Manuscript volume containing notes of lectures by Hugh Blair
Content Description
This is a manuscript volume containing notes of lectures by Hugh Blair, Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University of Edinburgh, taken down by an unknown student. It is dated 1770, and comprises 39 complete lectures.
Hugh Blair published his lectures in 1783, but very few manuscripts of his teachings survive nowadays. He did not want any "bastardised" versions to survive, as he called them in his publications, and insisted in his will that all his personal papers be burnt upon his death. However, these manuscript volumes are particularly valuable to give an account of Blair's lectures as received by his students, and to show his fine oratory style. In comparison, the published versions are staider and more polished.
Dates
- Creation: 1770
Language of Materials
English
Physical Description
369 pages of manuscript plus title page, with additional blanks, 2 to the front (one being the front endpaper which is long detached) and 5 to the rear. In battered quarter-calf with exposed hinges, banded spine with chipped red title label reading "Blair's Lectures" and worn and chipped marbled boards, which are quite severely deteriorated to the corners.
Conditions Governing Access
Open. Please contact the repository in advance.
Biographical / Historical
Hugh Blair (1718-1800) was created Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in 1762, holding the post until 1784. His appointment marked the beginning of the teaching of English Literature at Edinburgh University and the birth of the oldest English department in the world.
Blair was part of Edinburgh's distinguished literary circle of the day, and was a contemporary of David Hume (1711-1776), Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), and Adam Smith (1723-1790). Blair championed the publishing of the Ossian fragments by James Macpherson (1736-1796). His own lectures and sermons were translated and read widely abroad.
Extent
1 volume
Custodial History
To the front pastedown is an armorial bookplate: the blazon, a pomegranate, unfurls under the scroll "Non Deerit Alter [Aurelus]" ("Another Golder Branch Succeeds", a family motto), and below the insignia reads: "Sir Alexander Don of Newton: Bar.t." Above this is a small label on which is written "R9 2353", which is presumably a shelf reference from Sir Alexander’s library.
The Don baronetcy lies in the Lower Tweed Valley village of Newton Don, a day's ride south-west from Edinburgh, where Blair had begun to teach literary theory at Edinburgh University in 1759. Alexander 5th Bart. could have been a student in 1770. There are no other obious dealer or auction house marks in the book, which resurfaced some years ago, when it was acquired as part of an estate in Watton, Norfolk, found in an old suitcase with eleven later and seemingly unconnected volumes.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased in January 2022. Accession no. SC-Acc-2022-0058.
Physical Description
369 pages of manuscript plus title page, with additional blanks, 2 to the front (one being the front endpaper which is long detached) and 5 to the rear. In battered quarter-calf with exposed hinges, banded spine with chipped red title label reading "Blair's Lectures" and worn and chipped marbled boards, which are quite severely deteriorated to the corners.
Processing Information
Catalogued in March 2023 by Aline Brodin, using information provided by the seller.
Subject
- Blair, Hugh, 1718-1800 (Church of Scotland Minister, Professor of Rhetoric) (Presenter, Person)
- Title
- Manuscript volume containing notes of lectures by Hugh Blair, 1770
- Author
- Aline Brodin
- Date
- March 2023
- Description rules
- Isad(G)2
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections Repository
Centre for Research Collections
University of Edinburgh Main Library
George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LJ Scotland
+44(0)131 650 8379
heritagecollections@ed.ac.uk