of Logie's for goods sent to Orkney out of the proceeds. The humour of the situation was that the largest of these was one for smuggled spirits. It was a truly Gilbertian situation when the contraband trade kept the Orkney Customs Office so short of ready money that it had to be maintained by credit orders from headquarters, and that these formed a convenient credit instrument for some of the chief smugglers in which to pay for the cargoes of Geneva and Bohea by which the revenue was being defrauded!

Besides bills of exchange and the paper of government departments Logie used another kind of document in discharging his debts in England or Scotland-namely, the notes of some of the chief banks. From this it would appear that trade between Orkney and Great Britain was not wholly conducted on a basis resembling that between distinct economic regions. A closer inspection of the situation shows that Logie used these bank notes simply as bills of exchange. They were sufficiently rare not to be generally acceptable in Orkney, and it may be conjectured that

these had been sent as remittances to relatives from members of their families who were employed in Scotland or England. In each case, where Logie remitted a bank note, he not only copies it even to any signature on the back, but he makes an attempt to make a rough drawing of any engraving on the note or even of the impressed duty stamp or seal of a banking company. When the device was of a heraldic nature (as was the case in many bank notes of the period), he surrounded a space of its approximate size and shape by an irregular line, writing across it 'cotarms.' The whole character of this series of entries indicates that the bank note was being used simply as a bill of exchange; and that, in relation to England and Scotland, at this time, Orkney constituted a distinct economic region, and that there was something resembling an equation of indebtedness on such commerce as there was. Logie's letters show with remarkable precision the manner in which the balance, adverse to Orkney, was settled.

W. R. SCOTT.

T°

Dr. Blacklock's Manuscripts

his contemporaries Thomas Blacklock, the blind poet, seemed a figure of considerable importance. David Hume spoke with great respect of his talents, and Samuel Johnson was glad to become personally acquainted with him. In a rare book on Living Authors' published in London three years before Blacklock's death, he is allotted almost as much space as his countryman, Robert Burns, and about half as much as the chief English poet of the time, William Cowper. The name of Blacklock is still a household word in Scotland: but he owes his enduring fame, not to his formal verse, which has few admirers now, but to the fact that he was the first literary man of established reputation who recognised the genius of Burns.

Blacklock was born at Annan in 1721. In the third decade of the eighteenth century, as in the days when Carlyle wielded the strap in Hinterschlag Gymnasium,' the people of Annan were 'more given to intellectual pursuits than some of their neighbours'; and Blacklock's father and a few friends often read the works of Spenser, Milton, Pope and other poets in the hearing of the blind boy, thus revealing to him a world of enchantment. In 1741 Blacklock was sent to Edinburgh University by an accomplished physician named John Stevenson. Eager to win fame, he ventured in 1746 to publish a volume of verse in Glasgow. An Edinburgh edition followed in 1754, and three London editions. in 1756. When about forty years of age, Blacklock was ordained minister of Kirkcudbright, in consequence of a presentation from the Crown obtained for him by Lord Selkirk. But the parishioners refused to receive him, alleging that his blindness rendered him incapable of discharging the duties of his office in a satisfactory manner. After some litigation, he wisely resigned his living and retired to Edinburgh. In 1773 Blacklock, now a D.D. of Aberdeen University, was introduced to Dr. Johnson, who, as Boswell

1 Catalogue of Five Hundred Celebrated Authors of Great Britain, now Living. London, 1788.

records, 'received him with a most humane complacency.' When Burns visited Edinburgh in 1786 The Doctor' showed him much attention, though the great poet's familiarity of address and habit of speaking his mind but fear or shame' proved disconcerting at times.1 Blacklock had also the good fortune to be able to help Walter Scott, 'that most extraordinary genius of a boy,' as Mrs. Alison Cockburn called him. Long after Dr. Blacklock's death, which occurred in 1791, Scott recalled with gratitude the old man's kindness in opening to him the stores of his library.'

Dr. Robert Anderson, in the Life prefixed to his edition of Blacklock's Poems, published in 1795, says: "He' (Blacklock) 'has left some volumes of Sermons in manuscript, as also a Treatise on Morals, both of which it is in contemplation with his friends to publish. It is probable that the most important of his other pieces may be collected and republished on that occasion.' Though the poet's representatives gathered together and arranged his manuscripts, they did not carry out their intention of sending them to a publisher. Probably in 1809, when Blacklock's widow died, the papers came into the possession of Dr. Thomas Tudor Duncan, minister of the New Church, Dumfries, brother of Dr. Henry Duncan of Ruthwell, celebrated as the founder of Savings Banks. Duncan was related to Blacklock, his mother, Ann M'Murdo, being the daughter of the poet's sister, Mary Blacklock, wife of William M'Murdo, merchant, Dumfries. In 1898 the late Mr. William Robert Duncan, Liverpool, grandson of the Dumfries minister, and consequently great-great-grandson of Mrs. M'Murdo, offered the MSS.-which were bound in ten volumes to the writer of these pages for presentation to the Mechanics' Institute of Dr. Blacklock's native town. They were, of course, gladly accepted; and they are now preserved in Annan Public Library, where a copy of the London octavo edition of 1 In a 'Letter' to Elizabeth Scott, poetess, which does not appear to be generally known, Dr. Blacklock says:

'With joy to praise, with freedom blame,

To ca' folk by their Christian name,

To speak his mind, but fear or shame,

Was aye his fashion;

But virtue his eternal flame,

His ruling passion.'

Alonzo and Cora, London, 1801.

2 Uncle of Burns's friend, John M'Murdo, father of Phillis the Fair.'

Blacklock's poems, presented to the Mechanics' Institute by Thomas Carlyle, may also be seen.

The collection at Annan affords ample materials for judging of Dr. Blacklock's qualifications as a Christian teacher, for it embraces five volumes of excellent manuscript sermons, on such subjects as The Character and Fate of Hypocrisy,' The Advantages Arising from a Proper Estimate of Human Life,' and 'The Unsatisfactory Nature of Sublunary Enjoyments,' and also an unpublished treatise of considerable length on Practical Ethics '-doubtless the Treatise on Morals referred to by Dr. Anderson.

Blacklock reviewed books for various periodicals; and a volume in the collection, entitled 'Letters and Observations on Men, Books, and Manners, By George Tenant, Farmer in the Lands of Grim Gribber,' consists mainly of copies of his reviews. Among the books noticed in the volume are the immortal' Minstrel of James Beattie, and The Cave of Morar, a poem by John Tait, the Edinburgh lawyer who recovered and printed the version of Fair Helen alluded to by Pennant. In an article written early in 1784 there is an uncomplimentary reference to Samuel Johnson. As reported in The Westminster Magazine, Dr. Johnson had declared that Many men, many women, and many children' might have written Dr. Blair's Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian. Forgetting that the great English author had praised the Sermons of Blair with generous warmth- though the dog was a Scotchman and a Presbyterian '-Blacklock wrote: 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.'

Only three of the Blacklock volumes are devoted to poetry. One of the three consists of an unpublished translation from the French of Mercier, entitled The Deserter: a Tragedy; the other two are made up of printed and unprinted poems on many different subjects.

Dr. Blacklock's biographer, Henry Mackenzie, author of The Man of Feeling, after mentioning that in 1756 the poet was urged but urged in vain-to attempt a drama, says: At a subsequent period he wrote a tragedy; but upon what subject his relation, from whom I received the intelligence, cannot recollect. The manuscript was put into the hands of Mr. Crosbie,' then an

1 Andrew Crosbie, generally considered the prototype of Pleydell, in Guy Mannering. Like Blacklock, he was a native of Dumfriesshire.

eminent advocate at the Bar of Scotland, but has never since been recovered.'1 Evidently Mackenzie's informant could state only one fact relating to the play which had been lent to Crosbie-that it was a tragedy. The Deserter is a work of that description; and, though it exhibits Blacklock in the character of translator merely, it may be the composition alluded to by Mackenzie.

Bound up together in one cover are a copy of the 1793 Edition of Blacklock's Poems and some unimportant manuscript pieces. While the last printed page of the volume is numbered 216, the first page of the manuscript part bears the number 377We may conclude that the poems in writing originally belonged to another volume, and that they were transferred to their present position to supply what the collector of Blacklock's papers considered regrettable omissions in the quarto of 1793.

·

The volume which has not yet been noticed is richer in interest than any other in the collection. It includes a copy of the first London edition of Blacklock's Works and fifty-three written poems, occupying 380 quarto pages. There is no marking to indicate that any of the Manuscript Poems' are to be found in print; but some of them were published by the author himself, and some by Mackenzie. The earliest verses were written in 1745 the latest probably in 1780, when Blacklock was almost sixty years of age. Many of the texts have brief marginal notes and explanations,' designed to identify the men and women celebrated in his poetry under fictitious names.

Prominent in the volume is a play called Seraphina, a free translation of the Cenie of D'Happoncourt de Grafigny. While engaged on this work, Dr. Blacklock, remembering the proceedings in connection with John Home's Douglas, had some fear that his occupation might lead him into trouble with the Church. Dr. James Beattie, author of The Minstrel, to whose friendly exertions he was indebted for his degree, consoled him by arguing sophistically that not even the persecutors of Home would have held that to translate a drama was on the same footing with composing one. As the poetical merits of Seraphina are small, we need not regret that it was allowed to remain in the obscurity of manuscript. In one of his published pieces Blacklock says:

'I ne'er for satire torture common sense,

Nor show my wit at God's nor man's expense.'

Sometimes, however, he forgot these wise words, and indulged in 1 Life and Writings of Dr. Blacklock, prefaced to Poems by the late Reverend Dr. Thomas Blacklock, 1793, p. 8.