Sir Richard Blackmore (22 January 1654 – 9 October 1729), English poet and physician, is remembered primarily as the object of satire and as an example of a dull poet.
He is, however, a respected physician and religious writer.
He was born at Corsham, in Wiltshire, the son of a wealthy attorney.
He is educated at Westminster School very briefly, and he enters St. Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1669.
He receives his Bachelor of Arts in 1674 and his MA in 1676.
He is a tutor at the college for a time, but in 1682, he receives his inheritance from his father.
He uses the money to travel.
He goes to France, Geneva, and various places in Italy.
He stays for a while in Padua and graduates in medicine there.
Blackmore returns to England via Germany and Holland, and then he sets up as a physician.
In 1685, he marries Mary Adams, whose family connections aid him in winning a place in the Royal College of Physicians in 1687.
He has trouble with the College, being censured for taking leave without permission, and he strongly opposes the project for setting up a free dispensary for the poor in London.
This opposition is satirized by Sir Samuel Garth in The Dispensary in 1699.
