558 



BLA1U. 



tiuu. \Ve are informed by Boswell, in his Life of 

 Johnson, that when H. transmitted u volume to Mr 

 Sirulian, tin; king's printer, that gentleman, ufu-r let- 

 ting it lie besiile him for some time, returned a letter 

 dboonngtag the publication. It is probable Umt 

 this opinion, which seem-; to have lieen given only on 

 fjcneral grounds, might have caused l)r U. to aban- 

 don his intention ; but, fortunately, Mr Stralmn had 

 sent one of the sermons to l)r JoOMOa for his opin- 

 ion, and after his nnfa\ounil)Ie letter to Dr B. 

 had been .sent nlf, he received from Johnson, Oil 

 Christinas eve, 177G, the following characteristic 

 imie: 1 h.ive read over Dr Blair's first sermon, 

 with more than approbation; to say it is good is to 

 say too little." Mr Stralmn had very soon after this 

 time a conversation with Dr Johnson, concerning the 

 sermons ; and then he very candidly wrote again to 

 Dr B., enclosing Johnson's note, and agreeing to 

 purchase the volume, with Mr Cadell, for one hun- 

 dred pounds. The sale was so rapid and extensive, 

 and tlit; approbation of the public so high, that, to 

 their honour IH> it recorded, the proprietors made Dr 

 B. a pn-M-nt, first of one sum, and afterwards of an- 

 other, of fifty pounds; thus voluntarily doubling the 

 stipulated price. The volume speedily fell under the 

 attention of George 111., and by a royal mandate to 

 i he exchequer in Scotland, dated July 25, 1780, a 

 a pension of 200 a-year was bestowed on Dr. B. 



During the subsequent part of his life, DrB. pub- 

 lished three other volumes of sermons ; and it might 

 safely be said, that each successive publication only 

 tended to deepen the impression produced by the 

 first. These compositions, which were translated 

 into almost every language in Europe, formed only 

 a small part of the discourses which he prepared for 

 the pulpit. The number of those which remained 

 was creditable to his professional character, and ex- 

 hibited a convincing proof that his fame as a public 

 Uacher liad been honourably purchased, by the most 

 unwearied application to the private and unseen la- 

 bours of his office. Out of his remaining manuscripts, 

 he had prepared a fifth volume, which appeared after 

 his death ; the rest, according to an explicit injunc- 

 tion in his will, were committed to the flames. 



Though his bodily constitution was by no means 

 robust, yet by habitual temperance, and by attention 

 to health, Dr B.'s life was prolonged beyond the 

 usual period. For some years he had felt himself 

 unequal to the fatigue of instructing his very large 

 congregation from the pulpit ; and under the impres- 

 sion which tins feeling produced, he has been heard 

 to say, with a sigh, that, " he was left almost the last 

 of his contemporaries." Such, nevertheless, was the 

 vigour of his mind, that, in 1799, when past the 

 eightieth year of his age, he composed and preached 

 one of the most effective sermons he ever delivered, on 

 behalf of the fund for the benefit of the sons of the 

 clergy. He was also employed during the summer of 

 1800, in preparing his last volume for the press; and 

 tor this purpose, he copied the whole with his own 

 luind. He began the winter, pleased with himself 

 on account of this exertion ; but the seeds of a mortal 

 disease were lurking within him, and he died on the 

 27th December, 1799, in the eighty-third year of his 

 age, and the fifty-ninth of his profession as a minister 

 ot the gospel. Dr B. had been married, in 1748, to 

 his cousin, Katharine Bannatyne, daughter of the 

 Rev. James Bannatyne, one of the ministers of 

 Edinburgh. By this lady he had a son, who died in 

 infancy, and a daughter, who survived only to her 

 twenty-first year. 



BLAIR, James, a divine, who was reared for the 

 episcopal church of Scotland, at the time when it 

 was struggling with popular dislike in the reign 

 ot Charles 1L. Discouraged by the equivocal situa- 



tion of that establishment in Scotland, he voluntarily 

 abandoned his preferments, ami removed to hngkmd, 

 where he was patronized by Compton, bishop of 

 London. By this prelate lie was prevailed upon to 

 go as a missionary to Virginia, in 1085, and, having 

 given the greatest satisfaction by his /cal in the pro- 

 pagation of religion, he was, in lGS!>, preferred to the 

 office of commissary to the bishop, which was the 

 highest ecclesiastical dignity in that, province. His 

 exertions were by no mi ans confined to his ordinary 

 duties. Observing the disadvantage under which 

 Uie province laboured through the want of seminaries 

 lor the education of a native clergy, he set about, 

 and finally was able to accomplish, DMT honourable 

 work of founding the college of Williamsl>ur<:h, 

 which was afterwards, by his personal intervention, 

 endowed by king William 111., with a patent, under 

 the title of the William and Mary college, lie died 

 in 1743, after having been president of this institution 

 for about fifty, and a minister of the gospel for abo\ e 

 sixty years. He had also enjoyed the office of presi- 

 dent of the council of Virginia. In the year before 

 his death, he had published at London, his great work, 

 entitled, Our Saviour's Divine Sermon on the 

 Mount Explained, and the Practice of it Recom- 

 mended, in divers sermons and discourses, four vols. 

 8vo. 



BLAIR, John ; an eminent chronologist and geo- 

 grapher, a native of Scotland, which country he 

 quitted for London about the middle of the last cen- 

 tury. Though he had received a good classical edu- 

 cation at Edinburgh, he thought himself fortunate in 

 obtaining the situation of usher in a school in Hedge, 

 lane, London. In 1754, the publication of a work in 

 folio, entitled, the Chronology and History of tin; 

 World, from the Creation to A. D. 1753, gained him 

 great reputation. In the composition of this book, 

 he is said to have been materially assisted by his re- 

 lation, Dr Hugh Blair. In it, he illustrates his sub- 

 ject by fifty-six tables, four of which are introductory, 

 containing the centuries which precede the first 

 Olympiad^ He dedicated his work to the lord chan- 

 cellor Hardwicke, and, in 1757, was appointed 

 chaplain to the princess dowager of Wales, and 

 mathematical tutor to the duke of York, whom lie 

 accompanied, in 1763, on a tour to the continent, 

 having already received several ecclesiastical prefer- 

 ments. On his return to England, he published, in 

 1768, a new edition of his Chronological Tables, 

 with fourteen maps of ancient and modern geography 

 annexed. He died, June 24, 1782, of an attack of 

 influenza. After his death were published his Course 

 of Lectures on the Canon of the Old Testament, 

 and a duodecimo volume, entitled the History ot 

 Geography. 



BLAIR, Patrick, M. D., a distinguished botanist in 

 the earlier period of the existence of that science in 

 Britain, Avas first known as a practitioner of surgery 

 and physic at Dundee, where he brought himself into 

 prominent notice as an anatomist, 1706, by the dis- 

 section of an elephant which died near that place. 

 He was a non-juror or Scottish episcopalian, and so 

 far attached to the exiled family of Stuart, as to be 

 imprisoned during the insurrection of 1715, as a sus- 

 pected person. He afterwards removed to London, 

 where he recommended himself to the attention of 

 the Royal Society by some discourses on the sexes of 

 flowers. His stay in London was short, and after 

 leaving it, he settled at Boston in Lincolnshire, 

 where Dr Pulteney conjectures that he practised 

 physic during the remainder of his life. The same 

 writer in his " Historical and Biographical Sketches 

 of English Botany," supposes that his death happen- 

 ed soon after the publication of the seventfi Decad t/f 

 his r/iarmacol/otanologia, in 1728. 



