The amiable Dr Blacklock deserves praise for his character and for his
conduct under very peculiar circumstances, much more than for his
poetry. He was born at Annan, where his father was a bricklayer, in
1721. When about six months old, he lost his eyesight by small-pox. His
father used to read to him, especially poetry, and through the kindness
of friends he acquired some knowledge of the Latin tongue. His father
having been accidentally killed when Thomas was nineteen, it might
have fared hard with him, but Dr Stevenson, an eminent medical man
in Edinburgh, who had seen some verses composed by the blind youth,
took him to the capital, sent him to college to study divinity, and
encouraged him to write and to publish poetry. His volume, to which
was prefixed an account of the author, by Professor Spence of Oxford,
attracted much attention. Blacklock was licensed to preach in 1759, and
three years afterwards was married to a Miss Johnstone of Dumfries, an
exemplary but plain-looking lady, whose beauty her husband was wont to
praise so warmly that his friends were thankful that his infirmity was
never removed, and thought how justly Cupid had been painted blind. He
was even, through the influence of the Earl of Selkirk, appointed to the
parish of Kirkcudbright, but the parishioners opposed his induction on
the plea of his want of sight, and, in consideration of a small annuity,
he withdrew his claims. He finally settled down in Edinburgh, where he
supported himself chiefly by keeping young gentlemen as boarders in his
house. His chief amusements were poetry and music. His conduct to (1786)
and correspondence with Burns are too well known to require to be
noticed at length here. He published a paper of no small merit in the
'Encyclopaedia Britannica' on Blindness, and is the author of a work
entitled 'Paraclesis; or, Consolations of Religion,'--which surely none
require more than the blind. He died of a nervous fever on the 7th of
July 1791, so far fortunate that he did not live to see the ruin of his
immortal _protégé_.
Blacklock was a most amiable, genial, and benevolent being. He was
sometimes subject to melancholy--_un_like many of the blind, and one
especially, whom we name not, but who, still living, bears a striking
resemblance to Blacklock in fineness of mind, warmth of heart, and high-
toned piety, but who is cheerful as the day. As to his poetry, it is
undoubtedly wonderful, considering the circumstances of its production,
if not _per se_. Dr Johnson says to Boswell,--'As Blacklock had the
misfortune to be blind, we may be absolutely sure that the passages in
his poems descriptive of visible objects are combinations of what he
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 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.'
Perhaps there is a fallacy in this somewhat dogmatic statement. Perhaps
the blind are not so utterly dark but they may have certain dim
_simulacra_ of external objects before their eyes and minds. Apart from
this, however, Blacklock's poetry endures only from its connexion with
the author's misfortune, and from the fact that through the gloom he
groped greatly to find and give the burning hand of the peasant poet the
squeeze of a kindred spirit,--kindred, we mean, in feeling and heart,
although very far removed in strength of intellect and genius.