He was
sometimes subject to melancholy--_un_like many of the blind, and one
especially, whom we name not, but who, still living, bears a striking
resemblance to Blacklock in fineness of mind, warmth of heart, and high-
toned piety, but who is cheerful as the day. As to his poetry, it is
undoubtedly wonderful, considering the circumstances of its production,
if not _per se_. Dr Johnson says to Boswell,--'As Blacklock had the
misfortune to be blind, we may be absolutely sure that the passages in
his poems descriptive of visible objects are combinations of what he
remembered of the works of other writers who could see. That foolish
fellow Spence has laboured to explain philosophically how Blacklock may
have done, by his own faculties, what it is impossible he should do. The
solution, as I have given it, is plain. Suppose I know a man to be so
lame that he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a
different room from that in which I left him, shall I puzzle myself with
idle conjectures that perhaps his nerves have, by some unknown change,
all at once become effective? No, sir; it is clear how he got into a
different room--he was CARRIED.'
Perhaps there is a fallacy in this somewhat dogmatic statement. Perhaps
the blind are not so utterly dark but they may have certain dim
_simulacra_ of external objects before their eyes and minds.
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