the general assembly as its agent to England, in 1692, to solicit a charter. He was successful, and the college was established at Williamsburg, and named after the sovereigns who had chartered it. Dr. Blair was appointed to the presidency of the college, a station which he honourably filled for over fifty years. He seems to have united firmness of purpose and much executive ability with considerable culture and literary taste. He published in London, three volumes of discourses on "Our Lord's Sermon upon the Mount," highly prized by Waterland and Doddridge. He died August 1, 1743.—F. B.
BLAIR, John, a Scotch chronologer, born towards the commencement of the eighteenth century, was educated at Edinburgh, whence he removed to London, and became usher in a school. He published in 1745, with a dedication to the lord chancellor Hardwicke, a work entitled "The Chronology and History of the World, from the Creation to the year of Christ, 1753," which procured him the honour of being elected a member of the Royal Society. In 1757 he was appointed chaplain to the dowager princess of Wales, and mathematical tutor to the duke of York. He accompanied his royal pupil on a continental tour in 1763. His death, which occurred in 1782, was hastened by his grief at the loss of his brother, who perished in a naval engagement in June of that year. His lectures "On the Canon of the Old Testament" were published posthumously.—J. S., G.
BLAIR, John, a Scottish poet who flourished in the thirteenth century. He studied theology in Paris, and became a monk of the order of St. Benedict. When the Scottish patriot, Sir William Wallace, was appointed governor of the kingdom in 1294, Blair became his chaplain. He wrote an account of the exploits of Wallace in Latin verse. A fragment only of this work has been preserved in the Cottonian library. It was published by Sir Robert Sibbald, and is translated in Hume of Goodcroft's History of the Douglases.—J. T.
BLAIR, Patrick, a Scottish botanist, was born in Scotland towards the end of the seventeenth century. He practised medicine in Dundee, and was distinguished as an anatomist. He was a nonjuror, and was imprisoned in 1715. He subsequently went to London, and became known to the Royal Society by dissertations on the sexes of flowers. He afterwards settled at Boston in Lincolnshire as a medical man, and seems to have died about 1729. He published "Observations on Physic, Anatomy, Surgery, and Botany," in 1718; Botanic Essays" in 1720; and his "Pharmaco-Botanologia "in 1723-28. He also read many papers to the Royal Society on anatomical and botanical subjects. Houston called a genus of plants Blairia, but it was afterwards included by Linnæus in Verbena.—J. H. B.
BLAIR, Robert, a clergyman of the church of Scotland, and a religious poet of decided genius, was born in Edinburgh in 1699. He was the eldest son of the Rev. David Blair, minister of the old church in that city, and one of the royal chaplains. His grandfather was Robert Blair, minister of St. Andrews in the time of Charles II.; and he was cousin to Hugh Blair, D.D., author of Sermons and Lectures on Rhetoric. The poet lost his father in very early life, and was indebted to his mother for his careful upbringing. She was a daughter of Alexander Nisbet of Carfin, and seems to have been a woman of solid judgment and considerable accomplishments. From maternal consecration, and early choice, young Blair gave himself to the study of divinity, with the view of becoming a minister of the gospel, and was entered as a student of the university of Edinburgh. As was customary with theological students at that period, he went to Holland to complete his studies; and on his return to Scotland he obtained his presbyterial certificate of license to preach the gospel. For some time he faded to secure a church or parish wherein to labour, and therefore devoted the interval of leisure to private studies in botany, natural history, and poetry. It was during this period, while the ardour of youth was fresh on his brow, that he mapped out the external features of "The Grave," the poem by which his name was to become immortal. The theme was unsung, and he set it to music. He prepared the materials which he was afterwards to elaborate into a monument to his own name. In January, 1731, he was ordained minister of Athelstaneford in Haddingtonshire, a parish in every way congenial to his fine taste, studious habits, and his eminently religious character. In this place he remained till the close of his life. His biography as a minister is a brief one. Throughout the week he was occupied in writing sermons and in domiciliary visitation, and on Sabbath he faithfully and forcibly preached to his parishioners. The fact that he kept close terms with Dr. Doddridge of Northampton, and Isaac Watts, lets us see into the temper of the man, as well as indicates the evangelical spirit of the minister. He was married in 1738 to a daughter of Professor Law of Edinburgh. By this union he had a family of five sons and one daughter. One of his sons, Robert, rose from the Scottish bar to the highest seat on the bench, as president of the court of session. It was about the year 1742 that Blair tried the perilous path of authorship. His MS. of "The Grave "was, through the kindness of Isaac Watts, offered to two different London houses, but rejected. He sent the MS. afterwards to Doddridge, with the same unsuccess. Next year, however, the poem was published in London, and was well received. It was not printed in Edinburgh till 1747, after the author was beyond the reach of praise or censure. His death happened in consequence of a fever, on the 4th February, 1746; and his remains were laid in the kirkyard of Athelstaneford, with no rude rhyme, nor fulsome epitaph, to mar the solemnity of the spot, but simply a moss-grey stone, with the two letters R. B. carved thereon, to tell the traveller where the poet lies. His poem is his monument. An obelisk in memory of the poet was erected in Athelstaneford in 1857. "The Grave" is the only poem Blair ever penned. It consists of 767 lines, not quite so lengthy as some of the books of Paradise Lost or the Course of Time. It has no definite plot, is amenable to no unities. It is a gallery of pictures illustrative of the darksome land that lies around the black river of death. On a green knoll is seen the church with the churchyard behind it, the cloud of night giving impressiveness to the scene. Then follows a photograph of the young widow at the grave of her husband: then sketches of Death as the destroyer of friendships, of joy and happiness, as the leveller of rank and nobility, strength and beauty, wisdom and folly, doctor and patient, minister and people. The miser, the suicide, and others, next pass in review; and the poem closes with the Son of God bringing life and immortality to light. You cannot say of it, that it is a copy of any other poem either in style or manner, though many of its quoteable sentiments are often mistaken for those of Shakspeare. Campbell says of Blair, "He may be a homely and even a gloomy poet in the eye of fastidious criticism; but there is a masculine and pronounced character even in his gloom and homeliness, that keeps it most distinctly apart from either dulness or vulgarity." "He excels," says Gilfillan, "in describing the darkest and most terrible ideas suggested by the subject." His originality is most marked; his imagery bold and daring. The poem has been often printed, and is widely spread.—W. B., D.
BLAKE, Joachim, a Spanish general, died at Valladolid in 1827. He belonged to an Irish family that had settled at Malaga. He entered the army as a cadet in 1773. It was not until twenty years afterwards that he attained the rank of captain, and in that capacity served among the volunteers of Castile, in the war against the French republic. In this campaign he was promoted to the rank of brigadier. He afterwards distinguished himself in the insurrectionary war against Napoleon, and was appointed to the chief command of the army of Galicia. In 1812 he was made prisoner of war, and conveyed to the fortress of Vincennes, near Paris, where he remained until the fall of Napoleon. He then returned to his native country, and obtained the command of the corps of military engineers. After the destruction of the constitutional government, which had been established in 1820, he suffered much from the persecutions of the absolutists, on account of his having been a member of the old council of regency.—G. M.
BLAKE, John Bradley, an English naturalist, was born in London on 4th November, 1745, and died at Canton on 16th November, 1773. He studied at Westminster school, and devoted his attention to mathematics, chemistry, and particularly to botany. Having been sent as one of the East India Company's supercargoes to Canton in 1766, he made a large collection of Chinese grasses and seeds, useful in medicine, the arts, and domestic economy, along with dried specimens of the plants which furnished them.—J. H. B.
BLAKE, Joseph, one of the early governors, and one of the proprietaries, of the province of Carolina, before the territory passing under that name was divided into the two colonies of North and South Carolina. His father, a brother of the famous Admiral Blake, had brought him and a colony of dissenters over to Carolina about 1685. Blake himself, though a dissenter, was
