The New International Encyclopædia/Blair, Henry William

BLAIR, Henry William (1834—). An -American politician and lawyer, born in Campton. N. H. He received an academic education, was admitted to the bar in 1859, and was prosecuting attorney for Grafton County in 1860. During the war he was lieutenant-colonel of the Fifteenth New Hampshire Volunteers. He was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1866: of the State Senate, from 1867 to 1868; and Republican Representative in the Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses. From 1879 to 1891 he was United States Senator. He was appointed Minister to China in 1891, but that Government declined to receive him because of a bill which he had introduced for the purpose of restricting Chinese immigration. A bill to prohibit the sale and manufacture of liquors placed him in the van of the temperance ranks. The Blair Common-School Bill, appropriating $77,000,000 to the States in proportion to their illiteracy, was another of his measures.

BLAIR, Hugh (1718-1800). A Scottish divine and man of letters. He was born in Edinburgh, April 7, 1718. He was educated at the university of his native city, where he attracted the attention of his instructors by an Essay on the Beautiful. In October, 1741, he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Edinburgh; and after occupying the churches of Colessie in Fifeshire, Canongate Church in Edinburgh. and Lady Tester's, he was promoted in 1758 to the highest position attainable by a Scotch clergyman—one of the charges of the High Church". Edinburgh. His discourses, which display little power or originality of thought, more yet greatly admired on account of their polished style. In 1759 Blair commenced a series of lectures on composition at the university; and three years afterwards, a new chair of rhetoric and belles-lettres, with a salary of £70 a year, being created by the Crown, Blair was made professor. He held this appointment uintil 1783, when he resigned: and in the same year published his Lectures, which obtained a reputation far beyond their merits, and one that time has by no means sanctioned. His first volume of sermons, which appeared in 1777, proved a great success. George III. showed his appreciation of them by bestowing on Blair, in 1780, a pension of £200 a year. Opinion about their merits has much changed since the date of their publication; they are now considered as moral essays rather than sermons. Blair's critical acumen was not great: he strenuously defended the authenticity of Ossian's poems. He died December 27, 1800. For his life, consult Finlayson (London, 1801), and Hill (Edinburgh, 1807).