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MEMOIR

OF

ROBERT BLAIR.

ROBERT BLAIR, author of THE GRAVE, was born in Edinburgh in the year 1699. His father was one of the ministers of the Old Church of that city; his mother was Euphemia Nisbet, daughter of Archibald Nisbet, Esq. of Carfin, in Lanarkshire. The family are remotely descended from that of Blair of that ilk,-a respectable house among the provincial gentry of Ayrshire. Blair lost his father in his boyhood, but was carefully educated under the care of his surviving parent. His classical education was completed in Holland, which, till the middle of the last century, was a favourite resort of the Scottish youth. Early in life, while a student of theology, Blair became known in his native city as a young man of talent and promise; and sustained this reputation by the occasional publication of little fugitive poetical pieces. None of those early productions are of any

great value; but at that period literary talent of this kind had the merit of rarity.

In his thirty-second year, Blair was presented to the church of Athelstoneford, in East Lothian ; and two years afterwards he married the daughter of Professor Law, to whose memory he had dedicated a poem. His marriage was in all respects happy; and of his life little more is known, than that he lived at Athelstoneford for the remainder of his days, which were not long, discharging the duties of his sacred office, and occasionally cultivating the lighter and more engaging branches of science, particularly botany. It may be presumed that poetry was not neglected; but the muse of Blair was of too lofty and severe a character to be either garrulous or obtrusive.

The easy distance of Athelstoneford from the metropolis, must have afforded Blair the pleasure of society as often as he chose; and among his other country neighbours, whose intimacy was worth cultivating, was the celebrated Colonel Gardiner. These excellent men were capable of understanding and valuing each other; and the cordial friendship which subsisted between them was only terminated by death. Blair enjoyed the correspondence and friendship of Dr Doddridge and of Dr Watts, men as eminent in their own times for talent as for piety.

The author of THE GRAVE must have been an eloquent and impressive preacher. His poem is indeed a sermon, an eloquent and a sublime one.

In the narrow circle of his parish and neighbourhood, his virtues and kindness were long held in affectionate remembrance. He died of fever on the 4th of February, 1746, in the 47th year of his age. Mr Blair left three daughters and five sons, the fourth of whom, Robert, was the late Lord President of the Court of Session, one of the most illustrious names that appear on the records of the Scottish courts. Few of Blair's descendants are now alive.

He was cousin-german to Dr Hugh Blair, the well-known author of Sermons, &c. It is worthy of notice, that he was succeeded in the ministry of Athelstoneford by Home, author of the tragedy of Douglas.

THE GRAVE is the only production of Blair that has attracted general attention; for a short poem of his to the memory of Mr William Law, professor of philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, whose daughter he afterwards married, though sometimes published with THE GRAVE, is of very inferior merit. THE GRAVE was rather undervalued by the critics on its first appearance; yet no poem of a serious cast has enjoyed a more sustained reputation. It has become part of the staple of our current poetry. Editions in all forms have been multiplied without end during a period of eighty years. Time is the true touchstone of merit. We may safely trust to the judgment of three-score and ten years.

This poem was composed while the author was still a student; but it was probably corrected and

It

amplified by his more matured judgment. everywhere exhibits a manly and vigorous spirit; and if some of the detached sketches want the grace of colouring and the smoothness of beauty, the truth of their anatomy is unimpeachable, and the moral expression dignified and masculine.

Every original thinker insensibly forms his own style. The genius of Spencer and Milton, Shakspeare and Pope, is as distinctly traced in their diction, "the garb of their thoughts," and in the structure of their verse, as in the higher poetical attributes of their rich and varied minds. THE GRAVE also has its peculiar style. It was one of the happiest escapes from the leash of rhyming couplets that was made during the last century; and though Blair neither caught the majestic harmony of Milton's numbers, nor the broken and varied melody of Shakspeare's blank verse, his own manner pleases, as Mr Campbell acutely remarks, like the powerful expression of a countenance without regular beauty.

But it is idle to talk of his style whose mind was intensely fixed on that place where

The strength of action, and the force of words, The well-turned period, and the well-tuned voice, With all the lesser ornaments of phrase,

Are fled for ever.

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Blair dealt with poetry more as a great moral agent than as the sweet song of one that hath a pleasant voice." Yet his imagery is often what the

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