prospects. The reputation which he brought from the university was fully justified by his first appearance in the pulpit; and, in a few months, the fame of his eloquence procured for him a presentation to the parish of Colessie in Fife, where he was ordained to the office of the holy ministry on the 23d of September 1742. But he was not permitted to remain long in this rural retreat, A vacancy in the second charge of the canongate of Edinburgh furmished to his friends an opportunity of recalling him to a station more suited to his talents. And, though one of the most popular and eloquent clergymen in the church was placed in competition with him, a great majority of the electors decided in favour of this young orator, and restored him in July 1743 to the bounds of his native city. "In this station Dr. Blair continued eleven years, discharging with great fidelity and success the various duties of the pastoral office. His discourses from the pulpit in particular attracted universal admiration. They were composed with uncommon care; and, occupying a middle place between the dry metaphysical discussion of one class of preachers, and the loose incoherent declamation of another, they blended together, in the happiest manner, the light of argument with the warmth of exhortation, and exhibited captivating specimens of what had hitherto been rarely heard in Scotland-the polished, well-compacted, and regular didactic oration. "Iu consequence of a call from the town-council and general session of Edinburgh, he was translated from the canongate to lady Yester's, one of the city churches, on the 11th of October 1754: and on the 15th day of June 1758 he was promoted to the high church of Edin burgh, the most important eccle siastical charge in the kingdom. To this charge he was raised at the request of the lords of council and session, and of the other distin guished official characters who have their seats in that church. And the uniform prudence, ability, and success which, for a period of more than forty years, accompanied all his ministerial labours in that conspicuous and difficult station, sufficiently evince the wisdom of their choice. "Hitherto his attention seems to have been devoted almost exclusively to the attainment of professional excellence, and to the regular discharge of his parochial duties. No production of his pen had yet been given to the world by himself, except two sermons preached on particular occasions, some translations in verse of passages of Scripture for the psalmody of the church, and a few articles in the Edinburgh Review-a publication begun in 1755, and conducted for a short time by some of the ablest men in the kingdom. But standing as he now did at the head of his profession, and released by the labour of former years from the drudgery of weekly preparation for the pulpit, he began to think seriously on a plan for teaching to others that art which had contributed so much to the establishment of his own fame. With this view, he communicated to his friends a scheme of Lectures on Composition; and having obtained the approbation of the university, he began to read them in the college on the 11th of December 1759. To this undertaking he brought all the qualifications requisite for executing it well; and along with them a weight of reputation which could not fail to give effect to the lessons 1 ་ he should deliver. For besides the testimony given to his talents by his successive promotions in the church, the university of St. Andrew's, moved chiefly by the merit of his eloquence, had in June 1757 conferred on him the degree of D.D. a literary honour which at that time was very rare in Scotland. Accordingly his first course of lec. tures was well attended, and received with great applause. The patrons of the university, convinced that they would form a valuable addition to the system of education, agreed in the following summer to institute a rhetorical class, under his direction, as a permanent part of their academical establishment: and on the 7th of April 1762 his majesty was graciously pleased To erect and endow a Professorship of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the university of Edinburgh, and to appoint Dr. Blair, in consideration of his approved qualifications, Regius Professor thereof, with a salary of 701.' These Lectures he published in 1783, when he retired from the labours of the office; and the general voice of the public has pronounced them to be a most judicious, elegant, and comprehensive system of rules for forming the style and cultivating the taste of youth. About the time in which he was occupied in laying the foundations of this useful institution he had an opportunity of conferring another important obligation on the literary world, by the part which he acted in rescuing from oblivion the poems of Ossian. It was by the solicitation of Dr. Blair and Mr. John Home that Mr. Macpherson was induced to publish his Fragments of Ancient Poetry; and their patronage was of essential service in procuring the subscription which enabled him to undertake his tour through the Highlands for collecting the materials of Fingal, and of those other delightful productions which bear the name of Ossian. To these productions Dr. Blair applied the test of genuine criticism; and soon after their publication gave an estimate of their merits in a Dissertation, which for beauty of language, delicacy of taste, and acuteness of critical investigation, has few parallels. It was printed in 1763, and spread the reputation of its author throughout Europe. "The great objects of his literary ambition being now attained, his talents were for many years conse crated solely to the important and peculiar employments of his station. It was not till the year 1777 that he could be induced to favour the world with a volume of the Sermons which had so long furnished instruction and delight to his own congregation. But this volume being well received, the public approbation encouraged him to proceed: three other volumes followed at different intervals; and all of them experienced a degree of success of which few publications can boast. They circulated rapidly and widely wherever the English tongue extends; they were soon translated into almost all the languages of Europe; and his present majesty, with that wise attention to the interests of religion and literature which distinguishes his reign, was graciously pleased to judge them worthy of a public reward. By a royal mandate to the exchequer in Scotland, dated July 25th, 1780, a pension of 2001. a year was conferred on their author, which continued unaltered till his death. "The motives which gave rise to the present volume are sufficiently explained by himself in his address to to the reader. The sermons which it contains were composed at very different periods of his life; but they were all written out anew in his own hand, and in many parts recomposed, during the course of last summer, after he had completed his eighty-second year. They were delivered to the publishers about six weeks before his death in the form and order in which they now appear. And it may gratify his readers to know that the last of them which he composed, though not the last in the order adopted for publication, was the sermon on a Life of Dissipation and Pleasure a sermon written with great dignity and eloquence, and which should be regarded as his solemn parting admonition to class of men whose conduct is highly important to the community, and whose reformation and virtue he had long laboured most zealously to promote. a "The sermons which he has given to the world are universally admitted to be models in their kind; and they will long remain durable monuments of the piety, the genius, and sound judgment of their author. But they formed only a small part of the discourses he prepared for the pulpit, The remainder modesty led him to think unfit for the press; and, influenced by an excusable solicitude for his reputation, he left behind him an explicit injunction that his numerous manuscripts should be destroyed. The greatness of their number was creditable to his professional character, and exhibited a convincing proof that his fame as a public teacher had been honourably purchased by the most unwearied application to the private and unseen labours of his office. It rested on the uniform intrinsic excellence of his discourses in point of matter, and composition, rather than on foreign attractions; 'for his delivery, though distinct, serious, and inpressive, was not remarkably distinguished by that magic charm of voice and action which captivates the senses and imagination, and which, in the estimation of superficial hearers, constitutes the chief merit of a preacher. "In that department of his professional duty, which regarded the government of the church, Dr. Blair was steadily attached to the cause of moderation. From diffidence, and perhaps from a certain degree of inaptitude for extemporary speak-, ing, he took a less public part in the contests of ecclesiastical politics than some of his cotemporaries;, and, from the same causes, he never would consent to become moderator of the general assembly of the But his in-, church of Scotland. fluence among his brethren was ex-, tensive: his opinion, guided by that sound uprightness of judgment which formed the predominant feature of his intellectual character, had been always held in high respect by the friends with whom he acted, and for many of the last years of his life it was received by them almost as a law. The great leading principle in which they cordially concurred with him, and which directed all their measures, was to preserve the church on the one side from a slavish corrupting dependence on the civil power and on the other from a greater infusion of democratical influence than is compatible with good order and the established constitution of the country. "The reputation which he acquired in the discharge of his public duties was well sustained by the great respectability of his pri A 4 vate vate character. Deriving from family associations a strong sense of clerical decorum, feeling on his heart deep impressions of religious and moral obligation, and guided in his intercourse in the world by the same correct and delicate taste which appeared in his writings, he was eminently distinguished through life by the prudence, purity, and dignified propriety of his conduct. His mind, by constitution and culture, was admirably formed for enjoying happiness :- well-balanced in itself by the nice proportion and adjustment of its faculties, it did not incline him to any of those eccentricities, either of opinion or of action, which are too often the lot of genius; free from all tincture of envy, it delighted cordially in the prosperity and fame of his companions; sensible to the estimation in which he himself was held, it disposed him to dwell at times on the thought of his success with a satifaction which he did not affect to conceal; inaccessible alike to gloomy and to peevish impressions, it was always master of its own movements, and ready, in an uncommon degree, to take an active and pleas ing interest in every thing, whether important or trifling, that happened to become for the moment the object of his attention. This habit of mind, tempered with the most unsuspecting simplicity, and united to eminent talents and inflexible integrity, while it secured to the last his own relish of life, was wonderfully calculated to endear him to his friends, and to render him an invaluable member of any society to which he belonged. Accordingly there have been few men more universally respected by those who knew him, more sincerely esteemed in the circle of his acquaintance, or more tenderly be loved by those who enjoy the blessings of his private and domestic connexion. "In April 1748 he married his cou. sin Catharine Bannatine, daughter of the Rev. James Bannatine, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. By her he had a son who died in infancy, and a daughter who lived to her twenty-first year, the pride of her parents, and adorned with all the accomplishments that became her age and sex. Mrs. Blair herself, a woman of great good sense and spirit, was also taken from him a few years before his death, after she had shared with the tenderest affection in all his fortunes, and contributed near half a century to his happiness and comfort. "Dr. Blair had been naturally of a feeble constitution of body; but as he grew up his constitution ac quired greater firmness and vigour. Though liable to occasional attacks from some of the sharpest and most painful diseases that afflict the human frame, he enjoyed a general state of good health; and, through habitual cheerfulness, temperance, and care, survived the usual term of human life.-For some years he had felt himself unequal to the fatigue of instructing his very large congregation from the pulpit; and, under the impression which this feeling produced, he has been heard at times to say, with a sigh, that he was left almost the last of his cotemporaries.' Yet he continued to the end in the regular discharge of all his other official duties, and particularly in giving advice to the afflicted, who from different quarters of the kingdom solicited his correspondence. His last summer was devoted to the preparation of this volume of Sermons; and in the course of it he exhibited a vigour of understanding and and capacity of exertion equal to that of his best days. He began the winter pleased with himself on account of the completion of this work; and his friends were fiattered with the hope that he might live to enjoy the accession of emolument and fame which he expected it would bring. But the seeds of a mortal disease were lurking unperceived within him. On the 24th of December, 1800, he complained of a pain in his bowels, which, during that and the following day, gave him but little uneasiness; and he received as usual the visits of his friends. On the afternoon of the 26th the symptoms became violent and alarming:-he felt that he was approaching the end of his appointed course: and retaining to the last moment the full possession of his mental faculties, he expired on the morning of the 27th with the composure and hope which became a Christian pastor." PROGRESS of DR. ROBERTSON's Literary PLANS and UNDERTAKINGS. HISTORY of the REIGN of the EMPEROR CHARLES V. [From "ACCOUNT of the LIFE and WRITINGS of WILLIAM RoBERTSON, D.D. F.R.S.E. by Mr. DUGALD STEWART."] DUR URING the time that the History of Scotland was in the press, Dr. Robertson removed with his family from Gladsmuir to Edinburgh, in consequence of a presentation which he had received to one of the churches of that city. His preferments now multiplied rapidly. In 1759, he was appointed chaplain of Stirling Castle; in 1761, one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary for Scotland; and, in 1762, he was chosen principal of this university. Two years after wards, the office of king's historiographer for Scotland (with a salary of two hundred pounds a-year) was revived in his favour. "The revenue arising from these different appointments, though far exceeding what had ever been enjoyed before by any presbyterian clergyman in Scotland, did not satisfy the zeal of some of Dr. Robertson's admirers, who, mortified at the narrow field which this part of the island afforded to his ambi tion, wished to open to it the career of the English church. References to such a project occur in letters addressed to him about this time by sir Gilbert Elliot, Mr. Hume, and Dr. John Blair. What answer he returned to them I have not been able to learn; but, as the subject is mentioned once only by each of these gentlemen, it is presumable that his disapprobation was expressed in those decided terms which became the consistency and dignity of his character. "Dr. Robertson's own ambition was, in the mean time, directed to a different object. Soon after the publication of his Scottish history, we find him consulting his friends about the choice of another historical subject; anxious to add new laurels to those he had already acquired. Dr. John Blair urged him strongly on this occasion to write a complete history of England; and mentioned to him, as an inducement, a conversation between lord |