JOSEPH BLACKET, POET, “THE SON OF SORROW.”
At the beginning of this century there were two young shoemakers in London who were spending their leisure time in hard reading and attempts at musical composition. One of them, Robert Bloomfield, a sketch of whom has already been given,[144] is known as widely as the English language itself. The other, Joseph Blacket, made but little stir in the world, and is now well-nigh forgotten. He took to writing poetry at a much earlier age than Bloomfield, who wrote nothing before his sixteenth year, while Blacket, if we may trust the notes in his “Specimens” and “Remains,” began, very characteristically, with “The Sigh,” written at ten years of age. His unhappy life was brought to a close when he was but twenty-four years old. At this age Bloomfield had written very little poetry, and “The Farmer’s Boy” was not begun. But if his genius ripened slowly, it produced fruits far more valuable than those presented to the world by the precocity of poor Blacket. There is nothing of Blacket’s to compare with “The Farmer’s Boy,” or “Richard and Kate,“ or ”The Fakenham Ghost.” It is interesting to know that the two poetical sons of Crispin were acquainted, and cherished a high regard for each other. They seem to have met at the house of Mr. Pratt, Blacket’s patron and editor, and afterward to have exchanged copies of each other’s works, accompanied by friendly letters. What Bloomfield thought of his young friend may be gathered from the following portion of a letter: “The instant I received your volume I resolved to shake hands with you, by letter at least, and to thank you for a pleasure of no common sort. The ‘Conflagration’ is so truly full of fire that it almost burns one’s fingers to read it. ‘Saragossa’ is a noble poem. Choose your own themes, and let the master-tints of your mind have full play.”
JOSEPH BLACKET
In a letter to his friend Mr. Pratt, Blacket says that he was born in 1786 at Tunstill, five miles from Richmond, in Yorkshire. His father was a day-laborer, who had eight children to provide for at the time Joseph was old enough for school.[145] It was therefore fortunate for him that the village schoolmistress took a fancy for him, and taught him for nothing. He stayed with her until he was seven, and then went to a school taught by a master. At the age of eleven he was removed to London, his brother John having engaged to provide a home for him and teach him his trade during the next seven years. In this respect his position was very similar to that of Bloomfield, whose brother George became the guardian of the shy Suffolk lad when he first went up to London.[146] John Blacket was so anxious that his ward should not forget his little learning that he often kept the lad at home to write on Sunday. There were such books in John’s library as “Josephus,” “Eusebius’ Church History,” “Fox’s Martyrs,” all of which were read through by the time Joseph was fifteen years of age. “At that time,” he says, “the drama was totally unknown to me; a play I had neither seen nor read.” One evening a companion called on him and begged him to go and see Kemble play Richard the Third at Drury Lane. His brother John refused consent at first, but yielded at last to the clever strategy of an appeal made in a few impromptu verses, which so greatly pleased and surprised the fond brother, that he at once “gave him leave to go, together with a couple of shillings to defray his expenses.” From this time forth he devoted himself to the study of the poets Milton, Pope, Young, Otway, Rowe, Beattie, Thompson, but especially, and for a time almost exclusively, to Shakespeare. As a young poet it is said of him that “His anxiety to produce something that should be thought worthy of the public in the form of a drama appears to have surpassed all his other cares.... Something of the dramatic kind pervades the whole mass of his papers. I have traced it on bills, receipts, backs of letters, shoe patterns, slips of paper hangings, grocery wrappers, magazine covers, battalion orders for the volunteer corps of St. Pancras, in which he served, and on various other scraps on which his ink could scarcely be made to retain the impression of his thoughts; yet most of them crowded on both sides and much interlined.”[147]
Like most ardent young students in poor circumstances, Blacket was reckless of his health. His hard work by day and loss of nightly sleep sowed the seeds of the disease to which he eventually fell a victim. He married very young, and had the misfortune to lose his wife when he was only twenty-one years of age. A sister who came to nurse her was taken ill of brain fever, and nearly lost her life. “Judge of my situation,” he says to his friend Mr. Pratt, “a dear wife stretched on the bed of death; a sister senseless, whose dissolution I expected every hour; an infant piteously looking round for its mother; creditors clamorous, friends cold or absent. I found, like the melancholy Jaques, that ‘when the deer was stricken the herd would shun him.’” In this wretched position he was obliged to sell everything to pay his debts. No wonder that he became a “son of sorrow,” and that most of the poetry written after this date bears the marks of gloom and distraction of mind. Yet it must be confessed that when the young poet sought to enter on his literary career by the publication of his poems, he had no cause to complain of want of friends. Mr. Marchant, a printer, took kindly to him, and published his first copies of “Specimens” free of expense. It was he who introduced the young aspirant for poetical fame to Mr. Pratt, the editor of the “Remains,” who seems, from the letters published, to have been a man of considerable means, but not of the best judgment in literary affairs. This friend had the most exalted notions of the “genius” of his protégé, showed him the utmost kindness till the day of his death, and took charge of the funds raised by the publication of his “Remains,” investing them in behalf of the poet’s orphan child. In August, 1809, Blacket removed to Seaham, Durham, to the house of a brother-in-law, gamekeeper to Sir Ralph Milbanke of Castle Eden. The baronet and his family were very kind to him; a horse was lent him; dainty food was sent down for him from the castle; doctors were procured who attended him gratis; Lady Milbanke and Miss Milbanke, afterward Lady Byron, visited him constantly, and interested others in his behalf; among them the Duchess of Leeds, who procured a large number of subscribers to his volume of “Specimens.”[148] No effort was spared by either doctors or friends to save his life and to ensure his reputation as a poet; but to no purpose, as it seemed, in either case. He died of consumption on the 23d of September, 1810, at the house of his brother-in-law, and was buried in Seaham churchyard by his friend Mr. Wallis, rector of the parish, who had been a Christian counsellor and comforter to the young poet during his long illness. At his own request, Miss Milbanke selected the spot for his grave, and caused a suitable monument to be placed over it, on which were inscribed the lines, taken from his own poem, “Reflections at Midnight”—
“Shut from the light, ’mid awful gloom,
Let clay-cold honor rest in state;
And, from the decorated tomb,