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First Dublin Edition. In Three Volumes (complete set). Large Octavo (13,5 cm x 21 cm). Pagination: Volume I: 429 pages / Volume II: 444 pages / Volume III: 389 pages plus 34 unnumbered pages of an Index. Hardcover / Original full leather. Original Trinity College Dublin price-binding with supralibros on all boards (some in gilt) and three beautiful price-bookplates from Trinity College, awarded to Ricardo Meade, on the pastedowns. Some old wormhole-damage. Still overall very good condition with only minor signs of wear. From the library of Richard Meade (Ballymartle), with his Exlibris / Bookplate to pastedown. This important landmark - publication on composition and style by Hugh Blair, the important member of the Scottish Enlightenment, includes for example chapters like: Volume I: Taste / Criticism / Genius - Pleasure of Taste / Sublimity in Onjects / The Sublime in Writing / Beauty and other Pleasures of Taste / Rise and Progress of Language / Rise and Progress of Language and of Writing / Structure of Language - English Tongue / Style - Perspicuity and Precision / Structure of Sentences / Structure of Sentences - Harmony / Origin and Nature of Figurative Language / Metaphor / Hyperbole - Personification - Apostrophe / Comparison, Antithesis, Interrogation, Exclamation and other Figures of Speech / Volume II: Figurative Language / General Characters of Style, Diffuse, concise, feeble, nervous - Dry, Plain, Neat, Elegant, Flowery / Critical Examination of the Style of Mr.Addison in No.411 of the Spectator / Critical Examination of the Style in a Passage of Dean [Jonathan] Swift's writing / Eloquence or Public Speaking - History of Eloquence / Grecian Eloquence / Demosthenes / History of Eloquence continued - Roman Eloquence - Cicero Modern Eloquence / Different Kinds of Public Speaking - Eloquence of Popular Assemblies / Extracts from Demosthenes / Eloquence of the Bar / Analysis of Cicero's Oration for Cluentis / Eloquence of the Pulpit / Critical Examination of a Sermon of Bishop Atterbury's / etc. Volume III: Means of Improving in Eloquence / Comparative of the Ancients and the Moderns - Historical Writing / Philosophical Writing - Dialogue - Epistolary Writing - Fictitious History / Nature of Poetry - Its Origin and Progress - Pastoral Poetry - Lyric Poetry / Didactic Poetry / Descriptive Poetry / The Poetry of the Hebrews / Epic Poetry / Homer's Iliad and Odyssey - Virgil's Aeneid / Lucan's Pharsalia / Tasso's Jerusalem / Camoen's Lusiad / Fenelon's Telemachus / Voltaire's Henriade / Milton's Paradise Lost / Dramatic Poetry - Tragedy / Tragedy: Greek - French - English Tragedy / Comedy: Greek and Roman - French - English Comedy // Hugh Blair FRSE (7 April 1718 27 December 1800) was a Scottish minister of religion, author and rhetorician, considered one of the first great theorists of written discourse. As a minister of the Church of Scotland, and occupant of the Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh, Blair's teachings had a great impact in both the spiritual and the secular realms. Best known for Sermons, a five volume endorsement of practical Christian morality, and Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, a prescriptive guide on composition, Blair was a valuable part of the Scottish Enlightenment. Blair was born in Edinburgh into an educated Presbyterian family. His father was John Blair, an Edinburgh merchant. He was great great grandson of Rev Robert Blair of St Andrews and great nephew of Very Rev David Blair the Moderator of the General Assembly in 1700. From an early age it was clear that Blair, a weakly child, should be educated for a life in the church. Schooled at the High School, Blair studied moral philosophy and literature at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A. at the age of twenty-one. His thesis, "Dissertatio Philosophica Inauguralis de fundamentis et obligatione legis naturae", serves as a precursor to the later published Sermons in its discussion of the.
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