Earlier Years
He was born at Corsham, in Wiltshire, the son of a wealthy attorney. He was educated at Westminster School very briefly, and he entered St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1669. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1674 and his MA in 1676. He was a tutor at the college for a time, but in 1682 he received his inheritance from his father. He used the money to travel. He went to France, Geneva, and various places in Italy. He stayed for a while in Padua and graduated in medicine at Padua. Blackmore returned to England via Germany and Holland, and then he set up as a physician. In 1685 he married Mary Adams, whose family connections aiding him in winning a place in the Royal College of Physicians in 1687. He had trouble with the College, being censured for taking leave without permission, and he strongly opposed the project for setting up a free dispensary for the poor in London. This opposition would be satirised by Sir Samuel Garth in The Dispensary in 1699.
Read more about this topic: Richard Blackmore
Famous quotes containing the words earlier and/or years:
“If in the earlier part of the century, middle-class children suffered from overattentive mothers, from being “mother’s only accomplishment,” today’s children may suffer from an underestimation of their needs. Our idea of what a child needs in each case reflects what parents need. The child’s needs are thus a cultural football in an economic and marital game.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“My dear Kafka,
When you’ve had five years of it, not five months,
Five years of an irresistible force meeting an immoveable object right in your belly,
Then you’ll know about depression.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)