BLI

457

BLI

Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,

Dungeon, or beggary, decrepit! age.

Ifight, the prime work of God , to me’s extinct,

And all her various objects of delightAnnull’d, which might in part my grief have eas’d,Interior to the vilest now becomeOf man or worm. The vilest here excel me:

They creep, yet see.-

Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than halfO dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon.Irrecoverably dark, total eclipseM ithout all hope of day !

Since light so necessary is to life,

And almost life itself, why was the sightTo such a tender ball as th’ eye conlin’d,

So obvious, and easy to be quench’d ?

And not, as feeling, through all pails diffus’d,

That she might look at will thro’ ev’rv pore ?

Then-had I not been thus exil’d from light.

As in the land of darkness, yet in lightTo live a life half dead, a living death:

And buried ; but yet more miserable !

Myself the sepulchre, a moving grave.

The blind often derive advantages even from their loss, howeveroppressive and irretrievable ; not indeed adequate to compensate,but sufficient to alleviate their misery. The attention of the soul,confined to these avenues of perception which she can command,is neither dissipated nor confounded, by the immense multiplicity,nor the rapid succession of surrounding objects, lienee her con-templations are more uniformly fixed upon the revolutionsof Iter own internal frame. lienee her perceptions of suchexternal things, as are contiguous and obvious to her observa-tion, become more exquisite. Hence even her instruments of cor-poreal sensation are more assiduously improved ; so that fromthem she derives such notices of approaching pleasure, or impend-ing danger, as entirely escape the attention of those who dependfor secur.ty on the reports of their eyes. Dr. Nicolas Bacon , ablind gentleman , descended from the same family with the cele-brated lord Verulam, was, in the city of Brussels, with high appro-bation created LI,. 1). He was deprived of sight at nine years ofage by an arrow from a cross-bow whilst he was attempting toshoot it. W lien he had recovered his health, which had sutieredby the shock, he pursued the same plan of education in which liehad been engaged: and having heard that one Nicasius deVourde, born blind, who lived towards tin; end of the 15th cen-tury, after having distinguished himself byhis studies in the uni-versity of Louvain, took his degree as II.’D. in (hat of Cologne,

/ he resolved to make the same attempt. But the public, cursedwith prejudices for which the meanest sensitive nature might blush,prejudices equally beneath the brutality and ignorance, of thelowest animal instinct, treated his intention with ridicule: eventhe professors themselves were not far from being of the same sen-timent ; and they admitted him into their schools, rather froman impression that it might amuse him, than become of anv use tohim. He had the good fortune, however, contrary to their ex-pectations, to obtain the first places among his condisciples. Itwas then said, that such rapid advances might be made in the pre-liminary branches of Ills education ; but would soon be effec-tually checked by studies of a more profound and abstracted na-ture. 'I nis, it seems, was repeated from school to school, throughthe whole climax of his pursuits; and when, in the course of aca-demical learning, it became necessary to study poetry, it wasthe general voice that all was over, and at length he had reachedhis nc plus icllnt. But here lie likewise disappointed their preju-dices, and taught them the immense difference between blindnessof body and blindness of soul. After continuing bis studies inlearning and philosophy for two years more, lie applied himselfto law, took his degree in that science, commenced pleadingcounsellor or advocate in the council of Brabant, and has had thepleasure of terminating almost every suit in which he has beenengaged to the satisfaction of his clients. The following anec-dotes of Dr. Moyes were not long ago presented to the Man-chester Society by Dr. G. Bc-w, ami afterwards ‘ " d. “ Dr.Henry Moyes, who occasionally read Lectures on PhilosophicalChemistry at Manchester, like Dr. Saundersou, the celebratedprofessor of Cambridge, lost his sight by the small-pcx in hisVOL. t.—xo. 20.

early infancy. He never recollected to have seen: ‘but thefirst traces of memory I have, (says lie,) are in some confusedideas of the solar system.’ Possessed of native genius, and ardentin his application, he made rapid advances in various departmentsof erudition ; and not only acquired the fundamental principle*of mechanics, music, and the languages; but also entered deeplyinto the investigation of the profounder sciences, and displayed anacute and general knowledge of geometry, optics, algebra, astro-nomy, chemistry, and in short of most of the branches of theNewtonian philosophy. Mechanical exercises were the favouriteemployments of his infant years. At a very early age he madehimself acquainted with the use of edged tools so perfectly, thatnotwithstanding his entire blindness, ne was able to make littlewind-mills; and he even constructed a loom with his own hand-.,which still shew the cicatrices of wounds he received in the exe-cution of these juvenile exploits, By a most agreeable intimacyand frequent intercourse which I enjoyed with this accomplishedblind gentleman, whilst lie resided at Manchester, I had an op-portunity, of repeatedly observing the peculiar manner in whii Ulie arranged his ideas and acquired his information. Vt heneverhe w'as introduced into company, I remarked that he continuedsome time silent. The sound directed him to judge of the di-mensions of the room, and the different voices of the number ofpersons that were present. Iiis distinctions in these respects wasvery accurate ; and his memory so retentive, that lie seldom were •mistaken. I have known him instantly recognize a person, onfirst hearing him speak, though more than two years hail elapsedsince the time of their last meeting. He determined pretty near;vthe stature of those he w'as speaking with by the direction' of theirvoices; and he made tolerable conjectures respecting their tem-pers and dispositions, by the manner in which they conductedtheir conversation. It must be observed, that this gentleman’seyes were not totally insensible to intense light. The rays refract-ed through a prism, when sufficiently vivid, produced certaindistinguishable effects on them. The red gave him a disagreeablesensation, which he compared to the touch of a saw. As the co-lours declined in violence, the harshness lessened, until the greenafforded a sensation that was highly pleasing to him, and which hedescribed as convoying an idea similar to what be felt in runninghis hand over smooth polished surfaces. Polished surfaces, mean-dering streams, and gentle declivities, were the figures by whichhe expressed his ideas of beauty : rugged rocks, irregular points,and boisterous elements, furnished him with expressions for terrorand disgust. He excelled in the charms of conversation ; washappy in his allusions to visual objects; and discoursed on thenature, composition, and beauty, of colours, with pertinence andprecision. Dr. Moyes was a striking instance of the power thehuman soul possesses, of finding resources of satisfaction, c\ enunder the most rigorous calamities. Though involved ‘ in everduring darkness,’ and excluded from the charming views of silentor animated nature ; though dependent on an undertaking ior themeans of his subsistence, the success of which was very preca-rious ; in short, though destitute of other support than his genius,and under the mercenary protection of a person whose integrityhe suspected, still Dr. Moyes was generally cheerful, and appa-rently happy. Bishop Burnett, in his Letters, mentions a blindlady, whom he saw at Geneva, who lost her sight at one year old,yet was eminently skilled in most sciences, ancient and modern.She spoke French, German, Italian, and Latin ; and played ex-quisitely on several musical instruments. She wrote very Iegiblyvvith a crayon. The means by which her father taught her towrite was, by having letters carved in wood ; and by feelingthem she acquired a correct idea of their form. The bishopsaw her write, which she did very fast, aided only- by amachine which held the paper, and kept her always in line.Dr. Bew, in the Transactions of the Manchester Society, men-tions an instance, which would be beyond belief, were it not onsuch respectable authority. “ John Metcalf, a native of theneighbourhood of Manchester, where he is well known, becameblind at a very early age, so as to be entirely unconscious of lightand its various effects. This man passed the younger part of hislife as a waggoner, and occasionally as a guide in intricate roadsduring the night, or when the tracks were covered with snow.Strange as this'may appear to those who can see, the employmenthe has since undertaken is still more extraordinary : it is one of thelast to which we could suppose a blind man would turn his atten-tion. His present occupation is that of a projector and surveyoi6 A of

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