BLAIR, Robert, author of the well-known poem entitled The Grave, was the eldest son of the Rev. Robert Blair, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and the grandson of that Robert Blair who was so conspicuous among the Scottish clergy in the civil wars. He was probably born at Edinburgh about the year 1700, and at the university of that city received the elements of a classical education. He afterwards spent some time on the Continent. Upon his return he took orders, and in 1731 was ordained minister of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died of a fever, Feb. 4. 1746; and was succeeded in his living by John Home, the author of Douglas. Blair had five sons and one daughter; the late Robert Blair of Avontown, Lord President of the Court of Session, being his fourth son.
Blair wrote several other pieces besides The Grave; but that poem alone constitutes his title to rank as a poet. It consists of a succession of descriptions and reflections, which have no other connection except what they may derive from their relation to a common subject; but these are interspersed with striking allusions, picturesque imagery, touches of a rude though effective pathos, and a vein of sentiment at once natural and just. The rhythm is often harsh, and the versification frequently devoid of correctness, harmony, and grace; but it has nevertheless a masculine vigour and freshness about it, which more than atone for the defects in the finishing; while, in certain moods of the mind, the air of deep and almost misanthropical melancholy diffused over the whole, proves highly touching and impressive. Camp-
bell, in the Pleasures of Hope, has borrowed, with a slight variation, a line from this poem:—
its visits,
Like those of angels, short and far between.
The vigorous, though occasionally rather forced, poetic conceptions of the author of The Grave, were finely illustrated, in Cromek's edition published in 1808, by the grandly wild designs of William Blake, engraved by the delicate burin of Schiavonetti. The Grave was first printed at London in 1743.