with what truth it is impossible to say, that its being anonymous, was in imita. tion of Lord Shaftesbury, of whom he was a warm admirer, and whose works were published after that manner. The style, also, is vitiated by a perpetual effort at the Shaftesburian vein, which is, perhaps, the principal fault in the writings of Blackwell. A second edition of the work appeared in 1746, and shortly after, "Proofs of the Inquiry into Homer's Life and Writings." These proofs chiefly consisted of a translation of the Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French notes subjoined to the original work. The Inquiry contains a great deal of research, as well as a display of miscellaneous learning. Perhaps its principal defect consists in the author's discovering an over anxiety in regard to both; at least, he has not been sufficiently careful to guard against the imputation of sometimes going out of his way to show what labour he had bestowed in examining every source of information, both ancient and modern, foreign and domestic. Though the life of Homer has been written by Herodotus, by Plutarch, and by Suidas, among the Greeks, and by an innumerable host of writers scattered through other nations, yet there is hardly one point in his history about which they are agreed, excepting the prodigious merit of his poems, and the sophist Zoilus would not even grant this. How great uncertainty prevailed respecting the time and place of his birth, abundantly appears from seven Grecian cities contending in regard to the latter point. When the field was so extensive, and so great diversity of opinion prevailed, it cannot fail to be perceived how arduous an enterprise Dr Blackwell had undertaken. His criticisms on the poems themselves are always encomiastic, often ingenious, and delivered in language that can give no reasonable ground of offence. The work will be read with both pleasure and profit by all who are prepared to enter upon such inquiries. It is generally esteemed the best of his performances.

He published, in 1748, "Letters concerning Mythology," without his name also. In the course of the same year, he was advanced to be principal of his College, succeeding Dr John Osborne, who died upon the 19th of August. Dr Blackwell, however, was not admitted to the exercise of his new office till the subsequent 9th of November. The first object of his attention respected the discipline of the College. Great irregularities had crept into the institution, not in his predecessor's time only, but probably almost from its foundation. Through the poverty of the generality of the students in those days, their attendance, short as the session was allowed to be, was very partial; to correct this, he considered to be indispensably necessary. Accordingly, about the middle of October, 1749, previous to the commencement of the session, an advertisement in the public papers informed the students, that a more regular attendance was to be required. This, it would appear, did not produce the intended effect. Accordingly, to show that the Principal and Professors were perfectly in earnest when they gave this public notice, three of the Bursars who had not complied with the terms of the advertisement, were, on the 10th of November, expelled. This decision gave general satisfaction, and indeed deserved high commendation.

But, that the Professors themselves might be more alert and attentive to their duty, he revived a practice which, it is likely, had at an early period been common, for every Professor in the University to deliver a discourse in the public school upon some subject connected with his profession. He himself set the example, and delivered his first oration upon the 7th of February, 1749. When Blackwell was promoted to the principality, instead of sinking in indolence, he seems to have considered it rather as affording an excitement to exertion. In February, 1750, he opened a class for the instruction of the students in ancient history, geography, and chronology. Prelections on these branches of education,

he thought necessary to render more perfect the course at Marischal College. He, therefore, himself undertook the task. The design of his opening this class evidently was to pave the way for the introduction of a new plan of teaching into Marischal College, which, accordingly, he soon after accomplished. At the commencement of the session 1752, public notice was given that, "the Principal, Professors, and Masters, having long had under their consideration the present method of academical education, the plan of which, originally introduced by the scholastic divines in the darkest times, is more calculated for disputes and wrangling than to fit men for the duties of life, therefore have resolved to introduce a new order in teaching the sciences." The order which was then adopted, is what still continues in force in that University. Three years afterwards, when the new plan had been put to the trial for as many sessions, the faculty of the college ordered an account of the plan of education which was followed to be printed. This formed a pamphlet of thirty-five pages. It concludes thus:-"They have already begun to experience the public approbation by the increase of the number of their students." So that he had the agreeable pleasure of witnessing the success of the plan he had proposed.

He was

In 1752 he took the degree of Doctor of Laws, and in the subsequent year, was published, in quarto, the first volume of "Memoirs of the Court of Augustus." A second volume appeared in 1755, and a third, which was posthumous, and left unfinished by the author, was prepared for the press by John Mills, Esq. and published in 1764. In this work, the author has endeavoured to give an account of Roman literature as it appeared in the Augustan age, and he has executed the task with no small share of success. Objections might easily be started to some of his theories and opinions, but every classical scholar who is fond of literary history will peruse the work with pleasure as well as profit. Dr Blackwell died, at Edinburgh, upon the 6th of March, 1757. certainly a very extraordinary person, and like every man of acknowledged talents, formed a very general subject of conversation. He was formal, and even pompous. His dress was after the fashion of the reign of Queen Anne. portly mien and dignified manner in which he stepped through the public school, impressed all the students with a deep sense of his professional importance. He was, nevertheless, kind and indulgent to them, and of a benevolent disposition. He left a widow, but no children. Mrs Blackwell, in 1793, founded a chemical professorship in Marischal College, and appointed a premium of ten pounds sterling to be annually bestowed on the person who should compose, and deliver, in the English language, the best discourse upon a given literary subject.

The

BLACKWOOD, ADAM, a learned writer of the sixteenth century, was born at Dunfermline, in 1539. He was descended from an ancient and respectable family; his father, William Blackwood, was slain in battle ere he was ten years of age, (probably at Pinkie-field); his mother, Helen Reid, who was niece to Robert Reid, Bishop of Orkney, died soon after, of grief for the loss of her hus band. By his uncle, the Bishop, he was sent to the university of Paris, but was soon obliged to return, on account of the death of his distinguished relation. Scotland, at this time, was undergoing the agonies of the reformation, under the regency of Mary of Lorrain. Blackwood found it no proper sphere for his education; and therefore soon returned to Paris, where, by the liberality of his youthful sovereign, Queen Mary, then residing at the court of France, he was enabled to complete his studies, and to go through a course of civil law at the university of Thoulouse. Having now acquired some reputation for learning and talent, he was patronized by James Beaton, the expatriated Archbishop of Glasgow, who recommended him very warmly to Queen Mary and her husband, the

Dauphin, by whose influence he was chosen a member of the parliament of Poitiers, and afterwards appointed to be professor of civil law at that court.

Poitiers was henceforth the constant residence of Blackwood, and the scene of all his literary exertions. His first work was one entitled, "De Vinculo Religionis et Imperii, Libri Duo," Paris, 1575, to which a third book was added in 1612. The object of this work is to show the necessity under which rulers are laid, of preserving the true-i. e. the Catholic, religion, from the innovations of heretics, as all rebellions arise from that source. Blackwood, by the native tone of his mind, the nature of his education, and the whole train of his associations, was a faithful adherent of the church of Rome, and of the principles of monarchical government. His next work developed these professions in a more perfect manner. It was entitled, "Apologia pro Regibus," and professed to be an answer to George Buchanan's work, "De Jure Regni apud Scotos." Both of these works argue upon extreme and unfair principles. Buchanan seeks to apply to the simple feudal government of Scotland- —a monarchical aristocracy— all the maxims of the Roman republicans. Blackwood, on the other hand, is a slavishly devout advocate for the divine right of kings. In replying to one of Buchanan's positions, the apologist of kings says, very gravely, that if one of the scholars at St Leonard's College were to argue in that manner, he would richly deserve to be whipt. Both of the above works are in Latin. He next published, in French, an account of the death of his benefactress, Queen Mary, under the title, "Martyre de Maria Stuart, Reyne d'Escosse," Antwerp, 8vo., 1588. This work is conceived in a tone of bitter resentment regarding the event to which it refers. He addresses himself, in a vehement strain of passion, to all the princes of Europe, to avenge her death; declaring that they are unworthy of royalty, if they are not roused on so interesting and pressing an occasion. At the end of the volume, is a collection of poems in Latin, French, and Italian, upon Mary and Elizabeth; in which the former princess is praised for every excellence, while her murderess is characterised by every epithet expressive of indignation and hate. An anagram was always a good weapon in those days of conceit and false taste; and one which we find in this collection was no doubt looked upon as a most poignant stab at the Queen of England:

ELIZABETA TEUDERA
VADE, JEZEBEL TETRA.

In 1598, Blackwood published a manual of devotions under the title, "Sanctarum precationum proemia," which he dedicated to his venerable patron, the Archbishop of Glasgow. The cause of his writing this book was, that by reading much at night he had so weakened his eyes, as to be unable to distinguish his own children at the distance of two or three yards: in the impossibility of employing himself in study, he was prevailed upon, by the advice of the Archbishop, to betake himself to a custom of nocturnal prayer, and hence the composition of this book. In 1696, Blackwood published a Latin poem on the inauguration of James VI., as king of Great Britain. In 1609, appeared at Poitiers, a complete collection of his Latin poems. He died, in 1623, in the 74th year of his age, leaving four sons (of whom one attained to his own senatorial dignity in the parliament of Poitiers), and seven daughters. He was most splendidly interred in St Porcharius' church at Poitiers, where a marble monumen, was reared to his memory, charged with a long panegyrical epitaph. In 1644, appeared his " Opera Omnia," in one volume 4to., edited by the learned Naudeus, who prefixes an elaborate eulogium upon the author. Blackwood was not only a man of consummate learning and great genius, but is allowed to have also ful filled, in life, all the duties of a good man.

248

HENRY BLACKWOOD.-WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.

BLACKWOOD, HENRY, brother to the subject of the preceding article, and his senior by some years, was educated under nearly similar circumstances, and, in 1551, taught philosophy in the university of Paris. Having afterwards applied himself to the study of medicine, he rose to be dean of that faculty at Paris, an office of the very highest dignity which could then be reached by a member of the medical profession. He appears to have been one of the earliest modern physicians who gave a sanction to the practice of letting blood. He published various treatises on medicine, and also upon philosophy, of which a list is preserved in Mackenzie's Lives of Scots Writers. He acted at one time as physician to the Duke of Longueville, with a salary of two hundred pistoles. At another time, when the plague prevailed at Paris, he remained in the city, and exerted himself so zealously in the cure of his numerous patients, as to gain universal applause. He died, in 1613 or 1614, at a very advanced age.

BLACK WOOD, WILLIAM, an eminent publisher, and originator of the magazine which bears his name, was born in Edinburgh, November 20, 1776, of parents who, though in humble circumstances, bore a respectable character, and were able to give this and their other children an excellent elementary education. At the age of fourteen, he commenced an apprenticeship with Messrs Bell and Bradfute, booksellers in his native city, with whom he continued six years. During this time, he stored his mind with a large fund of miscellaneous reading, which was of great service to him in after life. It is probable that he at the same time manifested no common talents for business, as, soon after the expiration of his apprenticeship, [1797,] he was selected by Messrs J. Mundell and Company, then carrying on an extensive publishing business in the Scottish capital, to take the charge of a branch of their concern which they had resolved to establish in Glasgow. Mr Blackwood acted as the Glasgow agent of Mundell and Company for a year, during which time he improved greatly as a man of business. Thrown in a great measure upon his own resources, he here acquired habits of decision, such as are rarely formed at so early an age, and which were afterwards of the greatest importance to him. Having also occasion to write frequently to his constituents, he formed a style for commercial correspondence, the excellence of which was a subject of frequent remark in his later years.

At the end of the year, when the business he had conducted at Glasgow was given up, Mr Blackwood returned to Messrs Bell and Bradfute, with whom he continued about a year longer. He then (1800) entered into partnership with Mr Robert Ross, a bookseller of some standing, who also acted as an auctioneer of books. Not long after, finding the line of business pursued by Mr Ross uncongenial to his taste, he retired from the partnership, and, proceeding to London, placed himself, for improvement in the antiquarian department of his trade, under Mr Cuthill. Returning once more to Edinburgh in 1804, he set up on his own account in a shop in South Bridge street, where for several years he confined his attention almost exclusively to the department just alluded to, in which he was allowed to have no rival of superior intelligence in Scotland. The catalogue of old books which he published in 1812, being the first of the kind in which the books were classified, and which referred to a stock of uncommon richness and variety, continues till the present day to be a standard authority for the prices of old books. At this period of his career, Mr Blackwood becaine agent for several of the first London publishing houses, and also began to publish extensively for himself, In 1816, having resolved to throw a larger share of his energies into the latter department of business, he sold off his stock of old books, and removed to a shop in the New Town, soon to become one of the most memorable localities connected with modern literary history.

For a considerable time, Mr Blackwood had been of opinion that something like the same regeneration which the Edinburgh Review had given to periodical criticism, might be communicated to that species of miscellaneous literature which chiefly assumed the monthly form of publication. At this time, the Scots Magazine of his native city, which had never pretended to any merit above that of a correct register, was scarcely in any respect more flat and insipid than the publications of the same kind in London. It was reserved for the original and energetic mind of the subject of this memoir, to raise this department of popular literature from the humble state in which it had hitherto existed, or to which, when we recollect the labours of Johnson and Goldsmith, we may rather say it had sunk, and to place it on the eminence for which it was evidently fitted. The first number of Blackwood's Magazine appeared in April, 1817, and, though bearing more resemblance to preceding publications of the same kind than it afterwards assumed, the work was from the first acknowledged by the public to possess superior merit. The publishers of the elder magazines made an almost immediate, though indirect confession to this effect, by attempts to put new and more attractive faces upon their publications, and stimulate the lagging energies of those who conducted them. The two young men who were chiefly engaged upon the work of Mr Blackwood, having disagreed with him, were employed by Mr Constable to take the charge of the Scots Magazine, which he, like others in similar circumstances, was endeavouring to resuscitate from the slumbers of a century. Mr Blackwood was already more than independent of these gentlemen, in consequence of the aid which he was receiving from other quarters; but bitter feelings had nevertheless been engendered, and these found vent, through the fancy of some of his new contributors, in the celebrated article in the seventh number of his magazine, styled “Translation of a Chaldee Manuscript." In this jeu d'esprit, the circumstances of the late feud, and the efforts of Mr Constable to repair the fortunes of his ancient magazine, were thrown into a form the most burlesque that ever imagination conceived, though certainly with very little of the ill nature which the article unfortunately excited in the most of those who figured in it. In consequence of the painful feelings to which it gave rise, Mr Blackwood cancelled it from all the copies within his reach; and it is now, consequently, very rarely to be met with.

Blackwood's Magazine, as already hinted, had not been in progress for many months, before it obtained the support of new and unexpected talent. Mr John Wilson, already distinguished by his beautiful poetry, and Mr John G. Lockhart, whose more regular, though perhaps less brilliant genius has since found a fitting field in the management of the Quarterly Review, were at this time young men endeavouring to make their way at the Scottish bar. Having formed an attachment to Mr Blackwood, they threw into his literary repertory the overflowing bounties of two minds, such as rarely rise singly, and much more rarely together; and soon enchained the attention of the public to a series of articles not more remarkable for their ability, than for an almost unexampled recklessness of humour and severity of sarcasm. It is not to be denied that much offence was thus occasionally given to the feelings of individuals; but, in extenuation of any charge which can be rested on such grounds, it may be pointed out that, while Mr Blackwood had his own causes of complaint in the ungenerous hostility of several of his commercial brethren, the whimsical genius of his contributors had unquestionably found a general provocation in the overweening pretensions and ungracious deportment of several of their literary seniors, some of whom had, in their own youth, manifested equal causticity, with certainly no greater show of talent. To these excuses must be added the relative one of