Blair

Blair, HUGH, was born at Edinburgh in 1718, and in 1730 entered the university, where his Essay on the Beautiful gave his preceptors a high idea of his ability and taste. In 1741 he was licensed as a preacher, and after occupying the churches of Collesie in Fife, Canongate, and Lady Yester's, he was promoted in 1758 to one of the charges of the High Church, Edinburgh. His discourses, which display little power or originality of thought, and which derived nothing from the delivery of their author, were greatly admired by 'persons of the most distinguished character and eminent rank' in Scotland on account of their polished style. In 1759 he commenced a series of lectures on Composition to classes in the university; and in 1762 he was appointed to a new regius chair of Rhetoric and Belles-lettres, with a salary of £70 a year. He resigned this post in 1783, and in the same year published his Lectures, which obtained a reputation far beyond their merits, and one that time has by no means confirmed. His Sermons (1777) enjoyed the approval not only of Dr Johnson, but of George III., who showed his appreciation by bestowing on Blair in 1780 a pension of £200 a year. Blair also published three other volumes of Sermons, and a fourth appeared after his death, which took place December 27, 1800. They were all as successful as the first. Opinion about their merits has much changed since the date of their publication; they are now considered as moral essays rather than sermons. Blair's critical acumen was not great; he strenuously defended the authenticity of Ossian's poems.