THOMAS BLACKLOCK, a blind descriptive poet, was the son of a Cumberland bricklayer, and was born at Annan, Dumfrieshire in 1721. When about six months old, he was totally deprived of sight by the small-pox; but his worthy father, assisted by his neighbors, amused his solitary boyhood by reading to him out of the works of Spenser, Milton, Pope, and Addison; and before he reached his twentieth year he had become entirely familiar with the writings of these great poets, and also with those of Thomson and Allen Ramsay. Blacklock's father was accidentally killed when the poet had scarcely reached his nineteenth year; but some of his early poems having been seen by Dr. Stevenson of Edinburgh, that benevolent gentleman took their blind author to the Scottish metropolis, where he was soon after enrolled in the university as a student of divinity. In 1759 he was licensed as a preacher, previous to which he had published a volume of his poems, three separate editions of which were called for in rapid succession. In 1762, he married the daughter of Dr. Johnston of Dumfries, and the same year, through the patronage of the Earl of Selkirk, was appointed minister of Kirkcudbright. In 1766, he was made a doctor of divinity, soon after which, in consequence of some dissatisfaction in his parish, he removed to Edinburgh, and opened a boarding-house.

To his literary pursuits Dr. Blacklock added a taste for music, and played well on both the flute and the flageolet. His residence in the city was the usual meeting place of its numerous literary men, and his family circle was one of peace and happiness. In the latter years of his life he suffered much from depression of spirits, and supposed that his imaginative powers were failing him. To this supposed decay of his faculties the blind bard thus pathetically alludes in a poem written a short time before his death :

Excursive on the gentle gales of spring,

He roved, whilst favour imped his timid wing.
Exhausted genius now no more inspires,

But mourns abortive hopes and faded fires;

The short-lived wreath, which once his temples graced,
Fades at the sickly breath of squeamish taste;

Whilst darker days his fainting flames immure

In cheerless gloom and winter premature.

Blacklock died on the seventh of July, 1791, in the seventy-first year of

his age.

Though a poet by nature, and enthusiastically fond of the poetic art, Dr. Blacklock did not confine himself to that department of writing. He was the author of several sermons, and of some theological treatises; and he also wrote an elegant and ingenious article on Blindness, for the Encyclopædia Britannica, and two dissertations entitled Paraclesis; or Consolations Deduced from Natural and Revealed Religion. His poetry, though not remarkable for original imagery, deep sentiment, reflection, or imagination, still exhibits great fluency and correctness of versification, and entire familiarity with the visible objects of nature, such as trees, streams, rocks, the

sky, and even with the different colors of flowers and plants. In one to whom all external phenomena had ever been a 'universal blank,' this was certainly very remarkable, and shows clearly that his poetical feeling must have been inherited from nature. Of the two poems which follow, the latter is a sweet and elegantly expressed compliment to his wife :

TERRORS OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

Cursed with unnumbered groundless fears,
How pale yon shivering wretch appears!
For him the daylight shines in vain,
For him the fields no joys contain;
Nature's whole charms to him are lost,
No more the woods their music boast;
No more the meads their vernal bloom,
No more the gales their rich perfume:
Impending mists deform the sky,
And beauty withers in his eye.
In hopes his terrors to elude,
By day he mingles with the crowd,
Yet finds his soul to fears a prey,
In busy crowds and open day.
If night his lonely walks surprise,
What horrid visions round him rise!
The blasted oak which meets his way,
Shown by the meteor's sudden ray,
The midnight murderer's lone retreat
Felt heaven's avengeful bolt of late;
The clashing chain, the groan profound,
Loud from yon ruined tower resound;
And now the sport he seems to tread,
Where some self-slaughtered curse was laid;
He feels fixed earth beneath him bend,
Deep murmurs from her caves ascend;

Till all his soul, by fancy swayed,

Sees livid phantoms crowd the shade.

ODE TO AURORA ON MELISSA'S BIRTHDAY.

Of time and nature eldest born,

Emerge, thou rosy-fingered morn;

Emerge, in purest dress arrayed,

And chase from heaven night's envious shade,

That I once more may pleased survey,

And hail Melissa's natal day.

Of time and nature eldest born,
Emerge, thou rosy-fingered morn;
In order at the eastern gate
The hours to draw thy chariot wait;
Whilst Zephyr on his balmy wings,
Mild nature's fragrant tribute brings,
With odours sweet to strew thy way,
And grace the bland revolving day.

But as thou lead'st the radiant sphere,
That gilds its birth and marks the year,
And as his stronger glories rise,
Diffused around the expanded skies,
Till clothed with beams serenely bright,

All heaven's vast concave flames with light;

So when through life's protracted day,
Melissa still pursues her way,

Her virtues with thy splendour vie,
Increasing to the mental eye;

Though less conspicuous, not less dear,
Long may they Bion's prospect cheer;

So shall his heart no more repine,

Blessed with her rays, though robbed of thine.

FRANCIS FAWKES was born in Yorkshire, in 1721, and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. Having taken orders, he became curate of Bramham and Croyden, and died in 1777, in the vicarage of Hayes, in Kent. Fawkes enjoyed the friendship of Johnson and Warton; but though classic and refined in his taste, and, as already observed, the elegant translator of many of the Greek poets, he had, unfortunately, like Oldys, too great fondness for a cup of English ale. Though not bearing the stamp of superior genius, many of his original pieces are pleasing and even elegant. The following will always be a favorite :

song

THE BROWN JUG.

Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale,
(In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the vale)

Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul,
As e'er drank a bottle, or fathomed a bowl;
In bousing about 'twas his praise to excel,
And among jolly topers he bore off the bell.

It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease
In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please,
With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away,
And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay,
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,
And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt.
His body when long in the ground it had lain,
And time into clay had resolved it again,
A potter found out in its covert so snug,

And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug;
Now sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale,
So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the vale!

JAMES GRAINGER was born at Dunse, in the south of Scotland, in 1721. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, where he took the degree of doctor of medicine, and attended Lord Stair as surgeon of the army in the German campaign, of 1748. He afterwards settled in London as a physi

cian; but not being successful in his practice, he went, in 1759, to the island of St. Christophers, in the West Indies, commenced practising his profession, and soon after married a lady of fortune. He died of a contagious fever, in 1766.

Dr. Grainger published in 1755, his poem of Solitude, which contains a noble opening, and many other very fine passages. He also, before he left London, translated Tibullus, and was, for some time, a critic in the Monthly Review. During his residence at St. Christophers he wrote his poem of the Sugar-Cane, which Shenstone thought capable of being rendered a good poem, but which deserves little farther praise. For his poetical reputation he is indebted almost exclusively to the following ode:

ODE TO SOLITUDE.

O Solitude, romantic maid!

Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,
Or climb the Andes' clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide,

Or starting from your half-year's sleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep,
Or at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble wastes survey,
You, recluse, again, I woo,
And again your steps pursue.

Plumed Conceit himself surveying
Folly with her shadow playing,
Purse-proud, elbowing Insolence,
Bloated empiric, puffed Pretence,
Noise that through a trumpet speaks,
Laughter in loud peals that breaks,
Intrusion with a fopling's face,
(Ignorant of time and place),
Sparks of fire Dissension blowing,
Ductile, court-bred Flattery, bowing,
Restraint's stiff neck, Grimace's leer,
Squint-eyed Censure's artful sneer,
Ambitious buskins, steeped in blood,
Fly thy presence, Solitude.

Sage Reflection, bent with years,
Conscious Virtue void of fears,

Muffled Silence, wood-nymph shy,
Meditation's piercing eye;

Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,
Retrospect that scans the mind,
Wrapt earth's gazing Reverie,
Blushing artless Modesty,

Health that snuffs the morning air,
Full-eyed Truth, with bosom bare,
Inspiration, Nature's child,

Seek the solitary wild.

You, with the tragic muse retired,
The wise Euripides inspired;

You taught the sadly-pleasing air
That Athens saved from ruins bare.
You gave the Cean's tears to flow,
And unlocked the springs of woe;
You penned what exiled Naso thought,
And poured the melancholy note.

With Petrarch o'er Vancluse you strayed,
When death snatched his long-loved maid;
You taught the rocks her loss to mourn,
Ye strewed with flowers her virgin urn.
And late in Hagley you were seen,
With blood-shot eyes, and sombre mien;
Hymen his yellow vestments tore,
And Dirge a wreath of cypress wore.
But chief your own the solemn lay
That wept Narcissa young and gay;
Darkness clapped her sable wing,
While you touched the mournful string;
Anguish left the pathless wild,
Grim-faced Melancholy smiled,
Drowsy Midnight ceased to yawn,
The starry host put back the dawn;
Aside their harps even seraphs flung
To hear thy sweet Complaint, O Young!
When all nature's hushed asleep,
Nor Love, nor Guilt their vigils keep,
Soft you leave your caverned den,
And wander o'er the works of men;
But when Phosphor brings the dawn
By her dappled coursers drawn,
Again you to the wild retreat,
And the early huntsman meet,
Where, as you pensive pace along,
You catch the distant shepherd's song,
Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,
Or the rising primrose view.
Devotion lends her heaven-plumed wings,
You mount, and nature with you sings.
But when mid-day fervours glow,

To upland airy shades you go,

Where never sun-burnt woodman came,

Nor sportsman chased the timid game;

And there beneath an oak reclined,
With drowsy waterfalls behind,

You sink to rest.

Till the tuneful bird of night

From the neighbouring poplar's height,

Wake you with her solemn strain,

And teach pleased Echo to complain.

With you roses brighter bloom,
Sweeter every sweet perfume;