‘…In
the mean while my acquaintance with English literature was gradually extending
itself. In the intervals of my school hours I had always perused with avidity
such books of history or poetry or voyages and travels as chance presented to
me—not forgetting the usual, or rather ten times the usual, quantity of fairy
tales, Eastern stories, romances, etc. These studies were totally unregulated
and undirected. My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a profane play or
poem; and my mother, besides that she might be in some degree trammelled by the
religious scruples which he suggested, had no longer the opportunity to hear me read poetry as formerly. I found,
however, in her dressing-room (where I slept at one time) some odd volumes of
Shakespeare, nor can I easily forget the rapture with which I sat up in my
shirt reading them by the light of a fire in her apartment, until the bustle of
the family rising from supper warned me it was time to creep back to my bed,
where I was supposed to have been safely deposited since nine o'clock. Chance,
however, threw in my way a poetical preceptor. This was no other than the
excellent and benevolent Dr. Blacklock, well known at that time as a literary
character. I know not how I attracted his attention, and that of some of the
young men who boarded in his family; but so it was that I became a frequent and
favored guest. The kind old man opened to me the stores of his library, and
through his recommendation I became intimate with Ossian and Spenser. I was
delighted with both, yet I think chiefly with the latter poet. The tawdry
repetitions of the Ossianic phraseology disgusted me rather sooner than might
have been expected from my age. But Spenser I could have read forever….’
Thomas Blacklock, died on July 7, 1791. His contribution to Walter Scott’s developing
interests and skills would be hard to measure, but clearly Scott appreciated
the “Blind Poet’s” kindness. The text
above comes from Lockhart’s “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott”.
