Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/260

 became habitual to him; and though he could sometimes restrain it when on ceremony, or in any public appearance, such as preaching, he felt a certain uneasiness from the effort, and always returned to it when he could indulge it without impropriety. This is the appearance which he describes in the ludicrous picture he has drawn of himself:

Much of the singularity in the gestures of poor Blacklock must have proceeded from his inability to observe the carriage of others, and to regulate his own in conformity with theirs: a tree will accommodate its growth to the restraints imposed upon it, but where a single branch escapes from the artificial training, flinging itself abroad in all the wild vigour of nature, its tufted luxuriance appears more striking from the contiguity of a well-clipt and orderly neighbourhood. Such was Blacklock's manner: he could not know with how little outward discomposure the world has taught men to accompany the expression of their emotions; and with him ardent feeling produced an unrestrained effect upon the countenance and gestures. The author of Douglas, in one of his letters, has given a curious picture of his singular appearance when under strong excitement: "I went to a companion's," says Home, "and sent for the blind poet, who is really a strange creature to look at—a small weakly under thing—a chilly, bloodless animal, that shivers at every breeze. But if nature has cheated him in one respect, by assigning to his share forceless sinews, and a ragged form, she has made him ample compensation on the other, by giving him a mind endued with the most exquisite feelings—the most ardent, kindled-up affections; a soul, to use a poet's phrase, that's tremblingly alive all over: in short, he is the most flagrant enthusiast I ever saw; when he repeats verses, he is not able to keep his seat, but springs to his feet, and shows his rage by the most animated motions. He has promised to let me have copies of his best poems, which I will transmit to you whenever he is as good as his word."

This letter, besides the description of Blacklock's exterior and carriage, opens to us one source of his acutest sufferings: we have already adverted to the unthinking insults to which his blindness exposed him while a boy, and it appears but too certain that many who had arrived at manhood in respect of their outward frame, did not treat him with greater tenderness in his maturer years. They did not, perhaps, decoy him to the edge of a ditch that they might have the satisfaction of seeing him flounder into it, or offer prickles to his grasp that they might be diverted by the contortions of countenance which the unexpected wounds occasioned; but they went to see the blind poet, and induced him to recite his verses, from die same kind of motive that takes people to witness the exhibition of a learned pig. Blacklock's position in regard to such visitors was peculiarly painful: he was in a great measure dependant upon his talents for support; and to have indignantly refused to display them, would have been to raise up obstacles to his own success. His feelings were at the same time the most nicely wrought, and even the triumphs of genius did not afford him perfect gratification; for he knew that his hearers were not carried away by his enthusiasm, but listened with a cold and critical attention, noting every peculiarity of tone, look, and gesture. He has himself told us how exquisitely painful was the consciousness of being the object of such unfeeling curiosity:

"the supercilious eye

Oft, from the noise and glare of prosperous life,

On my obscurity diverts its gaze,