men in his profession. Living at Sadler's
Hall, Cheapside, he was the oracle of all the wealthiest citizens, and
was blessed with an affluence that allowed him to drive about town in
a handsome equipage, and make an imposing figure to the world.
Industrious, honourable, and cordially liked by his personal friends,
he was by no means the paltry fellow that Dryden and Pope represented
him. Johnson, in his brilliant memoir, treated him very unfairly, and
clearly was annoyed that his conscience would not allow him to treat
him worse. On altogether insufficient grounds the doctor argued that
his knowledge of ancient authors was superficial, and for the most
part derived from secondary sources. Passages indeed are introduced to
show that the ridicule and contempt showered on the poet by his
adversaries, and re-echoed by the laughing world, were unjust; but the
effect of these admissions, complete in themselves, is more than
counterbalanced by the sarcasms (and some of them vulgar sarcasms too)
which the biographer, in imitation of Colonel Codrington, Sir Charles
Sedley, and Colonel Blount, directs against the city knight.
A sincerely religious man, Blackmore was offended with the gross
licentiousness of the drama, and all those productions of the poets
which constituted the light literature of the eighteenth century. To
his eternal honour, Blackmore was the first man who had the courage to
raise his voice against the evil, and give utterance to a manly
indignation at the insults offered nightly in every theatre to public
decency. Unskilled in the use of the pen, of an age when he could not
hope to perfect himself in an art to which he had not in youth
systematically trained himself, and immersed in the cares of an
extensive practice, he set himself to work on the production of a
poem, which should elevate and instruct, not vitiate and deprave
youthful readers. In this spirit "Prince Arthur" was composed and
published in 1695, when the author was between forty and fifty years
of age. It was written, as he frankly acknowledged, "by such catches
and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours as his profession
afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in passing up
and down streets." The wits laughed at him for writing "to the
rumbling of his chariot-wheels," but at this date, ridicule thrown on
a man for doing good at odd scraps of a busy day, has a close
similarity to the laughter of fools. Let any reader compare the
healthy gentlemanlike tone of the preface to "Prince Arthur," with the
mean animosity of all the virulent criticisms and sarcasms that were
directed against the author and his works, and then decide on which
side truth and good taste lie.
Blackmore made the fatal error of writing too much. His long poems
wearied the patience of those who sympathized with his goodness of
intention. What a list there is of them, in Swift's inscription, "to
be put under Sir Richard's picture!"
"See, who ne'er was, or will be half read,
Who first sung Arthur, then sung Alfred,[7]
Praised great Eliza[8] in God's anger,
Till all true Englishmen cried, hang her!
. . . . .
Then hiss'd from earth, grown heavenly quite,
Made every reader curse the light.[9]
Mauled human wit in one thick satire;[10]
Next, in three books, spoil'd human nature;[11]
Ended Creation[12] at a jerk,
And of Redemption[13] made damn'd work:
Then took his muse at once, and dipp'd her
Full in the middle of the Scripture.
What wonders there the man grown old did!
Sternhold himself he out-sternholded;
Made David[14] seem so mad and freakish,
All thought him just what thought king Achish.
No mortal read his Solomon,[15]
But judged R'oboam his own son.
Moses[16] he served, as Moses Pharaoh,
And Deborah as she Sisera:
Made Jeremy[17] full sore to cry,
And Job[18] himself curse God and die."
[7] Two heroic Poems, folio, twenty books.
[8] An heroic Poem, in twelve books.
[9] Hymn to Light.
[10] Satire against Wit.
[11] Of the Nature of Man.
[12] Creation, in seven books.
[13] Redemption, in six books.
[14] Translation of all the Psalms.
[15] Canticles and Ecclesiastes.
[16] Canticles of Moses, Deborah, &c.
[17] The Lamentations.
[18] The Whole Book of Job, in folio.
Nor is this by any means a complete list of Sir Richard's works; for
he was also a voluminous medical writer, and author of a "History of
the Conspiracy against the Person and Government of King William the
Third, of glorious memory, in the year 1695."
Dryden, unable to clear himself of the charge of pandering for gain to
the licentious tastes of the age, responded to his accuser by calling
him an "ass," a "pedant," a "quack," and a "canting preacher."
"Quack Maurus, though he never took degrees
In either of our universities,
Yet to be shown by some kind wit he looks,
Because he play'd the fool, and writ three books.
But if he would be worth a poet's pen,
He must be more a fool, and write again;
For all the former fustian stuff he wrote
Was dead-born doggerel, or is quite forgot:
His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe,
Is just the proverb, and 'as poor as Job.'
One would have thought he could no longer jog;
But Arthur was a level, Job's a bog.
There though he crept, yet still he kept in sight;
But here he founders in, and sinks downright.
. . . . .
At leisure hours in epic song he deals,
Writes to the rumbling of his coach's wheels.
. . . . .
Well, let him go--'tis yet too early day
To get himself a place in farce or play;
We know not by what name we should arraign him,
For no one category can contain him.
A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack,
Are load enough to break an ass's back.
At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write,
Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite;
One made the doctor, and one dubbed the knight."
The former of the kings alluded to is James the Second, Blackmore
having obtained his fellowship of the College of Physicians, April 12,
1687, under the new charter granted to the college by that monarch;
the latter being William the Third, who, in recognition of the
doctor's zeal and influence as a Whig, not less than of his eminence
in his profession, made him a physician of the household, and knighted
him.
Pope says:--
"The hero William, and the martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles."
The bard of Twickenham had of course a few ill words for Blackmore. In
the Dunciad he says:--
"Ye critics, in whose heads, as equal scales,
I weigh what author's heaviness prevails;
Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers,
My H----ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers."
Elsewhere, in the same poem, the little wasp of poetry continues his
hissing song:--
"But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain,
Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again.
In Tot'nham fields, the brethren, with amaze,
Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze;
'Long Chancery Lane retentive rolls the sound,
And courts to courts return it round and round;
Thames wafts it thence to Rufus' roaring hall,
And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl;
All hail him victor in both gifts and song,
Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long."
Such being the tone of the generals, the reader can imagine that of
the petty scribblers, the professional libellers, the coffee-house
rakes, and literary amateurs of the Temple, who formed the rabble of
the vast army against which the doctor had pitted himself, in defence
of public decency and domestic morality. Under the title of
"Commendatory Verses, on the author of the two Arthurs, and the Satyr
against Wit, by some of his particular friends," were collected, in
the year 1700, upwards of forty sets of ribald verses, taunting Sir
Richard with his early poverty, with his having been a school-master,
with the unspeakable baseness of--living in the city. The writers of
these wretched dirty lampoons, that no kitchen-maid could in our day
read without blushing, little thought what they were doing. Their
obscene stupidity has secured for them the lasting ignominy to which
they imagined they were consigning their antagonist. What a crew they
are!--with chivalric Steel and kindly Garth, forgetting their better
natures, and joining in the miserable riot! To "The City Quack"; "The
Cheapside Knight"; "The Illustrious Quack, Pedant, Bard"; "The Merry
Poetaster of Sadler's Hall"--such are the titles by which they address
the doctor, who had presumed to say that authors and men of wit ought
to find a worthier exercise for their intellects than the manufacture
of impure jests.
Colonel Codrington makes his shot thus--
"By Nature meant, by Want a Pedant made,
Blackmore at first profess'd the whipping trade;
. . . . .
In vain his drugs as well as Birch he try'd--
His boys grew blockheads, and his patients dy'd.
Next he turn'd Bard, and, mounted on a cart,
Whose hideous rumbling made Apollo start,
Burlesqued the Bravest, Wisest son of Mars,
In ballad rhymes, and all the pomp of Farce.
. . . . .
The same dull sarcasms about killing patients and whipping boys into
blockheads are repeated over and over again. As if to show, with the
greatest possible force, the pitch to which the evil of the times had
risen, the coarsest and most disgusting of all these lampoon-writers
was a lady of rank--the Countess of Sandwich. By the side of her
Ladyship, Afra Behn and Mistress Manley become timid blushing maidens.
A better defence of Sir Richard than the Countess's attack on him it
would be impossible to imagine.
And after all--the slander and the maledictions--Sir Richard Blackmore
gained the victory, and the wits who never wearied of calling him "a
fool" were defeated. The preface to "Prince Arthur" provoked
discussion; the good sense and better taste of the country were
roused, and took the reformer's side of the controversy. Pope and his
myrmidons, it was true, were still able to make the _beau monde_ merry
about the city knight's presumption--but they could not refute the
city knight's arguments; and they themselves were compelled to shape
their conduct, as writers, in deference to a new public feeling which
he was an important instrument in calling into existence. "Prince
Arthur" appeared in 1695, and to the commotion caused by its preface
may be attributed much of the success of Jeremy Collier's "Short View
of the Immorality and Profaneness of the Stage," which was published
some three years afterwards.
As a poet Sir Richard Blackmore can command only that praise which the
charitable bestow on goodness of intention. His muse was a pleasant,
well-looking, right-minded young lady, but nothing more. But it must
be remembered, before we measure out our criticisms on his
productions, that he never arrogated to himself the highest honours of
poesy. "I am a gentleman of taste and culture, and though I cannot
ever hope to build up the nervous lines of Dryden, or attain the
polish and brilliance of Congreve, I believe I can write what the
generation sorely needs--works that intelligent men may study with
improvement, devout Christians may read without being offended, and
pure-minded girls may peruse without blushing from shame. 'Tis true I
am a hard-worked doctor, spending my days in coffee-houses, receiving
apothecaries, or driving over the stones in my carriage, visiting my
patients. Of course a man so circumstanced must fail to achieve
artistic excellence, but still I'll do my best." Such was the language
with which he introduced himself to the public.
His best poem, _The Creation_, had such merit that his carping
biographer, Johnson, says, "This poem, if he had written nothing else,
would have transmitted him to posterity one of the first favourites of
the English muse"; and Addison designated the same poem "one of the
most useful and noble productions in our English verse."
Of Sir Richard's private character Johnson remarks--"In some part of
his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a
school--a humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a
little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him when he
became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be
remembered, for his honour, that to have been a schoolmaster is the
only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit,
has ever fixed upon his private life."