BLAIR, ROBERT Scottish poet, was educated at Edinburgh university and in Holland, and in 1731 was appointed to the living of Athelstanef ord in East Lothian. He died at Athel staneford Feb. 4 1746. His only considerable work, The Grave , is a poem written in blank verse, and is much less con ventional than its gloomy subject might lead one to expect. It inspired William Blake to undertake a series of 12 illustrative designs, which were engraved by Louis Schiavonetti, and published in 1808.
See the biographical introduction prefixed to his Poetical Works, by Dr. Robert Anderson, in his Poets of Great Britain, vol. viii. (1794) .