JET. 23.] PRESIDENT BLAIR. 233 



legal fancy was confined to the papers which, under 

 the old system of the Court, contained almost all the 

 arguments of counsel ; while Tait's penetrating acute- 

 ness, almost preternatural and quickness, of which 

 he was sometimes himself the dupe were, in spoken 

 argument, constantly remarked with wonder. * 



Blair was a speaker of a very high order, without 

 those qualifications which distinguished Tait. Of a 

 bold and masculine understanding, extreme sagacity, 

 and profound reflection, with little fancy in invent- 

 ing topics, and no great nimbleness in meeting or 

 escaping objections, he yet always brought to bear 

 upon his subject a plain and homely vigour, to which 

 almost all difficulties yielded, and before which almost 

 all antagonists gave way. His style, too, both of rea- 

 soning and diction, bore the impress of his nature ; 

 they were plainly suited to the man ; they were racy 

 and they were apposite. The hearer never for a mo- 

 ment doubted that the speaker thoroughly understood 

 the whole matter in hand, and was perfect master of 

 it. Despising the vulgar arts of ordinary advocates, 

 he unfolded the subject to all exactly as he saw it 

 himself; and his comments had so much force, were 

 so plain, yet so strong, and clothed with so much 

 dignity of expression, as well as presented with so 

 much gravity and yet earnestness of manner, that his 

 discourse seemed rather judicial than forensic, and he 



* William Tait, admitted a member of the Speculative Society in 

 1776, died in 1800. Was Sheriff of Stirlingshire, and in Parliament 

 for the Kinghorn burghs in Fifeshire. History of the Speculative 

 Society, p. 131. Of Clerk, see above. 



