BLAIR

Hugh, D.D., an eminent Scottish divine and cultivator of polite literature, was bom at Edinburgh, April 7, 1718, and cozmnenced his academic career at the university there in 1730. In 1741 he was licensed as a preacher, and the following year was ordained to the parish church of Cole ie in Fife, but a few months after was elected to the second charge of the Can on gate, Edinburgh. In 1754 he was called by the town-council of Edinburgh to accept of one of the city charges, that of Lady Tester's church, and in 1758 he was promoted by the same body to the highest situation attainable by a Scottish clergyman— one of the charges of the High Church. In 1759 he commenced, with the approbation of the university, a course of lectures to students upon the principles of literary composition; and in 1762 he was made profe or of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the Uzdversity of Edinburgh, being the first that ever occupied this chair. He continued to deliver his lectures annually till 1783, when he published them for the more extensive benefit of mankind. They are not by any means, nor were they ever pretended to be, a profound or original exposition of the laws of the belles-lettres. They are acknowledged to be a compilation from many different sources, and only designed to form a simple and intelligible code for the instruction of youth in this department of knowledge. Regarded in this light they are entitled ▼ery high praise, which has accordingly been liberally bestowed by the public. In 1763 he published a sertation on the Poems of O ian, in tiie authenticity of which he firmly beUeved. It was not till 1777 that he could be prevailed upon to offer to the world any of those sermons which he had so long delighted a private congregation. One of the sermons having been sent by Strahan, the king's printer, to Dr. Johnson for opinion, Mr. Strahan received from him the following characteristic note: 'I have read over Dr. Blair's first sermon with more than approbation; to say is good is to say too little.' Mr. Strahan thereupon agreed to purchase the volume, with Mr. Cadell, £100. The sale was so rapid and extensive, and approbation of the public so high, that, to their honour be it recorded, the proprietors made Blair a present^ first of one sum, and afterwards another, of £50, thus voluntarily doubling the stipulated price. The volume speedily fell under attention of George III., and by a royal mandate the exchequer in Scotland, dated July 25, 1780, pension of £200 a year was bestowed on Dr. Blsdr. During the subsequent p^ut of his life Dr. Blair published three other volumes of sermons; and might safely be said that each succe ive publication only tended to deepen the impre ion produced the first. He died on the 27th December, 1800. BLAIB) James, a divine, who was reared for Episcopal Church of Sootlaad, at the time when was struggling with popular dislike in the reign Charles II. Discouraged by the equivocal situation of that establishment in Scotland he voluntarily abandoned his preferments and removed to England, where he was patronized by Compton, bishop Ijondon. By tins prelate he was prevailed upon go as a mi ionary to Virginia about 1685, and ing given the greatest satisfaction by his zeal in propagation of religion, he was, in 1689, preferred the office of commi ary to the bishop, which was highest ecclesiastical dignity in that province. exertions were by no means confined to his ordinary duties. Observing the disadvantage under which province laboured through the want of seminaries the education of a native clergy, he set about, finally was able to accomplish, the honourable work of founding the College of WiUiamsburgh, which afterwards, by his personal intervention, endowed King William III. with a patent under the title the William and Mary College. He died in 1743, after having been president of this institution about fifty, and a minister of the gospel for above sixty years. He had also enjoyed the office of sident of the Council of Vixginia. In the year before his death he had published at London his great work, entitled, Our Saviour's Divine Sermon on the Mount Explained, and the Practice of it Recommended, Divers Sermons and Discourses (four vols. 8vo). 231