158 The Blacklock Manuscripts at Annan. 



burgh by pronouncing an unfavourable verdict on Hugli Blair's 

 " Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian " : — " Doctor Johnson will 

 be universally acknowledged to have united a great genius with 

 profound and extensive learning ; but these qualities, however 

 eminent, are not only disfigured but almost counterbalanced by his 

 hateful and incorrigible affectation." Blacklock was personally 

 acquainted with Johnson, having been introduced to him in 1773 

 and received, as Boswell records, " with a most humane com- 

 placency." 



Only three of the Blacklock volumes are devoted to poetry. 

 One of the three consists entirely of a play in MS., entitled " The 

 Deserter: a Tragedy," the other two are made up of printed as 

 well as written poems. 



After the publication of the second London edition of Black- 

 lock's Poems, Joseph Spence, the Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 

 urged him — but urged him in vain — to write a tragedy, assuring 

 him that he had sufficient interest with Garrick to get it acted. 

 Mackenzie says : — " At a subsequent period he wrote a tragedy ; 

 but upon what subject, tiis relation, from whom I received the 

 intelligence, cannot recollect. The manuscript was put into the 

 hands of the late Mr Crosbie, then an eminent advocate at the 

 Bar of Scotland, but has never since been recovered." Though 

 " The Deserter " is not an original work, but a free translation 

 from the French of Mercier, I think that in it we have the long- 

 lost play. Unfortunately, it does not contain a single good line. 

 I shall not trouble you with an extract from the play, for I do not 

 wish to tempt anyone to exclaim, in the words of Byron : — 



"Stop, my friend; 'twere best — 

 Kl on Di, non homines — you know the rest." 



As you would observe, the volume which heads Mr Duncan's 

 list embraces a copy of Mackenzie's edition of Blacklock's Poems 

 (1793). When I examined the volume I noticed that while the 

 last page of the printed part was numbered 216 the first page of 

 the manuscript part bore the number 377. Evidently the written 

 poems originally formed part of another volume, and were trans- 

 ferred to their present position to make Mackenzie's edition 

 fuller. The longest piece in writing is " The Graham." This 

 very poor heroic ballad is not in the strict sense a " manuscript 

 poem," for it was published by the author in 1774, and was re- 



