Anal., Carlyle's Autob.; Playfair's Bar., iii.; etc.]

1758 HUGH BLAIR, born 7th April 1718, son of John B., merchant, Edinburgh, and grandson of Robert B., min. of St Andrews; educated at Edinburgh Univ.; M.A. (1739); licen. by Presb. of Edinburgh 21st Oct. 1741; ord. to Collessie 23rd Sept. 1742; trans. to Second Charge, Canongate, 14th July 1743; trans. to Lady Yester's 11th Oct. 1754; D.D. (St Andrews, 13th June 1757); trans. and adm. 15th June 1758; Lecturer in Rhetoric and Belles lettres, Univ. of Edinburgh, 1759; Regius Professor of the same 1762; chaplain to the 1st Batt. 71st Foot 1776; retired from the duties of his chair 1783; died 27th Dec. 1800. He marr. 19th April 1748, his cousin, Katherine (died 9th Feb. 1795), daugh. of James Bannatine, min. of Trinity College Church, and bad issue-a son, who died in infancy; Katherine, born 24th Jan. 1749, died 23rd Aug. 1769. Blair's Sermons are the chief source of his celebrity. They were part of the literary revival in Edinburgh, and, like Robertson's History, they took people in London by surprise. His discoverer may be said to be Dr Johnson, for, when Strahan the publisher failed to appreciate the merit of the -.NIS. which had been handed to him, Johnson got a sight of it and said: " I have read over Dr Blair's first sermon with more than approbation: to say it is good is to say too little." The volume was then published, and had at once a great sale, no devotional work produced in Scotland having attracted so much attention. Both from diffidence and from a singular deficiency as an extempore speaker, he refrained from prominent public appearances, and declined the Moderatorship of Assembly. Publications-De Fundamentis et Obligatione Legis Naturce (1728); The Wrath of Man praising God, a sermon (Edinburgh, 1746); The Importance of Religious Knowledge to the Happiness of Mankind, a sermon (Edinburgh, 1750); Observations upon the Analysis of the Moral and Religious Sentiments contained in the Writings of Sopho and David Hume, Esq. (Edinburgh, 1755);

A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the Son of Fingal (London, 1763); Sermons, 5 vols. (Edinburgh, 1777; London, 1801); Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles - lettres, 2 vols. (London, 1783); The Compassion and Benevolence of the Deity, a sermon (Edinburgh, 1796); four Articles in the Edinburgh Review (Edinburgh, 1755); Translations and Paraphrases (used by the Church of Scotland), iv., xxxiii., xxxiv., xliv., xlv.; Pastoral Admonition addressed by the General Assembly, 23rd May 1799, to the people under their charge.-[Hill's Life; Sermons, v.; Carlyle's Autob., Mackenzie's Life of Home, Somerville's Life, Kay's Portr., Dict. Nat. Biog.]

1801  GEORGE HUSBAND BAIRD, born 13th July 1761, second son of James B., Inveravon, Bo'ness; educated at the parish schools of Bo'ness and Linlithgow, and at the Univ. of Edinburgh; tutor in the family of Colonel Blair of Blair 1784; licen. by Presb. of Linlithgow 5th July 1786; M.A. (Edinburgh, 29th March 1787); ord. to Dunkeld 3rd April 1787; pres. to Lady Yester's 1789, but declined; trans. to New Greyfriars, Edinburgh, 15th Nov. 1792; joint Professor of Oriental Languages in the Univ. of Edinburgh 1792; D.D. (Edinburgh, 24th Oct. 1792); Principal of Edinburgh Univ. 1793; min. of New North Parish 10th Jan. 1799; Moderator of Assembly 1800; trans. and adm. 30th April 1801; died at Manuel, Linlithgow, 14th Jan. 1840. He was founder and first convener of the General Assembly's Highlands and Islands Committee 1824. Though advanced in years, he travelled no fewer than seven thousand miles in the interests of this work, affirming that "he had found nearly one hundred thousand human beings unable either to read or write, and innumerable districts where the people could not hear sermon above once a year, and had seen thousands of habitations where a Sabbath bell was never heard, where be had now witnessed schools and libraries established, knowledge increased, and greedily received." He marr. 8th Aug. 1792, Isabella (died 18th