BLACKWOOD -BLAIR. 



557 



eyes, as to be unable to distinguish his own children 

 at the distance of two or three yards : in the impos- 

 sibility of employing himself in study, he was pre- 

 vailed upon, by the advice of the archbishop, to 

 betake himself to a custom of nocturnal prayer, and 

 hence the composition of this book. In 1606, Black- 

 wood published a Latin poem on the inauguration of 

 James VI., as king of Great Britain. In 1609, ap- 

 peared at Poitiers, a complete collection of his Latin 

 poems. He died in 1623, in the seventy-fourth year 

 of his age, and was splendidly interred in St Porcha- 

 rius' church at Poitiers, where a marble monu- 

 ment was reared to his memory, charged with a long 

 panegyrical epitaph. In 1644, appeared his Opera 

 Omnia, in one volume 4to, edited by the learn- 

 ed Naudeus, who prefixes an elaborate eulogium 

 upon the author. His brother, HENRY, distin- 

 guished himself as a physician at Paris, and died 

 in 1613. 



BLACKWOOD, Sir Henry, K. C. B., an English naval 

 officer, who early distinguished himself in his profes- 

 sion At the victory of Trafalgar, he command- 

 ed the Euryalus frigate, and was the bearer of 

 the despatches from Lord Collingwood announcing 

 that glorious event. He also rendered himself emi- 

 nently conspicuous by his gallant conduct when 

 commanding the Penelope in the Mediterranean, by 

 his capture of the Guillaume Tell, a French eighty- 

 gun ship, which struck her flag to Sir Henry, after a 

 smart engagement. He subsequently commanded 

 the Warspite, seventy-four, on the Mediterranean 

 station, and was created a baronet of the United 

 Kingdom by George IV., when prince regent, on the 

 occasion of his steering the royal barge on the visit 

 of the allied sovereigns to Portsmouth, in July, 1814. 

 Sir Henry was groom of the bed-chamber to William 

 IV., when duke of Clarence, and he retained his place 

 in the royal household, to the period of his demise. 

 He died Dec. 14, 1832, in his sixty-second year. 



BLADENSBURG ; a post-town in Prince George's 

 county, Maryland, on the eastern branch of the Po- 

 tomac, six miles N. E. Washington ; Ion. 76 57' W. ; 

 lat. 38 56' N. It contains about a hundred houses. 

 A battle was fought here, August 24, 1814, between 

 the British and Americans, in which the latter were 

 defeated. This success of the British led the way to 

 the conquest and burning of Washington. 



BLAIR, Hugh, D. D., an eminent Scottish divine 

 and cultivator of polite literature, was born at Edin- 

 burgh, April 7, 1718, and commenced his academic 

 career at the university there, in 1730. An essay, nip 

 rit xx, that is, upon the Beautiful, written by him 

 when a student of logic in the usual course of acade- 

 mical exercises, had the good fortune to attract the 

 notice of professor Stevenson, and, with circumstances 

 honourable to the author, was appointed to be read 

 in public at the conclusion of the session. This mark 

 of distinction, which occurred in his sixteenth year, 

 made a deep impression on his mind ; and the essay 

 which merited it, he ever after recollected with par- 

 tial affection, and preserved to the day of his death, 

 as the first earnest of his fame. 



In 1739, on taking the degree of master of arts, 

 B. printed his thesis, De Fundamentis et Obligations 

 Lcgis Natures, which contains a brief outline of these 

 moral principles afterwards developed in his sermons, 

 and displays the first dawnings of that virtuous sensi- 

 bility, by which he was at all periodsof his public life so 

 highly distinguished. On the 21st of Oct., 1741, he 

 was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Edin- 

 burgh, and soon began,- in the usual manner, to ex- 

 hibit himself occasionally in the pulpit. Heretofore, 

 the only popular style of preaching in Scotland was 

 that of the high-flying party, whicli consisted chiefly 

 in an impassioned address to the devotional feelings 



of the audience. The moderate party, who were, of 

 course, less popular, had neither lost the practice of 

 indulging in tedious theological disquisitions, nor ac- 

 quired that of expatiating on the moral duties. The 

 sermons of this young licentiate, which presented 

 sound practical doctrines, in a style of language al- 

 most unknown in Scotland, struck the minds of the 

 audience as something quite new. In the course of 

 a very few months, his fame had travelled far beyond 

 the bounds of his native city. A sermon which he 

 preached in the West Church, produced an extra- 

 ordinary impression, and was spoken of in highly 

 favourable terms to the earl of Leven. His lordship 

 accordingly presented the preacher to the parish 

 church of Colessie in Fife, which happened to be 

 then vacant. He was ordained to this charge, Sept, 

 23, 1742, but was not long permitted to labour in so 

 confined a scene. In a few months, he was brought 

 forward by his friends as candidate for the second 

 charge of the church of Canongate, which may almost 

 be considered a metropolitan situation. In the 

 popular election which followed, he was successful 

 against a very formidable competitor, Mr Robert 

 Walker, then a favourite preacher. He was induct- 

 ed to this charge, July 14, 1743, when he had little 

 more than completed his twenty-fifth year. During 

 the eleven years which he spent in the Canongate, 

 his sermons attracted large audiences from the adjoin- 

 ing city, and were alike admired for their eloquence 

 and piety. 



In 1754, he was called by the town council of 

 Edinburgh to accept of one of the city charges, that 

 of Lady Tester's church, and in 1758, he was pro- 

 moted by the same body to the highest situation at- 

 tainable by a Scottish clergyman, one of the charges 

 of the High church. 



In 1759, he commenced, with the approbation of 

 the university, a course of lectures upon the prin- 

 ciples of literary composition. His most zealous 

 friends to this undertaking were David Hume and lord 

 Kames, the latter of whom had devoted much atten- 

 tion to the subject. The approbation bestowed upon 

 the lectures was so very high, and their fame became 

 so generally diffused, that the town council resolved 

 to institute a rhetorical class in the university, under 

 his direction ; and, in 1762, this professorship was 

 taken under the protection of the crown, with a salary 

 of seventy pounds a year. Dr B. continued to deli- 

 ver his lectures annually till 1783, when he published 

 them for the more extensive benefit of mankind. 

 They are not by any means, nor were they ever pre- 

 tended to be, a profound or original exposition of the 

 laws of the belles lettres. They are acknowledged 

 to be a compilation from many different sources, and 

 only designed to form a simple and intelligible code 

 for the instruction of youth in this department of 

 knowledge. Regarded in this light, they are entitled 

 to very high praise, which has accordingly been li- 

 berally bestowed by the public. These lectures 

 have been repeatedly printed, and still remain an 

 indispensable monitor in the study of every British 

 scholar. 



Dr Blair had, in common with his friend, John 

 Home, taken a deep interest in the exertions of Mac- 

 pherson, for the recovery of the Highland traditionary 

 poetry, and, in 1763, relying without suspicion upon 

 the faith of the collector, he prefixed to the " Poems 

 of Ossian " a dissertation, pointing' out the beauties 

 of those compositions. The labour mnst, of course, 

 be now pronounced, in a great measure, useless ; but 

 nevertheless it remains a conspicuous monument of 

 the taste of Dr B. 



It was not till 1777, that he could be prevailed 

 upon to offer to the world any of those pennons with 

 which he had so long delighted a private congrega- 



