BLAIR, James, an eminent divine, born in Scotland, where he was ordained and benefited in the Episcopal church. Going to England about the end of the reign of Charles II., he was sent by Dr Compton as a missionary to Virginia, and afterwards by the same bishop made commissary, which was the highest ecclesiastical office in that colony. He formed a design of erecting and endowing a college at Williamsburg, in Virginia; and, in 1693, came to England to solicit
Blair. assistance; when Queen Mary espoused the noble design, and with the concurrence of King William, a patent was passed for erecting and endowing a college by the name of the William and Mary College, of which Blair was appointed president, an office which he enjoyed for nearly fifty years. He was also rector of Williamsburg, and president of the council in that colony. He died in 1743, leaving four volumes of discourses on our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount. London, 1742.