Blackmore, Richard

Sir Richard Blackmore, (born 1654, Corsham, Wiltshire, Eng.-died 1729, Boxted, Essex), English physician and writer, physician in ordinary to King William III (who knighted him in 1697 for professional services) and Queen Anne. Though he regarded poetry as merely the entertainment of his idle hours, he wrote four epics in 10 or more books, Prince Arthur (1695), King Arthur (1697), Eliza (1705), and Alfred (1723). To each poem he wrote a preface censuring the lewdness and impiety of modern wits, a subject also treated in his verse Satyr Against Wit (1700).