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"--