1 56 Mr. Eew on Blindnejs. 
unfortunate people difplay, for the pleafing pur¬ 
suits of mufic and poetry, is ftill more general. 
The powerful influence of verbal expreflion, when 
communicated to the blind, in the form of poetry, 
and the congenial ideas it infpires, are really afto- 
nilhing. Of this we have a recent proof in Dr. 
Blacklock of Edinburgh. This amiable gentle¬ 
man was, I believe, either born blind, or became 
fo very foon after his birth : yet., we find no defeats, 
in thofe beautiful poems he has exhibited to the 
world, that can be attributed to his want of fight; 
on the contrary, we meet with deferiptions of 
vifual feenes and obje&s, as beautiful, exprefiive, 
and juft, as if he had a&ually been poflefied of the 
faculty of feeing; and had drawn his deferiptions, 
from an enraptured furvey of the variegated prof- 
pefts of nature. Whereas, we muft be convinced, 
when we accurately confider the matter, that the 
poetic enthufiafm, which infpired him, and excited 
thefe imitative powers, could only be produced 
by the various combination of founds, which were 
conveyed, by words, to his imagination. 
The influence of mufic is ftill more generally 
to be obferved than that of poetry. Mufic, almoft 
Bidymus of Alexandria, is celebrated by St. Jerom and 
the hiftorian Cafliodorus, as a prodigy in logic and mathe¬ 
matics, though blind from his infancy. The latter writer, 
likewife fpeaks of one Eufebius, an Afiatic, who, though 
blind, diilinguilhed himfelf highly in all kinds of 
learning. 
without 
