The New International Encyclopædia/Blair, Robert

BLAIR, Robert (1699-1746). A Scottish clergyman and writer. He was born in Edinburgh, was educated at the university there and in Holland, was licensed to preach in 1729, and from 1731 until his death was settled at Athelstaneford in East Lothian. Besides an elegiac poem and several paraphrases of Scripture which have been totally forgotten, he wrote the forcible but strikingly lugubrious poem of "67 lines, entitled The Grave, which, first published in 1743, enjoyed considerable popularity and was frequently reprinted.