713 



BLAIR, JOHN, LL.D. 



BLAKE, ROBERT. 



711 



the publisher; and 300i were offered for the next volume. It is 

 stated that Dr. Blair was paid at the rate of 6001. for each of the sub- 

 sequent volumes. The fifth volume, which was published after Blair's 

 death, consists of discourses written at different times ; but it was 

 carefully prepared for the press a little before his death in the eighty- 

 eecond year of his age. In 17SO a pension of 20(V. a year was conferred 

 on him by the king, which he enjoyed till his death. 



Dr. Blair did not possess a strong constitution, and towards the 

 latter part of his life he was unable to fulfil his duties in the pulpit; 

 but his intellect was unimpaired to the last, and his large congregation 

 had still the benefit of his services as their friend and adviser. His 

 counsel was sought not only by those around him, but it was fre- 

 quently solicited from distant places, in which the benevolence of his 

 disposition had been made known by his published discourses. 



Dr. Blair's literary reputation rests upon his 'Sermons' and his 

 ' Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres,' both of which enjoyed 

 a long period of popularity. The sermons appeared at a time when 

 the elegant and polished stjle, which is their chief characteristic, was 

 less common than at present ; and to this merit, such as it is, they 

 chiefly owed their success. They are still read by many people with 

 pleasure, on account of their clear and easy style, and the vein of 

 sensible though not very profound observation which runs through 

 them ; but they have no claim to be ranked among the best and most 

 solid specimens of sermon-writing which our language contains. The 

 ' Lectures ' have not been less popular than the ' Sermons,' and were 

 long considered as a text-book for the student. They are however, 

 like the ' Sermons,' exceedingly feeble productions, and show neither 

 depth of thought nor intimate acquaintance with the best writers, 

 ancient and modern ; nor do they develope and illustrate, as a general 

 rule, any sound practical principles. 



(Finlayson, Life of Dr. Blair, prefixed to his Sei'mons.) 



BLAIR, JUHN", a relative of Hugh Blair, and well known as the 

 author of a valuable set of chronological tables, went to London for 

 the purpose of improving his fortune, and was at first engaged as 

 teacher in a school. In 1754 he published ' The Chronology and 

 History of the World, from the Creation to the year 1753, in fifty-six 

 Tables, by the Rev. John Blair, LL.D.' This work was dedicated to 

 Hie Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. In the following year he was elected 

 l.K.s., and in 1761 F.A.S. A second edition of bis 'Chronology' 

 appeared in 1768, to which were added maps of ancient and modern 

 geography. In September 1757 he was appointed chaplain to the 

 Princess Dowager of Wales, and mathematical tutor to the Duke of 

 York; and in 1761 to a prebendal stall at Westminster. Six days 

 afterwards the vicarage of Hinckloy, Leicestershire, having become 

 vacant, he was presented to it by the dean and chapter of Westminster ; 

 and he obtained a dispensation to hold with it the rectory of Burton 

 Coggles, Lincolnshire. In 1763 he attended his pupil, the Duke of 

 York, on a continental tour, during which they visited France, Italy, 

 Spain, and Portugal, and returned home after about a year's absence. 

 He received several other pieces of church preferment besides those 

 above mentioned. His death took place June 24, 1782. A course of 

 his ' Lectures on the Canons of the Old Testament,' and a small volume 

 entitled ' The History of Geography," were published after his death. 



BLAIR, ROBERT, author of a poem entitled ' The Grave,' was born 

 in the year 1699. Few particulars are known respecting him. His 

 father was one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and chaplain to the king; 

 and after securing to hi< son the advantages of a liberal education at 

 the university, he sent him to the continent for bis further improve- 

 ment. On the 5th of January 1731 he was ordained minister of 

 Athelstaneford, where he spent the remainder of his life. He had by 

 his marriage a daughter and five sons, one of whom became solicitor- 

 general for Scotland. He appears to have been in easy circumstances, 

 was fond of gardening, and had a taste for botany ; and these pursuit?, 

 together with a correspondence which he maintained on scientific 

 subjects, engaged much of the time which was not required for the 

 performance of his ministerial duties. In the pulpit he is said to have 

 been serious and earnest. Watts and Doddridge honoured him with 

 their esteem : he submitted his poem to them, and in a letter to the 

 latter states that it wag written before his ordination. Watts signified 

 his approbation of this production, and offered it to two booksellers, 

 who however both declined undertaking the publication. Blair seems 

 to have anticipated the reception which it would meet, and attributed 

 it to the serious nature of the subject. He had however endeavoured 

 to conciliate public favour, for he says in his letter to Doddridge : 

 " In order to make it more generally liked, I was obliged sometimes to 

 go cross to my own inclination, to make it go down with a licentious 

 age which cares for none of these things." It found a publisher a few 

 years before its author's death, and attained a considerable amount of 

 popularity. ' The Grave' is written in a striking and vigorous manner, 

 and has always been most popular among persons of an uncultivated 

 taste, possessing some strength of mind, and a serious disposition. 

 With tbe exception of a short piece written in memory of Mr. Law, 

 one of the professors of the University of Edinburgh, ' The Grave ' is 

 the only production of Blair's which we possess. The author died of 

 n fever, February 4, 1746, in the forty-seventh year of his age. Home, 

 the author of ' Douglas," succeeded him in his living. 



BLAKE, ROBERT, one of the most intrepid and successful admirals 

 that have adorned the British navy, was born about the end of August, 



1598, at Bridgewater in Somersetshire, where his father exercised the 

 business of a merchant. He was educated at the Bridg^water grammar- 

 school until he was sixteen years of age, when he was removed to 

 Oxford, where he became successively a member of St. Alban's Hall 

 and Wadbam College. Blake was of a studious turn, yet fond of 

 field-sports and violent exercises ; and his first biographer reports a 

 piece of scandal against him, that he was given now and then to 

 stealing swans, a species of game, so to call it, then much esteemed, 

 and protected by severe laws. ('Lives, English and Foreign,' 1704.) 

 We may infer that he had a fair share of scholastic learning, from his 

 having stood, though unsuccessfully, both for a studentship at Christ- 

 church and a fellowship at Merton College. He returned to Bridgewater 

 when he was about twenty-seven years old, and lived quietly on his 

 paternal estate till 1640, with the character of a blunt bold man, of 

 ready humour, and fearless in the expression of his opinions, which, 

 both on matters of politics and religion, were opposed to the views of 

 the court. These qualities gained for him the confidence of the 

 Presbyterian party in Bridgewater, which returned him for that 

 borough to the short parliament of April 1640. The speedy dissolution 

 of that assembly (May 5) gave him little opportunity of trying his 

 powers as a debater. 



On the breaking out of the civil war he raised a troop in Somersetshire, 

 which took part in almost every action of importance which occurred 

 in the western counties. In 1643 he held the command of a fort at 

 Bristol when that city was besieged by the royalists. Having main- 

 tained his post, and killed some of the king's soldiers after the governor 

 had agreed to surrender, Prince Rupert was with difficulty induced to 

 spare his life, which, it was alleged, was forfeited by this violation 

 of the laws of war. In 1644, holding an independent command sa 

 colonel, he rapidly concentrated as many troops as he could collect, 

 and surprised Taunton, a place of great importance, as being the only 

 parliamentary fortress in the west of England. He was appointed 

 governor of Taunton, and in that capacity gave eminent proof of skill, 

 courage, and constancy, in maintaining the town during two successive 

 sieges in 1645. 



In February 1649 Colonel Blake, in conjunction with two officers of 

 the same rank, Deane and Popham, was appointed to command the fleet, 

 under the title of General of the Sea, the military and naval services not 

 then being kept separate and distinct as in later times. For this new 

 office Blake soon showed signal capacity. On the renewal of war after 

 the king's death he was ordered to the Irish Seas in pursuit of Prince 

 Rupert, whom he blockaded in the harbour of Kiusale for several 

 months. At length, being pressed by want of provisions and threatened 

 from the land, the prince made a desperate effort to break through the 

 parliamentary squadron, and succeeded, but with the loss of three 

 ships. He fled to the river Tague, pursued by Blake, who blockaded 

 him there for several months. Being denied permission to attack his 

 enemy, and the king of Portugal favouring Rupert in various ways, 

 Blake captured and sent home several richly-laden Portuguese vessels 

 on their way from Brazil. He finally attacked and destroyed the 

 royalist fleet, with the exception of two ships, commanded by the 

 princes Rupert and Maurice, in the harbour of Malaga, January, 1651. 

 The King of Portugal protested against these proceedings as broaches 

 of international law; but Blake's conduct, after being judicially inves- 

 tigated by the authorities at home, was deliberately approved some 

 compensation however being allowed to the merchants who had 

 suffered and his services were recompensed by the thanks of parlia- 

 ment, together with the office of Warden of the Cinque Ports ; and in 

 March of the same year, Blake, Deane, and Popham were constituted 

 admirals and generals of the fleet for the year ensuing. In that 

 capacity Blake took the Scilly Islands, Guernsey, and Jersey, from the 

 royalists, for which he was again thanked by parliament ; and in the 

 same year he was elected a member of the Council of State. 



In March 1652, Blake was appointed sole admiral for nine mouths, 

 in expectation of the Dutch war, which did in fact break out in the 

 following May, in consequence of Van Tromp, the Dutch admiral, 

 standing over to the English coast and insulting the English flag. 

 Blake, who was then lying in Rye Bay, immediately sailed to the east- 

 ward, and fell in with the Dutch fleet in the Straits of Dover. A 

 sharp action ensued, May 19, which was maintained till night, to the 

 advantage of the English, who took one Dutch man-of-war and sunk 

 another. The Dutch retreated under cover of the darkness, leaving 

 the honour of victory to the English. The States did not approve, or 

 at least disavowed the conduct of their admiral, for they left no 

 means untried to satisfy the English government ; and when they 

 found the demands of the latter so high as to preclude accommodation, 

 they dismissed Van Tromp, and placed De Ruyter and Cornelius de 

 Witt in command of their fleet Meanwhile Blake took ample revenge 

 for their aggression. He made a number of rich prizes among tbe 

 Dutch homeward-bound merchantmen, which were pursuing their 

 course without suspicion of danger; and when he had effectually 

 cleared the Channel he sailed to the northward, dispersed the fleet 

 engaged in the herring fishery, and captured a hundred of the herring 

 busses, together with a squadron of twelve ships of war sent out to 

 protect them. On tbe 12th of August he returned to the Downs, and 

 September 28th the hostile fleets again came to an engagement, in 

 which the Dutch rear-admiral was taken, and three other Dutch ships 

 were destroyed. Night put an end to the action, and though for two 



