urope. In 1780
George III. conferred upon Blair a pension of L200 a year. In 1783 he
retired from his professorship and published his _Lectures on Rhetoric_,
which have been frequently reprinted. He died on the 27th of December
1800. Blair belonged to the "moderate" or latitudinarian party, and his
_Sermons_ have been criticized as wanting in doctrinal definiteness. His
works display little originality, but are written in a flowing and
elaborate style. He is remembered chiefly by the place he fills in the
literature of his time. _Blair's Sermons_ is a typical religious book of
the period that preceded the Anglican revival.

See J. Hall, _Account of Life and Writings of Hugh Blair_ (1807).

BLAIR, JAMES (1656-1743), American divine and educationalist, was born
in Scotland, probably at Edinburgh, in 1656. He graduated M.A. at
Edinburgh University in 1673, was beneficed in the Episcopal Church in
Scotland, and for a time was rector of Cranston Parish in the diocese of
Edinburgh. In 1682 he left Scotland for England, and three years later
was sent by the bishop of London, Henry Compton, as a missionary to
Virginia. He soon gained great influence over the colonists both in
ecclesiastical and in civil affairs, and, according to Prof. Moses Coit
Tyler, "probably no other man in the colonial time did so much for the
intellectual life of Virginia." He was the minister of Henrico parish
from 1685 until 1694, of the Jamestown church from 1694 until 1710, and
of Bruton church at Williamsburg from 1710 until his death. From 1689
until his death he was the commissary of the bishop of London for
Virginia, the highest ecclesiastical position in the colony, his duties
consisting "in visiting the parishes, correcting the lives of the
clergy, and keeping them orderly." In 1693, by the appointment of King
William III., he became a member of the council of Virginia, of which he
was for many years the president. Largely because of charges brought
against them by Blair, Governor Sir Edmund Andros, Lieutenant-governor
Francis Nicholson, and Lieutenant-governor Alexander Spotswood were
removed in 1698, 1705 and 1722 respectively. Blair's greatest service to
the colony was rendered as the founder, and the president from 1693
until his death, of the College of William and Mary, for which he
himself secured a charter in England. "Thus, James Blair may be called,"
says Tyler, "the creator of the healthiest and most extensive
intellectual i