Selected Bibliography:
Hugh Blair

By Richard B. Sher,
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Last revised 23 September 2000

Bibliographies

• Otto L. Jiriczek, "Zur Bibliographie und Textgeschichte von Hugh Blair's Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian," Englische Studien 70 (1935-36): 181-89. See also the article by Rizza cited in the Ossian section below.
• Hugh Amory, "Hugh Blair," in Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons, vol. 7: Poets and Men of Letters, ed. H. Amory (1973), pp. 159-64. An informed discussion of Blair's library, which contained approximately 2,400 volumes and was sold by auction in two parts in 1801 and 1816.

Editions

• A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian (1763), in The Poems of Ossian and Related Works, ed. Howard Gaskill, with an Introduction by Fiona Stafford (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1996), 343-408. Contains useful notes by the editor, as well as Blair's Appendix, which appeared only in the second edition.
• Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. Harold F. Harding, 2 vols. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1965). A facsimile of the first (quarto) edition of 1783, with a useful Introduction by Harding that contains a good bibliography of older studies.
• Sermons, 5 vols. (1777-1801). The early nineteenth-century five-volume sets published in London by Cadell and Davies, with Finlayson's biographical sketch, are the closest thing to a standard edition.

Biographies

• James Finlayson, "A Short Account of the Life and Character of the Author," first published in the posthumous fifth volume of Blair's Sermons (London, 1801), and subsequently prefixed to the first volume of many editions of the five-volume set. A brief sketch by one of Blair's ecclesiastical and academic colleagues and close friends.
• John Hill, An Account of the Life and Writings of Hugh Blair, D.D. (Edinburgh, 1807; reprint, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1997). The standard contemporary biography, by a friend and colleague in the University of Edinburgh. The Thoemmes reprint edition contains a new Introduction by Emma Vincent Macleod, with a bibliographical note on earlier biographies.
• Steven Rizza, "Hugh Blair," in The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers, 2 vols. (Bristol, 1999), 1:101-7. Emphasizes Blair's literary side.
• Robert Morell Schmitz, Hugh Blair (New York: King's Crown Press, 1948). A printed Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia University which is still the standard modern biography more than half a century later, though now extremely dated.
• Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland, new ed., 9 vols. (Edinburgh: 1915-28), 1:29, 68, 82; 5:134. A fundamental source for ecclesiastical information.
• Richard B. Sher, "Hugh Blair," in the New Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, forthcoming).
• "Dr. Hugh Blair," in Public Characters of 1800-1801 (Dublin, 1801), pp. 288-303. Written during Blair's last days, this anonymous sketch contains useful pieces of information along with many errors.

Criticism

• Literary Criticism and Rhetoric

  • Don Abbott, "Blair 'Abroad': The European Reception of the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres," in Scottish Rhetoric and Its Influences, ed. Lynee Lewis Gaillet (Mahwah, N.J.: Hermagoras Press, 1998), pp. 67-78.
  • Lois Agnew, "The Civic Function of Taste: A Re-assessment of Hugh Blair's Rhetorical Theory," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 28 (1998): 25-36. An appreciative reassessment of Blair's rhetoric.
  • Paul Bator, "The Formation of the Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh," Quarterly Journal of Speech 75 (1989): 40-64. The chair was formed for Blair in 1762.
  • Vincent M. Bevilacqua, "Philosophical Assumptions Underlying Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres," Western Speech 31 (1967): 150-64. Connects Blair's Lectures with common sense philosophy.
  • Alan Brinton, "Hugh Blair and the True Eloquence," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 22 (1992): 30-42
  • Robert Crawford, Devolving English Literature (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992).
  • Franklin E. Court, Institutionalizing English Literature: The Culture and Politics of Literary Study, 1750-1900 (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1992).
  • David Daiches, "Style Périodique and Style Coupé: Hugh Blair and the Scottish Rhetoric of American Independence," in Scotland and American in the Age of the Enlightenment, ed. Richard B. Sher and Jeffrey R. Smitten (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, and Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 209-26. How Blair's teachings on sentence structure may have influenced the American Founding Fathers.
  • Rajit S. Dosanjh, "The 'Eloquence of the Bar': Hugh Blair's Lectures, Professionalism and Scottish Legal Education," in The Scottish Invention of English Literature, ed. Robert Crawford (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), pp. 55-67.
  • Linda Ferreira-Buckley, "Hugh Blair," in Eighteenth-Century British and American Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources, ed. Michael G. Moran (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 21-33.
  • Lynee Lewis Gaillet, ed., Scottish Rhetoric and Its Influences (Mahwah, N.J.: Hermagoras Press, 1998). In addition to the two articles specifically about Blair (see Abbott and Hatch in this section), this volume contains much relevant material.
  • Gary Layne Hatch, "Student Notes of Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric," in Scottish Rhetoric and Its Influences, ed. Lynee Lewis Gaillet (Mahwah, N.J.: Hermagoras Press, 1998), pp. 79-94.
  • Winifred Bryan Horner, Nineteenth-Century Scottish Rhetoric: The American Connection (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1993). Contains a fair bit on the eighteenth century despite its title.
  • Wilbur Samuel Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1971), esp. 648-71. Treats Blair within the context of the emergence of the new science of rhetoric in late eighteenth-century Britain, and especially Scotland.
  • F. McIntosh, "Hugh Blair and the Use of Ornamentation in the Sublime Style of Writing: From Paradox to Aesthetics," RLC: Revue de littérature comparée 70 (July-Sept. 1996): 279-98.
  • Thomas P. Miller, "Witherspoon, Blair and the Rhetoric of Civic Humanism," in Scotland and American in the Age of the Enlightenment, ed. Richard B. Sher and Jeffrey R. Smitten (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, and Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 100-14. Criticizes Blair's belletristic approach to rhetoric.
  • Thomas P. Miller, The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1997). Contains a fine chapter on Blair's "rhetoric of belles lettres" and its academic impact, as well as a good bibliography.
  • Adam Potkay, The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1994).
  • J. Tarver, "Abridged Editions of Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in America: What Nineteenth-Century College Students Really Learned about Blair on Rhetoric," The Bibliotheck 21 (1996): 55-68.
  • Barbara Warnick, The Sixth Canon: Belletristic Rhetorical Theory and Its French Antecedents (Columbia, S.C.: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1993). Blair is among those featured.
  
  

• Scottish Men of Letters and the Church of Scotland

  • Alexander Carlyle, "A Comparison of Two Eminent Characters Attempted after the Manner of Plutarch," in Carlyle, Anecdotes and Characters of the Times, ed. James Kinsley (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 277-82. Interesting comparison of Blair and William Robertson by a member of their circle. Another version exists among Carlyle's papers in the National Library of Scotland.
  • The Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk 1722-1805, ed. John Hill Burton, new ed. (London & Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis, 1910; reprint, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1990). The best edition of an important contemporary source on Blair and his circle, with a new Introduction by Richard B. Sher
  • John Dwyer, Virtuous Discourse: Sensibility and Community in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1987). Pathbreaking study of the role of sensibility in the Henry Mackenzie-Mirror circle, placing Blair in a new context.
  • J. DeLancey Ferguson, "Burns and Hugh Blair," Modern Language Notes 45 (1930): 440-46. On Blair's well-intentioned but wrong-headed efforts to clean up Burns.
  • James L. Golden, "Hugh Blair: Minister of St. Giles," Quarterly Journal of Speech 38 (1952): 155-60. One of the few publications on Blair's preaching.
  • Gary Layne Hatch, "Adam Smith's Accusations of Plagiarism against Hugh Blair," Eighteenth-Century Scotland, no. 8 (1994): 7-10. Argues that the charges do not stick.
  • William C. Lehmann, Henry Home, Lord Kames, and the Scottish Enlightenment (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971). Along with Ross's study of Kames, cited below, contains much information on the Kames-Blair connection.
  • Maurice Lindsay, The Burns Encyclopedia, 3rd. ed. (London: Robert Hale Ltd., 1980). The article on Blair, pp. 31-33, is a useful summary of the Blair-Burns relationship.
  • Davis D. McElroy, Scotland's Age of Improvement: A Survey of Eighteenth-Century Literary Clubs and Societies (n.p.: Washington State Univ. Press, 1969). Blair turns up in the Select Society, the Poker Club, the Oyster Club, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and others.
  • Ernest Campbell Mossner, The Life of David Hume, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). Still a rich source of information about Blair's relationship with Hume.
  • Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). The new standard biography of Smith, with coverage of his relationship with Blair.
  • Ian Simpson Ross, Lord Kames and the Scotland of His Day (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). Along with Lehmann's book, cited above, contains much useful information on the Blair-Kames connection.
  • Richard B. Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, and Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1985). Treats Blair's career in the context of his circle of Edinburgh "Moderate Literati."
  
  

• Ossian and the Critical Dissertation

  • R. W. Chapman, "Blair on Ossian," Review of English Studies 7 (1931). Reprints a valuable letter from Blair to the publisher of his Critical Dissertation, Thomas Becket, dated 19 August 1762.
  • Steve Rizza, "A Bulky and Foolish Treatise?: Hugh Blair's Critical Dissertation Reconsidered," in Ossian Revisited, ed. Howard Gaskill (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 129-46. A thorough and insightful discussion.
  • M. M. Rubel, Savage and Barbarian: Historical Attitudes in the Criticism of Homer and Ossian in Britain, 1760-1800 (Amsterdam, 1978).
  • Richard B. Sher, "Those Scotch Imposters and their Cabal: Ossian and the Scottish Enlightenment," Man and Nature: Proceedings of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, ed. Roger L. Emerson (London, Ont., 1982), 55-63. Views the Ossian phenomenon as a collaborative effort by James Macpherson and Blair's circle of Edinburgh literati.
  • Richard B. Sher, "Percy, Shaw and the Ferguson 'Cheat': National Prejudice in the Ossian Wars," in Ossian Revisited, ed. Howard Gaskill (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 207-45. A nasty skirmish involving Blair.
  • Fiona Stafford, "Hugh Blair's Ossian, Romanticism and the Teaching of Literature," in The Scottish Invention of English Literature, ed. Robert Crawford (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), pp. 68-88.
  • Yoshiaki Sudo, "An Unpublished Lecture of Hugh Blair on the Poems of Ossian," The Hiyoshi Review of English Studies 25 (March 1995): 160-94. Dropped from Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, the Ossian lecture is here reconstructed from surviving student notes.

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