BLAIR, Dr. Hugh, was born in Edinburgh, in the year 1718. After the ufual grammatical course at school, he entered the humanity clafs in the University of Edinburgh; and spent eleven years at that celebrated feminary, affiduously employed in literary and fcientific ftudies. He was ordained as a minister in 1742; and commenced his public life with highly favourable profpects. Befides the tes timony given to his talents and virtues, by fuccefive ecclefiaftic promotions, the University of St. Andrews, in 1757, conferred on him the degree of D. D. a literary honour which, at that time, was very rare in Scotland. In 1762, the king erected and endowed a Profefforship of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, in the Univerfity of Edinburgh and appointed Dr. Blair, "in confideration of his approved qualifications," Regius Profeffor, with a fuitable falary. His lectures were well attended, and received with great applause. In 1783, when he retired from the labours of the office, he published his "Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres :" and the general voice of the public has pronounced them to be a moft judicious, elegant and comprehenfive fyftem of rules, for forming the ftyle, and cultivating the taste of youth.

It was long before he could be induced to favour the world with the publication of his discourses from the pulpit. Thefe elegant compofitions experienced a degree of fuccefs, of which few publications can boaft. They are univerfally admitted to be models in their kind and they will long remain durable monuments of the piety, the genius, and found judgment of their author. They circulated rapidly and widely, wherever the English tongue extends; and they were foon tranflated into almost all the languages of Europe. The king thought them worthy of a public reward; and conferred on their author a penfion of 200l. a year, which continued unaltered till his death.

In 1748 he married an excellent woman, poffeffed of great fenfe and merit. By her he had a fon who died in infancy; and a daughter who lived to her twenty-first year, the joy of her parents, and adorned with all the accomplishments that became her age and sex. He loft his wife a few years before his death, after fhe had, with the tenderest affection, fhared in all his fortunes, and contributed near half a century to his comfort and happiness.

His last fummer was devoted to the preparation of the fifth volume of his fermons; and, in the courfe of it, he ex

hibited a vigour of understanding, and capacity of exertion, equal to the powers of his best days. But the feeds of a mortal disease were lurking unperceived within him. At the clofe of the year 1800, he felt that he was approaching the end of his courfe. He, however, retained to the last moment the full poffeffion of his mental faculties; and expired with the compofure and hope which become a christian paftor.

"Dr. Blair was the perfect image of that meekness, fimplicity, gentlenefs, and contentment, which his writings. recommend. He was eminently diftinguifhed through life, by the prudence, purity, and dignified propriety of his conduct. His mind, by conftitution and culture, was admirably formed for enjoying happiness. Well-balanced in itself, by the nice proportion and adjustment of its faculties, it did not incline him to any of thofe eccentricities, either of opinion or of action, which are too often the lot of genius. He was long happy in his domeftic relations; and, though doomed at last to feel, through their lofs in fucceffion, the heaviest ftrokes of affliction; yet his mind, fortified by religious habits, and buoyed up by his native tendency to contentment, fuftained itself on Divine Providence, and enabled him to perfevere to the end, in the active and cheerful difcharge of the duties of his ftation; preparing for the world the bleffings of elegant inftruction; tendering to the mourner the leffons of divine confolation; guiding the young by his counfels; aiding the meritorious with his influence; and fupporting, by his voice and by his conduct, the best interests of his country."

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CICERO, Marcus Tullius, an illuftrious Roman orator and philofopher, was born 105 years before the chriftian Whether we confider him as an orator, a ftatesman, or a philofopher, he appears to have been one of the greateft men of antiquity. After having ferved his country in an eminent degree, he was affaffinated by the orders of Antony, his inveterate enemy. He was diflinguished by great powers of mind, which were cultivated to the highest pitch. He had many virtues; but they were obfcured by an exceffive vanity, which can be palliated but little by the principles and the manners of the age in which he lived.

His Dialogues on Old Age, and on Friendship, are extremely elegant and agreeable pieces of moral writing; and his Orations are perfect models, in that fpecies of compofition.

COTTON, Nathaniel. Of his family, birth place, and education, there are no written memorials. He was bred to the profeffion of phyfic, in which he took the degree of doctor. He fettled as a physician at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, where he acquired great reputation in his profesfion, and continued to refide till his death. In the latter part of his life, he kept a house for the reception of lunatics. In 1751, he published his "Vifions in Verfe, for the Entertainment and Inftruction of Younger Minds." This publication was favourably received by the polite and religious world. His "Vifions" are the most popular of his productions, aud not inferior to the best compofitions, of that nature, in the English language His "Fables" approach the manner of Gay; but they have lefs poignancy of fatire.

Of his miscellaneous poems, "The Fire Side" is the most agreeable The fubject is univerfally interefting; the fentiments are pleasing and pathetic; and the verfification elegant and harmonious. The verfes "To a Child five Years old" are exquifitely beautiful. The "Ode on the New-Year" is pious, animated, and poetical. His lighter pieces are not deficient in ease and sprightliness, and may be read with pleasure.

His

Cotton died at St. Albans in 1788, and in an advanced age. His moral and intellectual character appears to have been, in a high degree, amiable and refpectable. writings are diftinguifhed by ftrong marks of piety, learning, tafte, and benevolence. As a poet, his compofitions are marked by a refined elegance of fentiment, and a correfpondent fimplicity of expreffion. He writes with eafe and correctness, frequently with elevation and fpirit. His thoughts are juft and pure. As piety predominated in his mind, it is diffufed over his compofitions. Under his direction, poetry may be truly faid to be fubfervient to religious and moral instruction. Every reader will regard with veneration, the writer who condefcended to lay afide the scholar and the philofopher, to compofe moral apologues, and little poems of devotion, "for the entertainment and inftruction of younger minds."

COWPER, William, an English poet of great celebrity, was born at Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, in the year 1731. In his infancy he was extremely delicate; and his conftitution discovered, at a very early feason, that morbid

tendency to diffidence, melancholy, and defpair, which produced, as he advanced in years, periodical-fits of the most deplorable depreffion. He was educated at Westminster school, where his natural timidity was increased, by the arrogant and boisterous behaviour of fome of his fchoolfellows. "I was," faid he, "fo difpirited by them, that I did not dare to raise my eyes above the fhoe-buckles of the elder boys.

He was removed from school to the office of an attorney; from whence, after three years, he fettled himself in chambers of the Inner-Temple, as a regular ftudent of law, where he refided to the age of thirty-three. But this profeffion did not fuit his diffidence, his love of retirement, or his poetical genius. "I rambled," faid he, "from the thorny road of my auftere patronefs, jurifprudence, into the primrofe paths of literature and poetry." Cowper was ap pointed Clerk of the Journals of the Houfe of Lords; and a parliamentary difpute making it neceffary for him to appear at the bar of the house, his terrors on this occafion rofe to fo aftonishing a height, that they overwhelmed his reafon he was obliged to relinquish a station fo formida ble to his fingular fenfibility.

In a few months, his mind became tranquil and clear; and refolving to abandon all thoughts of a laborious profeffion, and all intercourfe with the bufy world, he fettled, in 1765, in the town of Huntingdon. Here commenced his acquaintance with a refpectable clergyman, and his amiable wife, who refided in that town: their name was Unwin. About two years afterwards, the husband died; and from that period, during the courfe of near thirty years, this excellent woman was a moft diftinguished friend and guardian of Cowper. Of her piety and virtue, and her eminent invariable kindness to him, he has left many affectionate and grateful memorials. In the lapfe of thefe years, he was feveral times oppreffed with derangement of mind, which was extremely diftreffing to his friends, who entertained for him the pureft fentiments of esteem and regard. During his lucid intervals, which continued feveral years, he was perfectly himself; and exhibited, in his writings, the most unequivocal proofs of it. His gratitude to the Supreme Being, for the mercies and deliverance he had experienced, was fervent and exemplary; and his life was diftinguished by every correfpondent virtue.

Cowper wrote a number of little poems, which are marked with fine traits of the pathetic and defcriptive; and which show the exquifite delicacy of his feelings, and the goodness of his heart. His "Task," which was published in 1785, placed him in the first rank of English poets. This work is finely characterised by Hayley, his biographer. "The Task," fays he, " may be called a bird's-eye view of human life. It is a minute and extenfive furvey of every thing most interesting to the reafon, to the fancy, and to the affections of man. It exhibits his pleasures, and his pains; his paftimes, and his bufinefs; his folly, and his wifdom his dangers, and his duties; all with fuch exquifite facility, and force of expreffion, with fuch grace and dignity of fentiment, that rational beings, who wish to render themselves more amiable, and more happy, can hardly be more advantageously employed, than in frequent perufal of the "Task."-In 1791 appeared his "Tranflation of the Iliad and Odyffey of Homer, in Blank Verfe." This work, from first to laft, gave Cowper ten years of useful and pleasing employment. It has confiderable merit; particularly in its near approach to that fweet majestic fimplicity, which forms one of the most attractive features in the great prince and father of poets.

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The inquietude and darkness of Cowper's latter years were terminated by a moft gentle and tranquil diffolution. He died in the year 1800.-We fhall close this sketch of him, with a striking eulogium made by his biographer on his character and writings : "The more the works of Cowper are read, the more his readers will find reason to admire the variety, and the extent, the graces, and the energy, of his literary talents. The univerfal admiration excited by thefe will be heightened and endeared to the friends of virtue, by the obvious reflection, that his writings, excellent as they appear, were excelled by the gentleness, the benevolence, and the fanctity of his life."

CUNNINGHAM, John, was born in Dublin, in 1729. He received his education at the grammar fchool of Drogheda; and early began to exhibit fpecimens of his poetical pow ers. His paffion for the ftage induced him to engage, when young, in the profeffion of an actor; and he continued in it, with little variation, till his death.

In 1762, he published "an Elegy on a Pile of Ruins ;" which was read with pleasure, even after Gray's" Elegy in