ave 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 introduces, are pronounced by chance. He afterwards
travelled: at Padua he was made doctor of physick; 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 physick, he inquired, as he says,
of Dr. Sydenham, 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 perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous in
men of eminence to give way to merriment; the idle and the illiterate
will long shelter themselves under this foolish apophthegm.

Whether he rested satisfied with this direction, or sought for better,
he commenced physician, and obtained high eminence and extensive
practice. He became fellow of the College of Physicians, April 12, 1687,
being one of the thirty, which, by the new charter of king James, were
added to the former fellows. His residence was in Cheapside[19], and his
friends were chiefly in the city. In the early part of Blackmore's time,
a citizen was a term of reproach; and his place of abode was another
topick to which his adversaries had recourse, in the penury of scandal.

Blackmore, therefore, was made a poet not by necessity but inclination,
and wrote not for a livelihood but for fame; or, if he may tell his own
motives, for a nobler purpose, to engage poetry in the cause of virtue.

I believe it is peculiar to him, that his first publick work was an
heroick poem. He was not known as a maker of verses till he published,
in 1695, Prince Arthur, in ten books, written, as he relates, "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 the streets." For the latter part of this apology he
was accused of writing "to the rumbling of his c