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| BLAIR, JOHN, LL.D. an eminent
chronologist, was, as already mentioned in the memoir of Dr Hugh Blair,
a relative of that distinguished personage. He received a clerical
education at Edinburgh, and afterwards went in search of employment to
London, along with Mr Andrew Henderson, author of a "History of the
Rebellion of 1745;" and many other works, and who, for some years,
kept a bookseller’s shop in Westminster Hall. As Henderson describes
himself as residing in Edinburgh at the time of the battle of
Prestonpans, it is probable that Blair’s removal to London took place
after that event. Henderson’s first employment was that of an usher at
a school in Hedge Lane, in which he was succeeded by Blair. The
attention of the latter had probably been directed to chronology by the
example of Dr Hugh Blair, who, as already mentioned, commenced a series
of tables of events, for his own private use, which ultimately formed
the groundwork of the work given to the world, in 1754, under the title
of "The Chronology and History of the World, from the Creation to
the year of Christ, 1753; illustrated in fifty-six tables, of which four
are introductory, and contain the centuries prior to the first Olympiad,
and each of the remaining fifty-two contain, in one expanded view, fifty
years, or half a century. By the Rev. John Blair, LL.D." This large
and valuable work was published by subscription, and was dedicated to
Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. In January, 1755, Dr John Blair was elected
F.R.S. and in 1761, F.A.S. In 1755, he published a new edition of his
"Chronology." In September, 1757, he was appointed chaplain to
the Dowager Princess of Wales, and mathematical tutor to the Duke of
York, (brother to George III.); and on Dr Townshend’s promotion to the
deanery of Norwich, the services of Dr Blair were rewarded, March, 1761,
with a prebendal stall in Westminster abbey. Such a series of rapidly
accumulating honours has fallen to the lot of very few Scottish
adventurers. But this was not destined to be the end of his good
fortune. He had only been prebend of Westminster six days, when the
death of the vicar of Hinckley, in Leicestershire, enabled the Dean and
Chapter to present him to that valuable living, to which was soon after
added, the rectory of Burtoncoggles in Lincolnshire. In 1763-4, he made
the tour of the continent, in company with his royal pupil. A new and
enlarged edition of his "Chronology" appeared in 1768, and in
1771 he was presented, by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, to the
vicarage of St Bride’s in the city of London, which made it necessary
for him to resign Hinckley. In 1776, he resigned St Bride’s, in order
to succeed to the rectory of St John the Evangelist in Westminster; and
in June that year, he obtained a dispensation to hold this benefice
along with that of Horton, near Colebrooke, in Buckinghamshire. In the
memorable sea-fight of the 12th of August, 1782, his brother,
Captain Blair, in the command of the Anson, was one of three
distinguished officers who fell, and to whom the country afterwards
voted a monument. This event gave such a shock to the venerable doctor,
who at that time suffered under influenza, that he died, at his home in
Dean’s Yard, Westminster, on the 24th of June following. A
work entitled, "Lectures on the Canons of the Old Testament,"
appeared after his death; but his best monument unquestionably will be
his Chronology, the value of which has been so amply acknowledged by the
world. |
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