DR HUGH, a distinguished clergyman of the church of Scotland, was born in Edinburgh in 1718. His father, John Blair, was a merchant in that city, and grandson of the famous Mr Robert Blair, minister of St Andrew's, and chaplain to King Charles II.; and one of the most distinguished clergymen of the period in which he lived. The views of Dr Blair, from his earliest youth, were turned toward the church, and his education received a suitable direction. After the usual grammatical course at school, he entered the humanity class in the university of Edinburgh, in October 1730, and spent eleven years at that celebrated seminary, assiduously employed in the literary and scientific studies prescribed by the church of Scotland to all who are to become candidates for her licens to preach the gospel. During this important period he was distinguished among his companions both for diligence and proficiency; and obtained from the professors under whom he studied repeated testimonies of approbation. One of them deserves to be mentioned particularly, because in his own opinion it determined the bent of his genius toward polite literature. An essay, Περὶ τοῦ καλοῦ, On the Beautiful, written by him when a student of logic in the usual course of academical exercises, had the good fortune to attract the notice of Professor Stevenon, and, with circumstances honourable to the author, was appointed to be read in public at the conclusion of the session. This mark of distinction made a deep impression on his mind; and the essay which merited it he ever after recollected with partial affection, and preserved to the day of his death as the first earnest of his fame.

At this time Dr Blair commenced a method of study which contributed much to the accuracy and extent of his knowledge, and which he continued to practice occasionally even after his reputation was fully established. It consisted in making abstracts of the most important works which he read, and in digesting them according to the train of his own thoughts. History, in particular, he resolved to study in this manner; and, in concert with some of his youthful associates, he constructed a very comprehensive scheme of chronological tables for receiving into its proper place every important fact that should occur. The scheme devised by this young student for his own private use was afterwards improved, filled up, and given to the public, by his learned friend Dr John Blair, prebendary of Westminster, in his valuable work, "Chronology and History of the World."

In the year 1739, Dr Blair took his degree of A.M. On that occasion he printed and defended a thesis, De Fundamentis et Obligatione Legis Nature, which contains a short but masterly discussion of this important subject, and exhibits, in elegant Latin, an outline of the moral principles which have been since more fully unfolded and illustrated in his Sermons.

The university of Edinburgh, about this period, numbered among her pupils many young men who were soon to make a distinguished figure in the civil, the ecclesiastical, and the literary history of their country. With most of them Dr Blair entered into habits of intimate connection, which no future competition or jealousy occurred to interrupt, which held them united through life in their views of public good, and which had the most beneficial influence on their own improvement, on the progress of elegance and taste among their contemporaries, and on the general interests of the community to which they belonged.

On the completion of his academical course, he underwent the customary trials before the presbytery of Edinburgh, and received from that venerable body a license license to preach the gospel on the 21st of October 1741. His public life now commenced with very favourable prospects. The reputation which he brought from the university was fully justified by his first appearance in the pulpit; and, in a few months, the fame of his eloquence procured for him a presentation to the parish of Coleslie in Fife, where he was ordained to the office of the holy ministry on the 23d of September 1742. But he was not permitted to remain long in this rural retreat. A vacancy in the second charge of the Canongate of Edinburgh furnished to his friends an opportunity of recalling him to a station more suited to his talents. And, though one of the most popular and eloquent clergymen in the church was placed in competition with him, a great majority of the electors decided in favour of this young orator, and restored him, in July 1743, to the bounds of his native city.

In this station Dr Blair continued eleven years, discharging with great fidelity and success the various duties of the pastoral office. His discourses from the pulpit in particular attracted universal admiration. They were composed with uncommon care; and occupying a middle place between the dry metaphysical discussion of one class of preachers, and the loose incoherent declamation of another, they blended together, in the happiest manner, the light of argument with the warmth of exhortation, and exhibited captivating specimens of what had hitherto been rarely heard in Scotland—the polished, well-compacted, and regular didactic oration.

In consequence of a call from the town-council and general session of Edinburgh, he was translated from the Canongate to Lady Yester's, one of the city churches, on the 11th of October 1754; and on the 15th of June 1758, he was promoted to the High church of Edinburgh, the most important ecclesiastical charge in the kingdom. To this charge he was raised at the request of the lords of council and session, and of the other distinguished official characters, who have their seats in that church. And the uniform prudence, ability, and success, which, for a period of more than forty years, accompanied all his ministerial labours in that conspicuous and difficult station, sufficiently evince the wisdom of their choice.

Hitherto his attention seems to have been devoted almost exclusively to the attainment of professional excellence, and to the regular discharge of his parochial duties. No production of his pen had yet been given to the world by himself, except two sermons preached on particular occasions; some translations, in verse, of passages of Scripture, for the psalmody of the church; and a few articles in the Edinburgh Review, a publication begun in 1755, and conducted for a short time by some of the ablest men in the kingdom. But standing as he now did at the head of his profession, and relieved by the labour of former years from the drudgery of weekly preparation for the pulpit, he began to think seriously on a plan for teaching to others that art which had contributed so much to the establishment of his own fame. With this view, he communicated to his friends a scheme of Lectures on Composition; and having obtained the approbation of the university, he began to read them in the college on the 11th of December 1759. To this undertaking he brought all the qualifications requisite for executing it well; and along with them a weight of reputation which could not fail to give effect to the lessons he should deliver. For beside the testimony given to his talents by his successive promotions in the church, the university of St Andrews, moved chiefly by the merit of his eloquence, had, in June 1757, conferred on him the degree of D.D. a literary honour which at that time was very rare in Scotland. Accordingly his first course of lectures was well attended, and received with great applause. The patrons of the university, convinced that they would form a valuable addition to the system of education, agreed in the following summer to institute a rhetorical class, under his direction, as a permanent part of their academical establishment; and on the 7th of April 1762, his majesty was graciously pleased "To erect and endow a professorship of rhetoric and belles lettres in the university of Edinburgh, and to appoint Dr Blair, in consideration of his approved qualifications, regius professor thereof, with a salary of 70l." These lectures he published in 1783, when he retired from the labours of the office; and the general voice of the public has pronounced them to be a most judicious, elegant, and comprehensive system of rules for forming the style, and cultivating the taste of youth.

About the time in which he was occupied in laying the foundations of this useful institution, he had an opportunity of conferring another important obligation on the literary world, by the part which he acted in rescuing from oblivion the poems of Ossian. It was by the solicitation of Dr Blair and Mr John Home that Mr Macpherson was induced to publish his Fragments of Ancient Poetry; and their patronage was of essential service in procuring the subscription which enabled him to undertake his tour through the Highlands, for collecting the materials of Fingal, and of those other delightful productions which bear the name of Ossian. To these productions Dr Blair applied the test of genuine criticism; and soon after their publication gave an estimate of their merits in a Dissertation, which, for beauty of language, delicacy of taste, and acuteness of critical investigation, has few parallels. It was printed in 1763, and spread the reputation of its author throughout Europe.

The great objects of his literary ambition being now attained, his talents were for many years consecrated solely to the important and peculiar employments of his station. It was not till the year 1777, that he could be induced to favour the world with a volume of the sermons which had so long furnished instruction and delight to his own congregation. But this volume being well received, the public approbation encouraged him to proceed; three other volumes followed at different intervals; and all of them experienced a degree of success of which few publications can boast. They circulated rapidly and widely, wherever the English tongue extends; they were soon translated into almost all the languages of Europe; and his present majesty, with that wise attention to the interests of religion and literature which distinguishes his reign, was graciously pleased to judge them worthy of a public reward. By a royal mandate to the exchequer in Scotland, dated the 25th of July 1780, a pension of 200l. a-year was conferred on their author, which continued unaltered till his death.

The motives which gave rise to the fifth volume are sufficiently explained by himself in his address to the reader. The sermons which it contains were composed at very different periods of his life; but they were all written out anew in his own hand, and in many parts recomposed, during the course of the summer 1800, after he had completed his eighty-second year. They were delivered to the publishers about six weeks before his death in the form and order in which they now appear. And it may gratify his readers to know that the last of them which he composed, though not the last in the order adopted for publication, was the sermon on a Life of Dissipation and Pleasure—a sermon written with great dignity and eloquence, and which should be regarded as his solemn parting admonition to a class of men whose conduct is highly important to the community, and whose reformation and virtue he had long laboured most zealously to promote.

The sermons which he has given to the world are universally admitted to be models in their kind; and they will long remain durable monuments of the piety, the genius, and sound judgment of their author. But they formed only a small part of the discourses he prepared for the pulpit. The remainder modestly led him to think unfit for the press: and, influenced by an excusable solicitude for his reputation, he left behind him an explicit injunction that his numerous manuscripts should be destroyed. The greatness of their number was creditable to his professional character, and exhibited a convincing proof that his fame as a public teacher had been honourably purchased by the most unwearied application to the private and unseen labours of his office. It rested on the uniform intrinsic excellence of his discourses in point of matter and composition, rather than on foreign attractions; for his delivery, though distinct, serious, and impressive, was not remarkably distinguished by that magic charm of voice and action which captivates the senses and imagination, and which in the estimation of superficial hearers, constitutes the chief merit of a preacher.

In that department of his professional duty which regarded the government of the church, Dr Blair was steadily attached to the cause of moderation. From disdine, and perhaps from a certain degree of inaptitude for extemporary speaking, he took a less public part in the contests of ecclesiastical politics than some of his contemporaries; and, from the same causes, he never would consent to become moderator of the general assembly of the church of Scotland. But his influence among his brethren was extensive: his opinion, guided by that sound uprightness of judgment which formed the predominant feature of his intellectual character, had been always held in high respect by the friends with whom he acted, and for many of the last years of his life it was received by them almost as a law. The great leading principle in which they cordially concurred with him, and which directed all their measures, was to preserve the church on the one side from a flaxen corrupted dependence on the civil power, and on the other from a greater infusion of democratical influence than is compatible with good order, and the established constitution of the country.

The reputation which he acquired in the discharge of his public duties was well sustained by the great respectability of his private character. Deriving from family associations a strong sense of clerical decorum, feeling on his heart deep impressions of religious and moral obligation, and guided in his intercourse in the world by the same correct and delicate taste which appeared in his writings, he was eminently distinguished through life, by the prudence, purity, and dignified propriety of his conduct. His mind, by constitution and culture, was admirably formed for enjoying happiness:—well balanced in itself by the nice proportion and adjustment of its faculties, it did not incline him to any of those eccentricities, either of opinion or of action, which are too often the lot of genius; free from all tincture of envy, it delighted cordially in the prosperity and fame of his companions; sensible to the estimation in which he himself was held, it disposed him to dwell at times on the thought of his success with a satisfaction which he did not affect to conceal; inaccessible alike to gloomy and to peevish impreisions, it was always master of its own movements, and ready, in an uncommon degree, to take an active and pleasing interest in every thing, whether important or trifling, that happened to become for the moment the object of his attention. This habit of mind, tempered with the most unsusppecting simplicity, and united to eminent talents and inflexible integrity, while it secured to the last his own relish of life, was wonderfully calculated to endear him to his friends, and to render him an invaluable member of any society to which he belonged. Indeed few men have been more universally esteemed by those who knew him, more sincerely esteemed in the circle of his acquaintance, or more tenderly beloved by those who enjoyed the blessings of his private and domestic connexion.

In April 1748, he married his cousin Catharine Bannatine, daughter of the Rev. James Bannatine, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. By her he had a son who died in infancy, and a daughter who lived to her twenty-first year, the pride of her parents, and adorned with all the accomplishments that became her age and sex. Mrs Blair herself, a woman of great good sense and spirit, was also taken from him a few years before his death, after she had shared with the tenderest affection in all his fortunes, and contributed near half a century to his happiness and comfort.

Dr Blair had been naturally of a feeble constitution of body; but as he grew up his constitution acquired greater firmness and vigour. Though liable to occasional attacks from some of the sharpest and most painful diseases that afflict the human frame, he enjoyed a general state of good health; and, through habitual cheerfulness, temperance, and care, survived the usual term of human life. For some years he had felt himself unequal to the fatigue of instructing his very large congregation from the pulpit; and, under the impression which this feeling produced, he has been heard at times to say, with a sigh, 'that he was left almost the last of his contemporaries.' Yet he continued to the end in the regular discharge of all his other official duties, and particularly in giving advice to the afflicted, who from different quarters of the kingdom solicited his correspondence. His last summer was devoted to the preparation of his fifth volume of sermons; and in the course of it he exhibited a vigour of understanding and capacity of exertion equal to that of his best days.

He began the winter pleased with himself on account of the completion of this work, and his friends were were flattered with the hope that he might live to enjoy the accession of emolument and fame which he expected it would bring. But the seeds of a mortal disease were lurking unperceived within him. On the 24th of December 1800, he complained of a pain in his bowels, which, during that and the following day, gave him but little uneasiness; and he received as usual the visits of his friends. On the afternoon of the 26th, the symptoms became violent and alarming: He felt that he was approaching the end of his appointed course; and retaining to the last moment the full possession of his mental faculties, he expired on the morning of the 27th, with the composure and hope which became a Christian pastor.

John, a Scottish author, was cotemporary with, and the companion, some say the chaplain, of Sir William Wallace. He attended that great hero in almost all his exploits: and, after his death, which left so great a stain on the character of Edward I. of England, he wrote his memoirs in Latin. The injury of time has destroyed this work, which might have thrown the greatest light on the history of a very busy and remarkable period. An inaccurate fragment of it only has descended to us, from which little can be learned, and which was published, with a commentary, by Sir Robert Sibbald.

James, an eminent divine, was born and bred in Scotland, where he had at length a benefice in the episcopal church; but meeting with some discouragements he came to England, in the latter end of the reign of King Charles II. and was sent by Dr Compton as a missionary to Virginia, and was afterwards, by the same bishop, made commissary for that colony, the highest office in the church there. He distinguished himself by his exemplary conduct and unrewarded labours in the work of the ministry; and finding that the want of proper seminaries for the advancement of religion and learning was a great damp upon all attempts for the propagation of the gospel, he formed a design of erecting and endowing a college at Williamsburgh, in Virginia, for professors and students in academical learning. He therefore not only set on foot a voluntary subscription; but, in 1693, came to England to solicit the affair at court: when Queen Mary was so well pleased with the noble design, that she espoused it with particular zeal; and King William readily concurring with her majesty, a patent was passed for erecting and endowing a college by the name of the William and Mary college, of which Mr Blair was appointed president, and enjoyed that office near 50 years. He was also rector of Williamsburgh, and president of the council in that colony. He wrote, Our Saviour's divine Sermon on the Mount explained, in several sermons, 4 vols, octavo; and died in 1743.

John, an eminent chronologist, was educated at Edinburgh; and coming to London was for some time usher of a school in Hedge-Lane. In 1754, he presented to the world that valuable publication, "The Chronology and History of the World, from the Creation to the year of Christ 1753. Illustrated in LVI. Tables; of which four are introductory and contain the centuries prior to the first Olympiad; and each of the remaining LII. contains in one expanded view 50 Years, or half a century." This volume, which is dedicated to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, was published by subscription, on account of the great expense of the plates, for which the author apologized in his preface, where he acknowledged great obligations to the earl of Bath, and announced some chronological dissertations, wherein he proposed to illustrate the disputed points, to explain the prevailing systems of chronology, and to establish the authorities upon which some of the particular eras depend. In January 1755, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1761 of the Society of Antiquaries. In 1756 he published a second edition of his "Chronological Tables." In September 1757, he was appointed chaplain to the princess dowager of Wales, and mathematical tutor to the duke of York; and on Dr Townshend's promotion to the deanery of Norwich, the services of Dr Blair were rewarded, March 10. 1761, with a prebendal stall at Westminster. The vicarage of Hinckley happening to fall vacant six days after, by the death of Dr Morres, Dr Blair was presented to it by the dean and chapter of Westminster; and in August that year he obtained a dispensation to hold with it the rectory of Burton Coggles in Lincolnshire. In September 1763 he attended his royal pupil the duke of York in a tour to the continent; had the satisfaction of visiting Lisbon, Gibraltar, Minorca, most of the principal cities in Italy, and several parts of France, and returned with the duke in August 1764. In 1768 he published an improved edition of his "Chronological Tables," which he dedicated to the princess of Wales, who had expressed her early approbation of the former edition. To the new edition were annexed, "Fourteen Maps of Ancient and Modern Geography, for illustrating the Tables of Chronology and History. To which is prefixed a Dissertation on the Progress of Geography." In March 1771, he was presented by the dean and chapter of Westminster to the vicarage of St Bride's in the city of London; which made it necessary for him to resign Hinckley, where he had never resided for any length of time. On the death of Mr Sims, in April 1776, he resigned St Bride's, and was presented to the rectory of St John the Evangelist in Westminster; and in June that year obtained a dispensation to hold the rectory of St John with that of Horton, near Colebrooke Bucks. His brother Captain Blair falling gloriously in the service of his country in the memorable sea-fight of April 12. 1782, the shock accelerated the Doctor's death. He had at the same time the influenza in a severe degree, which put a period to his life, June 24. 1782. His library was sold by auction December 11-13th, 1782; and a course of his "Lectures on the Canons of the Old Testament" hath since been advertised as intended for publication by his widow.