| Hugh Blair |
| Scottish (1718-1800) |
| The son of a merchant, Hugh Blair attended Edinburgh University (M.A. 1739). Blair (a noted preacher) delivered his lectures on composition under the patronage of Lord Kames, leading to his appointment as the first occupant of the chair of rhetoric and belles lettres at Edinburgh in 1762. He was a friend of David Hume, Alexander Carlyle, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, William Robertson — and James Macpherson, for whom he published A Dissertation on Ossian in 1763. Blair's sermons were praised by Samuel Johnson and won the author a royal pension in 1780. |
Blair entries: didactic poem |