670 
The Remams of Joseph Bluckel. 
spot occnpieH by Cato’s Iinu=e at Utica ! 
The tenible \^aiHii>!s and the li.i^ht 
Moors passed successively before my 
luemory ; which exliibited to me, as the 
last picture, St. Louis expiring on the 
ruins of Carthage. 
THE REMAINS OF 
JOSEPH PLACKET; 
CONSISTING OF 
T^OEMS, DRAMATIC SKETCHES, 
The TIMES, An ODE, 
And a memoir of his LIFE; 
Bi/ Mr, PRATT. 
' IN TWO VOLUMES. 
["V/e cheerfully lend our trihufe of admira¬ 
tion to the unsophisticated and original 
genius of Blacket. He wa.s kr.own to 
us, and %ve can speak froni personal know¬ 
ledge of his intellectual powers and ge¬ 
nuine worth. He was a true noble of na¬ 
ture, in person, manners, virtue, and 
gen’us. The only consideration that di¬ 
minishes our concern at his falling the 
early victim of sedentary habits, or mal- 
lorraationof the chest, is the circumstance 
that he enjoyed the protection of the 
benevolent Author of Sympathy, v/ho 
contributed to Tiis comfort all the relief 
that could be afforded by medical friends, 
and by the bounty of opulence.—In peru¬ 
sing the melancholy records of eccentric 
genius, how gratifying would k be, if, on 
similar occasions, our Otways, Savages, 
Dernaodjs, and Chattertons, had had for 
their contemporaries a benevolent kindred 
'genius, such as Blacket found in Pratt. 
We have only to add, that these volumes 
have been published for the benefit of his 
orphan child,~and need we say more to 
those whom Nature has blessed with feel¬ 
ings, and Fortune v/ith affluence 
THE author’s account OF HIMSELF.* 
I WAS born, 1786, at an obscure 
village, called Tunstil!, in tlte north 
of Yorkshire, two miles from Catterick, 
and aftout five from Richmond, a res¬ 
pectable market-town. My father was 
a day-labourer, and bad for many years 
been employed in tlie service of Sir 
Joi'.n Lawson, bart. whose goodness and 
humanity to the neighbouring poor ren¬ 
der him universally beloved. 
I was the youngest, except one, of 
twelve chiUiren, eight of wiiom weye 
living at the time that I was first sent 
to school, which was early in youth. 
* In a letter to Mr. Pratt, dated February 
Sy iS09. 
owing to the village school-mislress being 
very p r 1 1 al-to me, and iiiviug me a free 
education. Y.'ith her 1 staid imti! the 
age of seven; lien, an.oilier school being 
opened by a man, wl om my parents 
tl)oujihL better able t - instruct, I was 
placed by tliem under his tuition, and 
continued io write ami learn arithmetic 
till the age of eleven ; when my lirother, 
a ladies’ shoemaker, in London, ex¬ 
pressed a desire of taking me as an 
apprentice, on the most liberal terms; 
namely, to provide me with every thing 
for the space of seven years, an oppor¬ 
tunity which my parents lost not; so, 
leaving school and bidding adieu to the 
place of my nativity, playmates. See, 
J set forward, in the waggon, for Lon¬ 
don, whicli place T reached in ten davs ; 
waN hound by indeniure and commenced 
my trade. 
j\Jy brother, to whom I must give due 
praise, lest I should foiget the little 
learning I had gathered in the country, 
('which was very trivial, never being far¬ 
ther in arithmetic than, reduction, and 
being capable of reading, as the villa¬ 
gers thought, tolerably well,) frequently 
kept me at home to write on a Sunday, 
which, though painful to me at that 
time, was undoubtedly of essential ser¬ 
vice. He is a man who has read much, 
and has a good collection of bonks, 
chiefly on religious subjects: in perusing 
which r past my leisure hours, and, be¬ 
fore I was fifteen, liad read Josephu‘',. 
Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, Fox’s 
Martyrs, and a number of others, from 
which I never failed to gather some 
knowledge. At that time the dram.a 
was totally unknown to me, a piay I 
had neither seen nor read; in fact, I 
had no desire, until a juvenile friend, 
wiio was in the habit of frequenting the 
theatres, solicited my company to see 
Kemble play Richard the Third, at 
Drury-Lane, I went, and, having seen, 
and soon after read, forgot the cruelties 
exercised in queen Marv’s reign, and 
left the celebrated Jewish historians and 
Olliers to be che.nshed by more perma¬ 
nent admirers. 
Thus, sir, did the Muse of Shakes¬ 
peare, with a single glance, banisli the 
ideas of Jerusalem’s wars, which me- 
niorv had carefuilv collected, and awa- 
Kened a desire in my breast to become 
acquainted with no other language than 
that of nature. To do whicii, 1 fre¬ 
quently robbed my pillow of its tine, 
and, in tlie summer-season, would read 
till the suit had far retired, then wait 
witli 
