The Lives of the English Poets - 1858 Author:Samuel Johnson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BLACKMOKE. Sib Richard Blackmobb is one of those men whose writings have attracted much notice, but of whose life and manners very little has been communicate... more »d, and whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends. He was the son of Robert Blackmore. of Corsham, in Wiltshire, styled by Wood, Gentleman, and supposed to have been an attorney. Having been for some time educated in a country school, he was sent, at thirteen, to Westminster; and, in 1668, was entered at Edmund Hall, in Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. June 3, 1676, and resided thirteen years; a much longer time than it is usual to spend at the university; and which he seems to have passed with very little attention to the business of the place; for, in his poems, the ancient names of nations or places, which he often produces, are pronounced by chance. He afterwards travelled: at Padua he was made doctor of physic; and, after having wandered about a year and a half on the Continent, returned home. In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, an 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 once a schoolmaster, is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life. When he first engaged in the study of physic, he inquired, as he says, of Dr. Syaenham, what authors he should read, and was directed by Sydenham to " Don Quixote;" " which, said he, "is a very good book; I read it still." The per- verseness of mankind makes it often mischievous in men of eminence to give way to merriment...« less