Thomas Blacklock (1721–1791)

Blacklock (1721 - 1791) was blinded in infancy by smallpox but nevertheless attained some distinction as a poet. Befriended and supported by, among others, the Edinburgh physician John Stevenson and the philosopher David Hume, he found himself among the literati. Later, he was licensed to preach and was attached to the parish at Dumfries, but soon found himself pursuing a more rewarding literary career. He wrote poems and prose and contributed the article on blindness for the second edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1783). The attribution to Cicero of the first item is doubtful. In the preface, Blacklock gives his reasons for writing the work, which "was begun and pursued by its author, to divert wakeful and melancholy hours, which the recollection of past misfortunes, and the sense of present inconveniences, would otherwise have severely embittered."