Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/269

 an appreciation) by Archibald Stodart-Walker, who also edited selections from Blackie's 'Day-Book,' 1901.  BLACKMAN, JOHN (fl. 1436–1448), biographer. [See ]  BLACKMORE, RICHARD DODDRIDGE (1825–1900), novelist and barrister, was born on 7 June 1825, at Longworth, Berkshire, of which parish his father, John Blackmore (d. 1858), was vicar. His father, at one time fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, was a scholar of high classical attainments and exceptional force of character. The novelist's mother, a woman of charm and refinement, was Anne Basset, eldest daughter of the Rev. Robert Knight, vicar of Tewkesbury, a descendant of Sir John Knight 'the elder' (1612-1683) [q. v.], twice mayor of Bristol. His mother's mother, Mercy, was a granddaughter of Philip Doddridge, the non-conformist minister [q. v.], and from this connection the novelist derived his second name. The Knights, his mother's family, had long owned Nottage Court, Newton Nottage, Glamorganshire, which contained many ancient treasures and relics of Dr. Doddridge. There the novelist spent much of his youth, when it was occupied by his uncle, the Rev. H. Hey Knight.

Blackmore had, as he once put it, 'a crooked start in life.' His father took pupils at Longworth to train for Oxford, and three months after Blackmore was born an epidemic of typhus fever in the village attacked the household. His father recovered ; but his mother, her sister, two of his father's six pupils, the family doctor, and all the servants died. The place became unbearable to the elder Blackmore, and he quitted it for a living at Culmstock, near Barnstaple. He finally settled in that of Ashford in the same county. Meanwhile Blackmore came to live with his maternal grandmother, Mrs, Knight, at Newton House, Newton, and after some years his father married again. Richard remained at Newton until a boy of eleven, and then returned to his father, who presently sent him to Blundell's School, Tiverton, where he fared somewhat roughly under the fagging system. He was a proud shy boy, quick-witted, humorous, with a touch of mischief. Among his fellow-pupils was Frederick Temple, now archbishop of Canterbury, who had formerly been a private pupil of his father at Longworth, Blackmore acquitted himself well at Blundell's, He was head-boy for some time, and won a scholarship which took him to Oxford, and, what he esteemed a piece of good luck, to his father's college, Exeter, where he matriculated on 7 Dec, 1843. At Oxford, where some of the happiest years of his life were spent, he was regarded as a sound classical scholar, with distinct ability in Latin verse, and to a small circle of intimates he was known as an enthusiastic angler, a lover of animals, and a keen student of nature. He was also famous for his skill at chess, and there is a tradition that addiction to the game prevented him from taking academic honours.

During a long vacation, while staying at Nottage Court with his uncle, he made his first attempt at fiction with 'The Maid of Sker,' the scene of which is laid in that locality. The novel, however, did not satisfy him, and was thrown aside in a half-finished condition, and only completed in later years. In these days he was very fond of shooting, and many of the rare birds mentioned in Mr. Knight's monograph on Newton Nottage fell to his gun. He graduated B.A. with a second class in classics in 1847 (M.A, 1852), and, after quitting the university, spent some time as a private tutor in the family of Sir Samuel Scott of Sundridge Park, Bromley, Kent. While with a reading party in Jersey Blackmore fell in love with the daughter of the person at whose house he was staying at St. Heliers, Miss Lucy Pinto Leite, a lady of Portuguese extraction, and he married her in 1852, He was afraid to tell his father, as the latter was an uncompromising Anglican, while his young wife was a Roman catholic. For some years Mr. and Mrs. Blackmore lived in lodgings in the north of London in narrow circumstances. At this time he was engaged in educational work, and was also studying at the Middle Temple. Mrs. Blackmore, soon after her marriage, joined the church of England. Always somewhat of an invalid, she died when her husband was at the height of his fame, and he never ceased to mourn her loss, There were no children of the marriage, and to the end of his life Blackmore's home was kept as far as possible exactly as his wife had left it.

He was called to the bar on 7 June 1852, and for a short time practised as a conveyancer, a phase of his life which doubtless suggested some well-known passages in 'Christowell.' He had a good chance of succeeding at the bar in the special direction which he had chosen, but he suddenly relinquished his profession for reasons which he never explained, and which scarcely any even of his intimate friends ever suspected. 