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 speare, and Milton, are passed over, while several of their learned contemporaries, whose fame has now utterly vanished, find a place. In 1693 he published ‘A Natural History, containing many not common observations extracted out of the best authors.’ In the following year appeared ‘De Re Poetica, or Remarks upon Poetry, with Characters and Censures of the most considerable Poets, whether Ancient or Modern, extracted out of the best and choicest critics.’ The first part of the work treats on poetry in general, on the different varieties of poetry, and on English, French, Italian, and Spanish poetry, in connection with the characteristics of the several languages—the opinions of the ‘choicest critics’ being given on their subject almost without any comment of his own. The second part gives an account of sixty-seven poets of various ages and countries, including those mentioned above as omitted from the list of celebrated authors. His ‘Essays on several Subjects,’ which first appeared in 1692, and a third impression of which, with additions, was published in 1697, is the only work in which he has an opportunity of displaying his individuality as a writer. The essays in the first edition numbered seven in all. The first illustrates the proposition that interest governs the world, and that popery is nothing but an invention of priests to get money; the second is on the great mischief and prejudice of learning; the third treats of education and custom, lamenting that as children are apt to believe everything, when they grow up they are apt to settle in their first impressions; in the fourth, on the respect due to the ancients, the conclusion is arrived at that we ought not to enslave ourselves too much to their opinions; the fifth answers in the negative the question as to whether the men of the present age are inferior to those of former ages either in respect of virtue, learning, or long life; the sixth demonstrates that the passions are our best servants, but our worst masters; the seventh attributes the variety of opinions to the uncertainty of human knowledge; and the eighth, on religion—added to the third impression—asserts that the God which men imagine to themselves is a picture of their own complexions. The most prominent characteristic of the essays is their strong sceptical spirit, using these terms in the best sense, their freedom from conventionality, and the air of comfortable cynicism that pervades them, a cynicism recognising the enormous prevalence of stupidity and falseness of all kinds, but also possessing a cheerful conviction of the possibilities of amendment. It is worthy of note that, universal scholar as he was, no man despised mere learning more heartily. ‘There is not,’ he says, ‘a simpler animal and a more superfluous member of the state than a mere scholar.’

[Biog. Brit. ed. Kippis, ii. 378–80; Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iv. 53, 55; Chauncy's History of Hertfordshire; Clutterbuck's History of Hertfordshire; Add. MSS. 5524 and 6672.] 

BLOUNT, WALTER (d. 1403), soldier and supporter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, was almost certainly the son of Sir John Blount of Sodington, by his second wife, Eleanor Beauchamp, widow of Sir John Meriet. In 1367 he accompanied the Black Prince and John of Gaunt in their expedition to Spain to restore Don Pedro the Cruel to the throne of Leon and Castile. After the return of the expedition, which was successfully terminated by the battle of Navarette (1367), Blount married Donna Sancha de Ayála, the daughter of Don Diego Gomez, who held high office in Toledo, by his wife (of very high family), Donna Inez de Ayála. Donna Sancha appears to have first come to England in attendance on Constantia, the elder daughter of King Pedro, whom John of Gaunt married in 1372. In 1374 John Blount, Sir Walter's half-brother, who had succeeded his mother, Isolda Mountjoy, in the Mountjoy property, made over to Walter the Mountjoy estates in Derbyshire, and to them Walter added by purchase, in 1381, the great estates of the Bakepuiz family in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Hertfordshire. Permission was granted Blount in 1377 to proceed with Duke John of Gaunt to Castile in order to assert the duke's right by virtue of his marriage to the throne of Leon and Castile; but the expedition did not start till 1386, when Blount probably accompanied it. On 17 April 1393 he, with Henry Bowet [q. v.] and another, was appointed to negotiate a permanent peace with the king of Castile. In 1398 Duke John granted to Blount and his wife, with the king's approval, an annuity of 100 marks in consideration of their labours in his service. Blount was an executor of John of Gaunt, who died early in 1399, and received a small legacy. He represented Derbyshire in Henry IV's first parliament, which met on 6 Oct. 1399. At the battle of Shrewsbury (23 July 1403) he was the king's standard-bearer, and was killed by Archibald, fourth earl of Douglas, one of the bravest followers of Henry Percy (Hotspur). Blount was dressed in armour resembling that worn by Henry IV, and was mistaken by Douglas for the king (,