SOURCE: "Blair," in A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe: From the Earliest Texts to the Present Day, William Blackwood & Sons Ltd., 1949, pp. 462-5.

In the following excerpt, originally written between 1900 and 1904, Saintsbury praises Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, but finds his view of literature to be narrow.

Hugh Blair, … in 1759, started … the teaching of modern literature in his own country. He had the advantage, as far as securing a popular audience goes, of lecturing in English, and he was undoubtedly a man of talent. The Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres,¹ which were delivered with great éclat for nearly a quarter of a century from the Chair of their subject, are very far, indeed, from being devoid of merit. They provide a very solid, if a somewhat mannered and artificial instruction, both by precept and example, in what may be called the "full-dress...