this a place, where no other thing is to be purfued, but giddy amufements, and perpetual pleafure ?-Have you, my friends, who are fpending your days in this wanton abufe of profperity, no fenfe of the unfuitablenefs of fuch conduct to the condition of mortal man? Do you fee nothing in the ftate of human life to chaften and temper your mirth; to bring ferious reflections home to your bofom; to admonish you that it is better to go fometimes to the houfe of mourning, than to dwell always in the houfe of feafting? Do you feel no compunction at the thought, that by your luxury and extravagance you are adding to the fcenes of forrow which already abound in this afflicted world!

For you and your follies the agent parent, or the refpectable relation,

mourn. To fupply the oppreffive demands of your pleasures, families are driven from your habitations, and left to poverty and want. Your mirth forces the widow and the fatherlefs to weep. At the fame time, you are fcattering poifon in fociety around you. You are corrupting the public mers by the life which you lead. You are propagating follies and vices, and by the example which you fet, are enfnaring into ruin." P. 284. many to follow you

Of the life of an author, who was fo general a favourite as Dr. Blair, the public is always defirous of fome account; and that defire is here gratified by his friend and colleague in office, Dr. Finlayfon. This able writer has not filled his biographical sketch with trifling anecdotes, or repeated stories in Circulation which are not true*. Confining his narrative to the leading events of the Doctor's life, he has furnished his reader with the means of forming a just estimate of his talents and his character, and clearly pointed out the way in which fimilar eminence may be attained. We fhall conclude this article with a brief abstract of this piece of biography.

Dr. Hugh Blair was a defcendant of Mr. Robert Blair, minifter of St. Andrew's, and one of the chaplains for Scotland to king Charles I. He was born in Edinburgh on the 7th day of April, 1718, and received his education in the fchools and univerfity of his native city. When attending the lectures of the Profeffor of Logic, he wrote, in the ufual courfe of academical exercife, an effay Tips Tou nahov, of fuch fuperior excellence, that the Profeflor appointed it to be read in public, at the end of the term or feffion. This mark of approbation made a deep impreffion on his mind, and determined the bent of his genius towards polite literature. "Such," as Johnson

Such as the tale of his being delighted upon hearing that a Negroflave, in one of our Weft-India plantations, was feen, after the hours of labour, reading his Sermons. We have reafon to believe, that no fuch report was ever made to him; and he could hardly have been delighted with hearing that difcourfes compofed for the inftruction of men of letters, were proved fit for the edification of Negroes!

has

has well obferved*, "are the accidents, which, fometimes remembered, and perhaps fometimes forgotten, produce that particular defignation of mind, and propenfity for fome certain fcience or employment, which is commonly called genius." Had an effav of Dr. Blair's, upon any interefting queftion ia ethics, attracted the fame notice, the bent of his mind might have been turned towards that science; and, instead of becoming the elegant preacher, and lecturer on belles lettres, he might have figured with his countrymen, Dr. Reid and Profeffor Stewart, among the profound lecturers on moral philofophy.

On

In the year 1739, Dr. Blair took the degree of A. M. when he printed and detended a thefis De fundamentis et obligatione legis nature, which his biographer praises, as well for the elegance of its Latinity as the foundness of its principles. the 21st of October, 1741, he was licenfed, according to the forms of the church of Scotland, to preach the gofpel; and being prefented to a living in the county of Fife, was ordained minifter on the 23d of September, 1742. He was next year called to Edinburgh; and, on the 15th day of June, 1758, was promoted to the High Church of that city, at the particular request of the Lords of Council and Seffion (the fupreme Judges in Scotland) and other diftinguished characters who there have their feats.

"The uniform prudence, ability, and fuccefs, which, for a period of more than forty years accompanied all his minifterial labours in that confpicuous and difficult ftation, fufficiently evince," fays Dr. Finlay fon," the wisdom of their choice."

Hitherto he was hardly known as an author. He had publifhed indeed two Sermons, preached on particular occafions; fome tranflations, in verfe, of paffages of Scrip ure, for the Pfalmody of the church; and a few articles in the Edinburgh Review, a journal attempted in the year 1755, but obliged to be dropt by the narrownefs of the plan. Being now at the head of his profeffion, he thought feriously of a plan for teaching to others that art which had contributed fo much to the establishment of his own fame; and, having obtained the approbation of the Univerfity, he began, on the 11th of December, 1759, to read lectures in the College on the principles of compofition. The lecturer having obtained great applaufe, his Majefty was pleafed, on the 7th of April, 1762, to erect and endow a Professorship of Rhetoric and

*Life of Cowley.

Belles

Belles Lettres in the Univerfity of Edinburgh, and to appoint Dr. Blair, in confideration of his approved qualifications, Regius Profeffor thereof. The degree of D. D. a literary honour, which, we are told, was then very rare in Scotland, had been conferred upon him, in the year 1757, by the University of St. Andrews.

The lectures which he read in College were published in 1783, when he retired from the labours of the office;" and the general voice of the public has pronounced them a most judicious, elegant, and comprehenfive fyftem of rules for forming the flyle, and cultivating the tafte, of youth." They fo well deferve this character, and are fo very generally read, that we cannot help feeling for his fucceffor, who muft poffefs very fuperior talents indeed, if he be able to prevent the young men of the University from drawing unfavourable comparisons between his prelections and the printed lectures of Dr. Blair.

It was by the folicitation of the Profeffor of Rhetoric, we are told, and of Mr. John Home, author of the tragedy of Douglas, that MacPherson was induced to publish his Fragments of Antient Poetry. Thefe were foon followed by the tranflation of the Poems bearing the name of Offian, on which Dr. Blair wrote a Differtation," which, for beauty of language, delicacy of taste, and acuteness of critical investigation, has few parallels."

Amidit all his literary purfuits, the attention of Dr. Blair feems to have been chiefly directed to the attainment of excellence as a preacher; and the volume of Sermons which was published in the year 1777, met with fuch approbation as fimilar publications have feldom obtained. It was followed, in 1779 or 1780, by a fecond volume, which his Majesty deemed worthy of a public reward; and, by a royal mandate to the Exchequer of Scotland, dated July the 25th, 1780, conferred upon its author a penfion of 200l. a year. We do not recollect when the third volume was published; but the fourth iffued from the prefs of Strahan in 1794, and was reviewed by us in the fame year. The Sermons, which compofe the volume before us, were delivered to the publishers, in the form and order in which they now appear, about fix weeks before the author's death; and we have nothing more to expect from the pen of Dr. Blair, who, actuated by the good fenfe that guided him through life, left behind him an explicit injunction, that his numerous manufcripts fhould be deftroyed. It is thus put out of the power of any rapacious executor to barter the fame

* See Brit. Crit. vol. iv. p. 354.

of

of this good man for a little money, or to circulate under his name opinions and principles, which he did not avow. After a fhort illness, he died on the 27th of December, 1800, univerfally and deeply lamented through the city, which he had fo long inftructed and adorned.

His character is drawn by Dr. Finlay fon in a masterly manner, though perhaps with the almoft unavoidable partiality of friend/hip. It makes part of a Sermon, which was preached in the High Church of Edinburgh, on the Sunday after his funeral; and if we may judge of the entire difcourfe from this fpecimen, it has feldom been furpaffed in foundness of principles, clofenefs of argument, or correctnefs of language, even by Dr. Blair himself.

If we may eftimate the intellectual character of Dr. Blair from his works, he appears to us to have poffeffed a found judgment rather than what we fhould call a vigorous mind; to have had more tafte than genius; and to have taught fuccefsfully, as far as it can be taught, the art of poetry, though he could not himself have been a poet. His moral character was amiable and refpectable, though he feems, even from a hint dropt by his biographer, to have been in a flight degree tinctured with vanity. But this was furely a venial weakness; for where is the head that would be wholly unaffected by the fumes of incenfe burnt before it for fifty years?

ART. VIII. The Satires of Juvenal. By William Rhodes. 12mo. 378 pp. 6s. Rivingtons. 1801.

JUVENAL is fo great a favourite with us, notwithstanding

JUVE

a few exceptionable paffages, that we hear with pleature of any new attempt to familiarize him to our countrymen; to whom his ftrong and manly fenfe, his attachment to the cause of liberty, and his marked abhorrence of vice in every station, justly endear him: it was with no fmall fatisfaction, therefore, that we took up the tranflation of Mr. William Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes is unknown to us; but we naturally concluded that a gentleman, who deemed himself qualified for fuch a work as the prefent, was poffeffed, exclufively of a turn for poetry, of learning, tafte, and judgment: and in this opinion we were fomewhat confirmed by the first paragraph that caught our eye; indeed, the firit in the book.

D

BRIT. CRIT. VOL, XIX, JAN, 1802.

"It

"It is at prefent rather matter of furprise, that it should ever hate been thought neceffary to apologize for attempting what it is always laudable to do." P. 1.

Good! faid we this argues a noble confidence in his own powers. For our parts, we always conceived the distance from attempting a thing, to the accomplishing of it, to be so immense, that a certain degree of apology appeared neceffary from every man, who stood before the public as the author of a work of confequence. When a gentleman's talents, indeed, are tranfcendantly bright, an apology may be looked upon as a piece of falfe modefty, and, as in the prefent cafe, be fafely omitted.

In perfect confiftency with the fpirit which dictated the firft paragraph, Mr. Rhodes proceeded on his tranflation, proprio marte. No enquiries were inftituted, no former verfions collated, no commentators confulted; but the

"whole was completed upon an examination of the translation which bears the name of Dryden, which he then thought to be the only one"! P. 2.

Of this tranflation, he speaks with great contempt.

"There was at that time," he fays, "a knot (Pope, perhaps, would have called them a mob) of tranflators, of whom eight, with Dryden and his two fons, were engaged in this fhort work." P. 3.

In this mob, however, befides Tate, who is fill equal to nine fuch poets as it is frequently our lot to read, were Stepney, Hervey, Congreve, and Creech; to fay the leaft of them, men of no ordinary talents. "In a rambling, tedious Dedication, as long as one half of Juvenal, and which, like fome of the accoutrements of Hudibras, ferve to double purpose," &c.-We had fcarcely read thus far, before we were tempted to cry out, with Candide, "What a great man is this Pococurante, nothing can pleafe him!" This Dedication, which he finds fo tedious, has always ftruck us as one of the most pleasing effays in the English language; it is full, rich, harmonious, and, at the fame time, of fuch an engaging fimplicity, that very frequently, when we only meant to confult a fingle page of it, we have imperceptibly been drawn on to the conclufion. We do not mean, however, to oppose our opinion to that of Mr. Rhodes, who may, we must fuppofe, be right.

"In confequence of my attention having been particularly turned to this author, I have lately found the names of pofterior tranflators, Owen, Harvey, Madan: they are all gone, whither this is going, it is unneceffary, therefore, to fay any more about them." P. 5.

Mr. Rhodes has fomewhat of the negligence, as well as of the confidence, of great geniufes. Hervey was one of Dry

den's