Hugh Blair, the sentiments and preaching the enlightenment in Scotland

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Notes

1. Quoted in Sher, The Enlightenment and the Book, 33.

2. Ibid., 33, 245–247.

3. Matheson, Theories of Rhetoric, 38.

4. Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment, 1–21; Rosenblatt, “The Christian Enlightenment,” 283–301; Sullivan, “Rethinking Christianity in Enlightened Europe,” 298–309; Israel, Enlightenment Contested, 11.

5. Hill, An Account of the Life and Writings; Schmitz, Hugh Blair.

6. Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment; see also Sher's informative brief article, ‘Blair, Hugh’, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 6, 79–82.

7. Dwyer, Virtuous Discourse; Dwyer also discusses Blair and sensibility in The Age of the Passions, and in “Enlightened Spectators and Classical Moralists,” 96–118.

8. Matheson, Theories of Rhetoric, especially 191–213; Brinton, “Hugh Blair and the True Eloquence,” 30–42; McCain, “Preaching in Eighteenth Century Scotland.” For a brief overview of Blair's preaching, see also Golden, “Hugh Blair: Minister of St Giles.”

9. Schmitz, Hugh Blair, 11–13, Matheson, Theories of Rhetoric, 85–86.

10. Blair, Dissertatio Philosophica Inauguralis.

11. Edinburgh Review, 1 (1755), 9–23; Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment, 68–70.

12. Blair, Observations upon a Pamphlet.

13. Hume to Blair, [1761], in Hume, The Letters of David Hume, vol. 1, 348–351.

14. For Blair's leading role in the Ossian controversy, see Dwyer, “The Melancholy Savage”; Rizza, “A Bulky and Foolish Treatise?; and Sher, “Percy, Shaw and the Ferguson ‘Cheat’,” 129–46, 164–206, 207–245; Schmitz, Hugh Blair, 42–60.

15. Blair, “Preface,” i–viii.

16. Blair, A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, 33, 36, 37.

17. Price, “Ossian and the Canon in the Scottish Enlightenment,” 111.

18. Hume to Blair, 26 April 1764, in Letters of David Hume, vol. 1, 436.

19. Adam Smith had given public lectures on rhetoric in Edinburgh from 1748–1751, probably at the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh. When Smith accepted a chair at Glasgow, the lectures were given by Robert Watson, until he went to an academic chair at St Andrews in 1756. Matheson, Theories of Rhetoric, 86–87.

20. Allan, Virtue, Learning and the Scottish Enlightenment, 188; Miller, “Witherspoon, Blair and the Rhetoric of Civic Humanism,” 100–114.

21. Dwyer, Virtuous Discourse, 19.

22. For a balanced character sketch from one who knew him well, see Hill, An Account of the Life and Writings, 157–85.

23. Carlyle, Autobiography of the Rev. Dr Alexander Carlyle, 291.

24. H. Blair to T. Cadell, 20 February 1794, British Library, Add. Ms. 28098, fols. 18–19; H. Blair to R. Burns, 4 May 1787, National Library of Scotland, Ms 3408, fols. 3–4; Fergusson, “Burns and Hugh Blair”; Bredin, The Pale Abyssinian, 259.

25. Somerville, My Own Life and Times, 166–167.

26. Hill, An Account of the Life and Writings, 131–148.

27. Ibid., 57; Matheson, Theories of Rhetoric, 157.

28. Blair, The Wrath of Man Praising God.

29. Ibid., 12.

30. Ibid., 26.

31. Ibid., 31.

32. Blair, The Importance of Religious Knowledge to the Happiness of Mankind, 11.

33. Ibid., 14, 16.

34. Ibid., 23.

35. Ibid., 27.

36. Ibid., 29.

37. Ibid., 31.

38. Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature, especially 58–125; for a valuable discussion of Hutcheson on the passions and providence, see Harris, “Religion in Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy.”

39. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, vol. 2, 248.

40. Smith, A Theory of Moral Sentiments, 67–93; Dwyer, The Age of the Passions, 14–21, 35–41.

41. Ibid., 73–74.

42. Dwyer, Virtuous Discourse, 52–64.

43. Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment, 74–92.

44. O'Brien, “Robertson's Place,” 75, 83–84.

45. H. Blair to [W. Strahan], 29 October 1776, National Library of Scotland, Ms. 1707, fols. 4–5; Schmitz, Hugh Blair, pp. 81–84; Sher, The Enlightenment and the Book, 245–246; Graham, Scottish Men of Letters, 128.

46. Sher, “Blair, Hugh,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 6, 79–82.

47. Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres, quoted in Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment, 170.

48. Hill, An Account of the Life and Writings, 134.

49. Diary entry for 23 February 1785, in Scott and Pottle, Private Papers of James Boswell, vol. 16 (1783–1786), 70–71.

50. His knowledge of astronomy and the Newtonian cosmology probably came from his cousin and friend, Dr Robert Blair, a surgeon, who had, according to Hugh Blair, also achieved eminence in ‘astronomy & optics’. H. Blair to Very Rev Dr McCormick, Principal of United Colleges, St Andrews, 13 August 1785, National Library of Scotland, Ms. 3112, fols. 30–31; Clerke and McConnell, “Blair, Robert (1748–1828),” 91.

51. H. Blair, “On the Creation of the World,” in Sermons by Hugh Blair, vol. 3 (London, 1790), 393–394.

52. Ibid., 401.

53. H. Blair, “On the Dissolution of the World,” Sermons, vol. 3, 425, 417.

54. Ibid., 421–422.

55. Ibid., 433.

56. H. Blair, “On the Unchangeableness of the Divine Nature,” in Sermons by Hugh Blair, vol. 2, (London, 1780), 85–116.

57. H. Blair, “On the Government of Human Affairs by Providence,” Sermons by Hugh Blair, vol. 5 (London, 1801), 409.

58. Ibid., p. 410.

59. H. Blair, “On Devotion,” Sermons by Hugh Blair, [vol. 1], (London, 1777), 277.

60. H. Blair, “On the Government of Human Affairs by Providence,” Sermons, vol. 5, 412.

61. H. Blair, “On the Government of the Heart,” part 2, Sermons, vol. 2, 54.

62. H. Blair, “On the Disorders of the Passions,” Sermons, vol. 2, 183.

63. Ibid., 201–202.

64. H. Blair, “On Envy,” Sermons, vol. 3, 150–151.

65. H. Blair, “On Patience,” Sermons, vol. 3, 232–233.

66. H. Blair, “On the Mixture of Joy and Fear in Religion,” Sermons, vol. 1, 414.

67. H. Blair, “On the Joy, and the Bitterness of the Heart,” Sermons, vol. 3, 269.

68. H. Blair, “On Patience,” Sermons, vol. 3, 221.

69. H. Blair, “On Devotion,” Sermons, vol. 1, 263.

70. H. Blair, “On the Character of Hazael,” Sermons, vol. 2, 345–346.

71. H. Blair, “On Moderation,” Sermons, vol. 3, 259.

72. H. Blair, “On the Influence of Religion upon Adversity,” Sermons, vol. 1, 45, 46–47.

73. H. Blair, “On the Government of the Heart,” part 2, Sermons, vol. 2, 55.

74. H. Blair, “On the Love of Praise,” Sermons, vol. 2, 148–177.

75. H. Blair, “On the Government of the Heart,” (2), Sermons, vol. 2, 62.

76. H. Blair, “On Devotion,” Sermons, vol. 1, 265, 270.

77. Ibid., 272, 283.

78. Ibid., 283, 286.

79. Ibid., 295.

80. Matheson, Theories of Rhetoric, 199; McCain, “Preaching in Eighteenth Century Scotland,” 135.

81. H. Blair, “On the Character of Joseph,” Sermons, vol. 2, 309–334.

82. H. Blair, “On the Moral Character of Christ,” Sermons, vol. 5, 63.

83. H. Blair, “On the Death of Christ,” Sermons, vol. 1, 126, 127.

84. H. Blair, “On the Government of the Heart,” part 2, Sermons, vol. 2, 56.

85. H. Blair, “On the Last Judgement,” Sermons, vol. 5, 473–474.

86. H. Blair, “On our Imperfect Knowledge of a Future State,” Sermons, vol. 1, 96–97.

87. Ibid., 105.

88. Ibid., 107; for valuable analyses of this sermon, see Ahnert, “The Soul, Natural Religion and Moral Philosophy” and Broadie, The Scottish Enlightenment, 147–149.

89. Dwyer, The Age of the Passions, especially, 1–13.

90. Matheson, Theories of Rhetoric, 94; Monk, The Sublime, 129.

91. Anon., Letters on Dr Blair's Sermons, 12.

92. Rosenblatt, “The Christian Enlightenment,” 293.

93. Nowak, Schleiermacher: Leben, Werk und Wirkung, 72–73, 80. I am grateful to my colleague, Dr Paul Nimmo, for this reference. See also Boyer, “Shaftesbury and the German Enlightenment”, 200.

94. Crouter, Friedrich Schleiermacher, 60.

95. Brown, “Movements of Christian Awakening,” 575–595.