Sir Richard Blackmore, the other pedagogue physician, was one of those good, injudicious mortals who always either praise or blame too much--usually the latter. The son of a Wiltshire attorney, he was educated at Westminster School and Oxford, taking his degree of M.A. June, 1676, and residing, in all, thirteen years in the university, during a portion of which protracted period of residence he was (though Dr. Johnson erroneously supposed the reverse) a laborious student. On leaving Oxford he passed through a course of searching poverty, and became a schoolmaster. In this earlier part of his life he travelled in France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy, and took his doctor's degree in the University of Padua. On turning his attention to medicine, he consulted Sydenham as to what authors he ought to read. "Don Quixote," replied the veteran. A similar answer has been attributed to Lord Erskine on being asked by a law student the best literary sources for acquiring legal knowledge and success. The scepticism of the reply reminds one of Garth, who, to an anxious patient inquiring what physician he had best call in in case of his (Garth's) death, responded, "One is e'en as good as t'other, and surgeons are not less knowing." As a poet, Blackmore failed, but as a physician he was for many years one of the most successful men in his profession. Living at Sadler's Hall, Cheapside, he was the oracle of all the wealthiest citizens, and was blessed with an affluence that allowed him to drive about town in a handsome equipage, and make an imposing figure to the world. Industrious, honourable, and cordially liked by his personal friends, he was by no means the paltry fellow that Dryden and Pope represented him. Johnson, in his brilliant memoir, treated him very unfairly, and clearly was annoyed that his conscience would not allow him to treat him worse. On altogether insufficient grounds the doctor argued that his knowledge of ancient authors was superficial, and for the most part derived from secondary sources. Passages indeed are introduced to show that the ridicule and contempt showered on the poet by his adversaries, and re-echoed by the laughing world, were unjust; but the effect of these admissions, complete in themselves, is more than counterbalanced by the sarcasms (and some of them vulgar sarcasms too) which the biographer, in imitation of Colonel Codrington, Sir Charles Sedley, and Colonel Blount, directs against the city knight.