BLACKWELL, Thomas, an eminent Scottish writer, was the son of a minister at Aberdeen, and born there in 1701. He received his grammatical education at a school in Aberdeen, studied Greek and philosophy in the Marischal College there, and took the degree of A. Μ. in 1718. Being distinguished for uncommon-parts, and an early proficiency in letters, he was, in December 1723, made Greek professor in the college where he had been educated; and continued to teach that language with applause till his death. In 1735 was published at London, but without his name, An Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Horner, 8vo, a second edition of which appeared in 1736; and not long after, he gave to the world Proofs of the Inquiry into Homer s Life and Writings, being a translation of the Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French notes, subjoined to the original work. In 1748 he published Letters concerning Mythology, 8vo, but without his name. The same year he was made principal of Marischal College in Aberdeen; being the only layman who had been appointed to that office since the patronage came to the crown, by the forfeiture of the Marischal family in 1716, all the other principals having been ministers of the church of Scotland. In March 1752 he took the degree of doctor of laws; and the year following published the first volume of his Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, 4to. The second volume appeared in 1755; and the third, which was posthumous, and left incomplete by the author, was prepared for the press by John Mills, Esq. and published in 1764. At the same time a third edition of the two former volumes appeared; which is a proof of the good reception the work met with from the public, although it must be acknowledged that the parade with which it is written, and the peculiarity of its language, exposed it to some severity of censure.

Soon after he became principal of his college, he married the daughter of a merchant in Aberdeen, by whom he had no children. Several years before his death, his health had begun to decline. His disorder was of the consumptive kind, and was probably accelerated by the excessive abstemiousness which he had imposed upon himself. His disease increasing, however, he was advised to travel, and accordingly set out in February 1757; but he was not able to proceed farther than Edinburgh, in which city he died on the 8th of March following, in his fifty-sixth year. Blackwell was both an ingenious and a learned man. He had an equable flow of temper and a truly philosophic spirit, and maintained to the last that serenity and composure of mind which, whether they be the result of a happily-constituted temperament, or of a long course of self-discipline, may well be accounted the greatest of earthly blessings.

Blackwell, Alexander, son of a dealer in knit-hose at Aberdeen, where he received a liberal education. He afterwards studied physic under Boerhaave at Leyden, took the degree of doctor of physic, and acquired a proficiency in the modern languages. Happening to stay some time at the Hague on his return home, he contracted an intimacy with a Swedish nobleman. Having married a gentleman’s daughter in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen, he proposed practising professionally in that part of the kingdom; but finding his expectations disappointed, he went to London, where he met with still less encouragement as a physician, and commenced corrector of the press for Mr Wilkins, a printer. After some years spent in this employment he set up as a printer himself, and carried on several large works till 1734, when he became bankrupt. In what manner he subsisted for a considerable time after this event we are not informed, though it was probably by the ingenuity of his wife, who published “A curious Herbal, containing 500 Cuts of the most useful Plants which are now used in the Practice of Physic, engraved on folio Copperplates, after Drawings taken from the Life, by Elizabeth Blackwell; to which is added a short Description of the Plants, and their common Uses in Physic, 1739,” 2 vols. folio. About the year 1740 he went to Sweden, and renewing his intimacy with the nobleman whom he had met at the Hague, again assumed the medical profession, in which he was tolerably successful; but turning projector, he laid before his Swedish majesty a scheme for draining the fens and marshes, which was well received, and many thousands employed in prosecuting it under the doctor’s direction, while some small allowance was made to him by the king. This scheme succeeded so well, that he turned his thoughts to others of greater importance, which in the end proved fatal to him. Suspected of being concerned in a plot with Count Tessin, he was put to the torture; and this not producing the desired confession, he was beheaded on the 9th of August 1748. Soon afterwards appeared “A Genuine Copy of a Letter from a merchant in Stockholm to his correspondent in London, containing an Impartial Account of Doctor Alexander Blackwell, his Plot, Trial, Character, and Behaviour, both under Examination and at the Place of Execution; together with a Copy of a Paper delivered to a Friend upon the Scaffold.” Blackwell possessed good natural genius, but was somewhat flighty, and not a little conceited. His conversation, however, was facetious and agreeable; and although an indiscreet man, he was allowed to have been a well-bred and accomplished gentleman.