When he first engaged in the study of physic, he inquired, as he
says, of Dr. Sydenham, what authors he should read and was directed
by Sydenham to "Don Quixote": "which" said he, "is a very good
book; I read it still." The perverseness of mankind makes it often
mischievous to men of eminence to give way to merriment; the idle
and the illiterate will long shelter themselves under this foolish
apophthegm. Whether he rested satisfied with this direction, or
sought for better, he commenced physician, and obtained high
eminence and extensive practice. He became Fellow of the College of
Physicians, April 12, 1687, being one of the thirty which, by the
new charter of King James, were added to the former fellows. His
residence was in Cheapside, and his friends were chiefly in the
City. In the early part of Blackmore's time a citizen was a term of
reproach; and his place of abode was another topic, to which his
adversaries had recourse in the penury of scandal.

Blackmore, therefore, was made a poet not by necessity but
inclination, and wrote not for a livelihood but for fame; or, if he
may tell his own motives, for a nobler purpose, to engage poetry in
the cause of virtue.

I believe it is peculiar to him that his first public work was an
heroic poem. He was not known as a maker of verses till he
published (in 1695) "Prince Arthur," in ten books, written, as he
relates, "by such catches and starts, and in such occasional
uncertain hours as his profession afforded, and for the greatest
part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down the streets." For
the latter part of this apology he was accused of writing "to the
rumbling of his chariot wheels." He had read, he says, "but little
poetry throughout his whole life; and for fifteen years before had