Podcast appearances and mentions of hugh blair

Should twins born to ewe hoggets and grown out to heavy weights be retained as replacements and mated as ewe lambs? Well, that's the question which a Beef + Lamb NZ and Massey University research project sought to answer by following the lifetime performance of single and twin ewe lambs born in 2017 from a hogget mating…  The project has now concluded, or is close to it, and has been led by Professor Hugh Blair from Massey University who joins us nowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Plainsong Responses Psalm 77 John Stainer (1840-1901) The Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral / Andrew Lucas (organ) / John Scott (director) Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 49. 8-13 New Testament Reading: 2 Corinthians 8. 1-11 Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in B minor Hugh Blair (1864-1932) The Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral / Christopher Dearnley (organ) / John Scott (director) Glorious in heaven Percy Whitlock The Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral / John Scott (director) St Paul’s Cathedral wishes to thank Hyperion Records for the permissions to use these tracks. More information from www.hyperion-records.co.uk

Dr James Loxley describes the reception and influence of Shakespeare's work in Scotland, including around Hugh Blair's time. Recorded Friday 17 February 2012. Audio version. Listen to podcast

Professor Susan Manning, Dr Bob Irvine, Professor Randall Stevenson discuss Hugh Blair's appointment to the first Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in 1762, and the literary ambience at the time, including in the work of Burns. Recorded Friday 3 February 2012. Audio version. Listen to podcast

This extract accompanies Podcast 10 A ‘silent madness’. Hugh Blair (1747) IMAGE: James Robertson of Kincraigie; John Dhu (Dow, MacDonald); Jamie Duff by John Kay. Credit: National Portrait Gallery / Universal Images Group, Rights Managed / For Education Use Only Voice credits: Matthew Lansdell (Intro: Oli Savage, Questions: Sebastian Bridges)

Last week’s extract was a series of diary entries showing how a clergyman sought to help a young woman with learning disabilities. Hearing the voice of the intellectually impaired can be hard for historians, but this week’s podcast does just that. Alice Hill was prevented from marrying, but we know about the case of Hugh Blair because he was married. His brother wanted the marriage annulled on the grounds that Hugh was an ‘idiot’ who did not understand the union he had entered into. An enigmatic figure, I explain how Hugh was in fact autistic: one of the clearest and earliest cases for modern psychologists. IMAGE: James Robertson of Kincraigie; John Dhu (Dow, MacDonald); Jamie Duff by John Kay. Credit: National Portrait Gallery / Universal Images Group, Rights Managed / For Education Use Only

Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, we have Jacob in the booth and we’re here together because of the support of the Humanities Media Project at the University of Texas at Austin. And the reason we’ve gathered together in the beautiful recording studio in the basement of Mezes Hall is to talk about the work of George Campbell.   Campbell, like his contemporary Hugh Blair, was a rhetorician-preacher and he believed that he could teach preachers to preach better through modernizing classical rhetoric. Campbell started out in law as a young buck and gradually gravitated towards a clergical vocation. From there, he became the teacherly sort of minister, becoming a scriptorian, translating the gospels of the New Testament and tinkering around with what would be one of his crowning works: the Philosophy of Rhetoric.  According to C. Downey, this guide was not just for rhetoricians and not just for preachers, also the book really reached the best-sellers list in the 19th centurey. The book had 39 editions by the 20th century (9-10). It was a bedrock for many of the rhetoric textbooks that dominated in the 19th century. But before it was one of the defining texts of Enlightenment rhetoric, it was a work-in-progress read before Campbell’s friends in the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, a bunch of like-minded brainy sorts who liked to spend time philosophizing together.   Sidebar: I don’t know why people think writing groups and faculty writing retreats are new-fangled productivity machines. These Enlightenment blokes were always clumping up together to read and think and write together. I’m as much of a loner as any other scholar in the humanities, but I figure if it works for Campbell and Blair and their lot, it’s worth giving it a shot, right?   Like all of his Scottish Enlightenment buddies, Campbell was engaged in the project of making the study of human activities more empircally demonstrable. Making the humanities more scientific, if you want. Campbell went back to classical sources of rhetorical thought and read them across the budding psychological sciences. Instead of “servile imitation” of the classic authors (vi), he promoted a modern interpretation that recognizes that things have changed since the classical treastises were written. That being said, he’s not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater.   And, brother, did this guy like threes. That must be the Aristotlian influence creeping in. It might be worthwhile for you to imagine a chart with three columns when you think about Campbell’s ideas, as we go through the podcast you can start to fill in these columns in all of Campbell’s triparts.   One of the key Campbell trios are that the best langauge is “current, national and reputable.” Lets take a moment and dice out these three. Current is a modern gloss on what Campbell calls “present”--which doesn’t just refer to the time, but also to a metaphorical sense of place. Present is the opposite of past and also the opposite of absent. For a rhetor to use old-timey language is to alienate from the audeince. Similarly, Campbell, good Scotsman of the Enlightenment that he was, is a booster of national language, but this goes beyond the Eton accent--national langauge means there is no universal grammar. Again, we don’t need to stick to the same language rules of Cicero’s Latin when we’re writing and speaking in English.ure use must be (1) English (2) in the English idiom and (3) “employed to express the precise meaning which custom hath affixed to them” (170). If this all sounds cheerfully revolutionary, don’t worry, his idea of reputable will burst your bubble. Like the other “common sense” philosophers, Campbell assumed that one class--his class--were the proprietors of proper langauge. So while he wasn’t a chronological or Latinate snob, he wasn’t advocating a rich brogue riddled with slang over the pulpit. When your group gets to set common sense, everything else is nonsense (cf “Enlightenment Rhetoric” Encyclopedia of Rhetoric 233).Most important question: “is it reputable, nationals and present use, which, for brevity’s sake I shall hereafter simply demoninate good use” (154).  Over all, he argued that English is richer than even Latin (383) and language ought to “prove bars again licentiousness, without being checks to liberty” (380). PSo there’s your first trio: national, current, reputable langauge.   Campbell focuses on the audience as the heart of rhetoric, specifically, the psychological states of the audience. People care if the topic is important, close to their time or place, related to those concerned or interested in the consequences (91-94). This leads to our next set of threes: imagination, reason and passion. Members of the audience have all three of these parts and the rhetor must address them all three (77-86). Say you have these three main ideas, which come from Cicero, from Augustine, from everyone: rhetoric appeals to imagination, memory and passion. It delights, instructs and moves. With Campell, these three modes of rhetoric line up to genres, too. Imagination is related to epic; Passion related to tragitiy and comedy and memory fits in with satire and, through it, persuasion.Additionally important are Campbell’s listed aims related to these three: enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passions or to influence the will” (11), in apparent order of importance (15)   Emotion was especially interested to Campbell. He Emphasizes the passions of the audience (82). Through diminishing or counter-suggesting a different emotion, the rhetorc can calm an emotion (97), especially implicitly rather than explicitly (98).The rhetor can leave “the effect upon their minds […] to nature” (96). If people are riled up about Catholics, as happened in Campbell’s Scotland, you can respond in a peaceful, calm way, as he did in a pamphlet called An Address to the People of Scotland, upon the Alarms that have been Raised in Regard to Popery urging people to calm the eff down.   The final three part from Campbell that I want to talk about is a little more complex. It starts with two seeming opposites: probability and plausibility. Probability and plausibility are “daughters of the same father, Experience” Probability is begot of Reason and Plausibility by Fancy (89-90). So you can think about this in terms of literature and art. This last week I chain-watched a sci-fi fantasy coming-of-age series about four nerds in the eighties. Even though my reason balks at the idea of monsters in the walls and nefarious psychic experiments, my imagination, my fancy, accepts that if there were monsters in the walls and nefarious psychic experiments, this show describes exactly how nerds in the eighties would respond to it.  My experience with the world tells me something about monsters in the walls and something else about pre-teen nerds in the 80s. Or in Campbell’s explanation, probability “results from evidence and begets belief”(86) while plausibility “ariseth chiefly from the consistency of the narration” being “natural and feasible” (87). Campbell is skeptical, as you might expect a Scottish Enlightenment preacher to be, of drawing on the artist for evidence.“Testimony of the poet goes for nothing” he writes “His object […] is not truth, but likelihood” (89)   So there are our three threes: language should be current, national and reputable; reasoning draws on imagination, memory and passion; experience leads to both probablility and plausibility. I have to admit, while researching this podcast, I came to a newfound appreciation of Campbell. His wikipedia page, for example, is severely lacking. I should probably do something about that now, huh? If you have a topic you think gets shorted, why not drop me a line at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com? Oh, or speaking of technology if you like the podcast, you can get on ITunes or whereever you get your podcasts and leave us a good review. Letting us know what you like lets us bring you even more. It’s like probable as well as plausible.  

Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements, and people who shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren. Quintilian was a transitional figure of rhetoric. Born in a Roman province of Spain to a Spanish family at around 35 CE, he lived both geographically and temporally at the peripheries of the Roman Empire. Quintilian was, as everyone was, influenced by Cicero and the Greek instructors, Progymnasmata, which we've talked about in an earlier episode. He was deeply concerned with questions about the education of rhetoric. As a teacher of rhetoric, his students were mostly historians, like Tacitus, or authors, like Juvenal, instead of politicians. In fact, his student Tacitus will later argue that there wasn't much space for rhetoric as the Roman Empire became more authoritarian. Who's going to argue with an Emperor? But Quintilian was deeply interested in not just creating better rhetoric, but better rhetors. The most famous idea from Quintilian is probably his insistence that the rhetor will be a good person all around. Educated, kind, refined. As Bruce Herzberg and Patricia Bizzell say in their introduction, "Quintilian's insistence on the moral element may bespeak his own quiet desperation about what sort of leader would be needed to galvanize the corrupt Rome of his day." Whatever Quintilian's motivation, he explains in detail, hundreds of pages of detail, how rhetors are to be educated. >> That's right, Mary. To illustrate Quintilian's preoccupation with the intersection of ethics and the art of oratory, it's worth noting that his definition of rhetoric is "a good man speaking well.” Without good words and good morals, there cannot be good rhetoric. There can be no divorce between the content and the form of statement. The reverse was also important for Quintilian, that training in rhetoric could have some sort of moral impact on the student. Quintilian hoped that people would be more moral for their rhetorical training. Although he was teaching at a time when rhetoric and Roman society was at "no longer a severe discipline for training the average man for active citizenship." Good citizenship depends, not just on speaking technically well, but also morally well. How does the student develop this kind of technical and moral excellence in speaking? Primarily, through the impact of good examples. Nurses, classmates, and especially the teacher should "all be kept free from moral fault" or "even the suspicion of it." Classmates can have good effects on students. Instructors should also frequently demonstrate because now that we teach, examples are more powerful even than the rules." This sort of reminds me of the kind of scaffolding that Lev Vygotsky, Ridley, and Carroll talk about. When students are surrounded by students doing work that is just a little bit more difficult than what they're accustomed to, they can see how their near peers rise to the problems and learn how to imitate those strategies as well. >> So teachers, classmates, instructors, you can tell from all of these influences that Quintilian is so worried about, he believes in the little sponges model of pedagogy. Some influences like nurses and classmates maybe accidental, but Quintilian also emphasizes the conscious use of imitation exercises to strengthen the student. In fact, Quintilian declares that "an orator ought to be furnished, above all things, with an ample store of examples." The things that Quintilian recommends imitation, though, vary from the standard Progymnasmata. The Progymnasmata gave students topics like kidnappers and smugglers. Standard Hardy Boy stuff. But Quintilian believed that students should imitate the sort of things they're actually going to be writing. Real life writing. In this sense, you can see how Quintilian would be comfortable with some of the scholars who emphasize learning to write in the disciplines. All of this is sort of a social-constructed view of good rhetoric, even something a little pre-writing in the disciplines. Quintilian talks about how every species of writing has its own prescribed law, each to its own appropriate dress. So this sort of emphasizes the idea that there's not just one type of good writing and you can't teach somebody just good writing or good rhetoric. He saw that you needed to practice in the types of forms that you're actually going to be doing. This is really kind of revolutionary stuff and it's surprising that it didn't get picked up earlier until in the past, about 100 years has been a real emphasis on beginning to teach writing not just was a transferable skill, but something that is really specific to a specific task. But at the same time, Quintilian believed that his students should be generalists, because eloquence "requires the aid of many arts." So even things like gymnastics, to improve lung capacity and posture, and geometry should be taught to the would-be rhetor. A sort of balance between the liberal arts and sort of like a specific kind of technical training. But especially, you have this reading, writing, listening all being taught at the same time, because they influence each other, and Quintilian says that they are so inseparably linked with one another and that they should be taught, not as separate skills, but as sort of one fluid type of learning about language. >> That's right, Mary. Quintilian saw speaking, writing, and reading as important skills of course, but not things that could be separated from the human experience as a whole. In fact, Quintilian saw it as his duty as a teacher to cultivate not just good rhetors, but the whole person. That might sound a little authoritarian, but just because Quintilian believed that students should write real-life exercises, doesn't mean he didn't think that they should have fun. Rhetoric, in varying forms appropriate to age, surrounds the student's cradle to the grave. Little children and babies could be given alphabet blocks as toys, and young students should be allowed to play with their own writing and the student should be daring, invent much, and delight in what he invents. Practice alone, though, won't lead automatically to greatness. "Talent does matter, but he who is honorably inclined will be very different from the stupid or idol," Quintilian says, "and the wise instructor will give matter designed as it were beforehand in proportion to the abilities of each, and the teacher will help them to find their strengths and apply chiefly to that in which he can succeed." Help make students succeed. The students should be happy with what they are producing even if it isn't what a professional writer would write. Not everyone has to become a famous writer but any skill in rhetoric will pay dividends for the wealth, honor and friendship, greater present and future fame," Quintilian writes, "No matter how much or how little you obtain or feel you use." >>Unlike many other teachers of rhetoric, Quintilian rejected stylistic anachronisms and effects. "Language is excellent, perspicuous and elegant and should have the public stamp like currency. Current practices matter so much that custom in speaking, therefore, I shall call the agreement of the educated just as I call custom in living the agreement of the good." There's an obvious influence here on enlightenment rhetors like Hugh Blair who similarly reject the idea that you should speak in an old timey way and that you need to consider what the modern style is for your own region. Incidentally, Blair thought that Quintilian was the best of all the rhetoricians. Overall, students should develop fasilitas, the readiness to appropriate language for any situation. To be fluid with understanding what the social conventions are and how you can apply language to it. And after a good career, Quintilian even advises the rhetor to bow out gracefully, not full of reunion tours and botox, but to leave at your peak, "Because it becomes him to take care that he speak not worse than he has been in the habit of speaking." That's not to say that retired people are off the hook. They're still expected to study like Marcus Cato who learned Greek in his old age. But Quintilian definitely sets out a line of the entire rhetor's life, from their earliest years playing with blocks to when they retire at an old age. >>So Quintilian clearly would have been no fan of Rocky V and VI, is what we're saying there [laughter]. >>How many people were? [laughs] >>I think only a few perhaps. If all of this seems like a lot of work to raise the writer, then you're absolutely right. Quintilian describes such an involved pedagogy from cradle to grave, that the relationship is less like a teacher and more like a parent. The focus in Quintilian's pedagogy is less quick and dirty tricks, and more the formation of a rhetorical character. He feels that learning rhetoric will help make you a better person. The good man speaking well and because of that he passionately promotes a study of rhetoric. In fact, we can't put it any better than he does, so we'll end with his inspiring words and if these don't make you excited about studying rhetoric, I just don't know what will. "Let us then presume with our whole powers the true dignity of eloquence then which the immortal gods have given nothing better to mankind and without which all nature would be mute and all our acts would be deprived alike of present honor and commemoration among posterity and let us aspire to the highest excellence for, by this means, we shall attain the summit and if it does not ring great advantage to studious youth it will at least excite in them what I desire even more, a love for doing well." [musical outro]

Hugh Blair   Welcome to MR. Rebroadcast note     Today in honor of Scotland voting to stick with the rest of the United Kingdom, we’re going to talk about Hugh Blair. That’s right-- a Scottish rhetorician to honor the Scottish referendum. Hugh Blair was a bit of a rising star. He was a Presbyterian clergyman, but the top of the top of Scottish clergymen, eventually getting the High Church of St. Giles: the highest honor for the men of the cloth in Scotland. Once you’ve peaked out in divinity, what do you do? Well, if you’re Hugh Blair, you begin teaching about literature and writing. Originally, he taught pro bono, as a way to stave off the boredom of dominating Presbyterian clergy, but his classes became increasingly popular and the king gave him the Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.   Which King? King George the III, the same one who lost the Colonies. So when you think about Hugh Blair, put him in context with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.   So King George lost a hemisphere and gained a rhetoric professor, and what a rhetoric professor he gained. Think of the title. Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Rhetoric, as listeners of this podcast, you know, but what’s Belles Lettres? Belles Lettres means beautiful or fine writing, so all of literature—poetry, drama, fiction. These were considered similar enough to rhetoric so that one chair might have both responsibilities. Blair’s classes were so popular that anyone who was lucky enough to sit in on them could take notes and then redistribute or sell them to others. But if you’ve ever gotten notes from someone in class, then you know that there can be a big different between what the teacher said and what got written down. This bothered Hugh Blair, so he decided to set his lectures down on paper and compile them into a book. This book was given the incredibly clever title Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. The lectures are not particularly novel: Blair draws a lot on Quintilian, whom he loved, as well as contemporary theorists about writing, like the newspaperman Joseph Addison. A lot of what Blair sounds really familiar to us, for reasons I’ll discuss in a minute.     Blair states that “to be truly eloquent, is to speak to the purpose” and “whatever […] the subject be, there is room for eloquence” (234). That means that you don’t have to wait for a noble subject to speak noble words. It’s more important, Blair suggests, that you pay attention to why you are speaking, to the rhetorical situation and then adapt what you say to fit the situation. It’s also important to be sincere: “Nature teaches every man to be eloquent, when he is much in earnest” (235). Language should be simple (naïve) in construction, seemingly natural, avoiding ornament and unaffected (184). This straightforward style is often what Anglo Americans expect when reading everything from newspapers to academic reports.Blair thought that national languages were best for expressing ideas. These means that instead of dropping in tons of Latin or French, you should use good old English, and instead of using the English of Shakespeare or Milton, you should use contemporary English. In short, language should be current and national He defines purity not as referring back to some long-gone golden age, but purity is “use of such words […] as belong to idiom of the language which we speak” (33) propriety depends on relation between the word and “express[ing] the idea which he intends” and “express[ed] fully” (34). So eloquence depends on language that is current and national, natural and sincere.   Still, style, according to Blair, “is a field that admits of great latitude [..] Room must be left here for genius” (190). So there’s room for individuality within the boundaries of “good style.” Individuality matters an awful lot in delivery, too: “Let your manner, whatever it is, be your own; neither imitated from another, nor assumed upon some imaginary model, which is unnatural to you” (336).   Like many of his time, Blair believed that Invention is beyond the scope of rhetoric—“beyond the power of art to give any real assistance” and “to manage these reason with the most advantage […] is all that rhetoric can pretend to” (316). So the first step for, in Blair’s example, a preacher, is to do research and the first step of research isn’t to go imitate someone else’s ideas but to actually start with “pondering the subject in his own thoughts” (291). Blair also made a distinction between conviction of the brain and persuasion of the will (235). So if I get you to agree that smoking is bad and unhealthily, I can convince you through charts and statistics to the point where you admit smoking is bad, but unless you persuade you in your will to take the steps necessary, you might continue to light up. Convincing gets you to know while persuasion gets you to do. This is, as you might imagine, an important distinction for a preacher.     In sum, Blair’s over all argument was that “True eloquence is the art of placing truth in the most advantageous light for conviction and persuasion” (281). None of this sounds revolutionary, does it? Partially this is because Blair pretty much just updated classical sources for contemporary genres of writing, but this is also because Blair’s text was hugely successful. The Lectures on Rhetoric were the most reproduced, imitated and distributed text of its era, and even into the next century…and the next. But it wouldn’t be until the Victorian age that other theorists like Whatley would challenge Blair’s dominance in rhetoric in general and preacher-training in specific. Blair’s Lectures went through over a 130 editions in the next century and its ideas filtered down through textbooks for college students, high school students, even into elementary school readers!. Sound like the upperclass and you’ll be able to smoothly move into the upper class. All that stuff about current & national language? Turns out that there’s a “correct” type of current and national language.   They were especially influential in America, where Hugh Blair’s texts were seen as a way that you could rise above your station. So around the same time that America gained its independence from England, Blair was writing his rhetoric that would encourage Americans to unite in a “current and national” language. Even though Scotland voted to remain with the rest of the United Kingdom, Blair helped them, too, to recognize the potential of their own current language.   If you want to rise above your station, send us an email. We might not be able to help you but we could take a request for an episode. Email me at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com and I’ll do my darnest. Until next time

Lecture 579 (8 June 2015)

Michael Found returns home to pay respects to his brother Thomas at his funeral, but something doesn't feel quite right.To download, right-click here and then click Save Huge "Thank You!" to all of the generous donors to the "Ken Scholes Meets Edgar Allan Poe" Kickstarter!! Rish Outfield Hugh Blair Joel Pearson James, Mostly Harmless Craig Christensen Jennifer Shael Hawman Chris Munroe Hugh O'Donnell Gino Moretto Bria Burton Chad Koehnen Kevin Kaatz John Higham Donna R. Barnard John A. Pitts Keith Teklits Wilson Flowlie Abbigail Hilton Jeremy Carter Keith Rainey Mike Bassett Dave Thompson Tom Tancredi Jonathan Leggo Herb Petro Ken Scholes grew up in a trailer outside a smallish logging town not far from the base of Mount Rainier in the Pacific Northwest.  Baptized into Story at a young age, he fed himself on Speed Racer, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants and Marine Boy sprinkled with a generous dose of dinosaur picture books.  When he was thirteen, he read Bradbury's essay "How to Keep and Feed a Muse" and knew he had to be a writer. When he was fourteen, he started writing stories of his own and by fifteen, he had started his own Rejection Slip Collection. After a long break away from writing, Ken returned to it after logging time as a sailor, soldier, preacher, musician, label gun repairman, retail manager and nonprofit director. He sold his first story to Talebones Magazine in 2000 and won the Writers of the Future contest in 2004. His quirky, offbeat fiction continues to show up in various magazines and anthologies like Polyphony 6, Weird Tales and Clarkesworld Magazine.In 2006, his short story "Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise" appeared in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy. Later that year, inspired and taunted by his friends and family to finally write a novel, Ken extended that story and Lamentation was born. Lamentation is the first in a five book series from Tor Books called The Psalms of Isaak.  He has since also written Canticle, Antiphon, and Requiem in that series.Ken lives near Portland, Oregon, with his amazing wonder-wife Jen West Scholes and their twin daughters: Elizabeth and Rachel.  If you'd like to know more about Ken, you can  contact him through his website.Cast of characters:Graeme Dunlop (of Podcastle) as Michael FoundRenee Chambliss as VictoriaJulie Hoverson (of 19 Nocturne Boulevard) as Sandra MatthewsWilson Fowlie as Thomas FoundMusic used in this production:"Awaiting Return", "Virtutes Vocis", and "Rumination" by Kevin MacLeodRealated Links:Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine ShowSeveral sound effects were found at freesound.org.Theme music: Liberator by Man In SpaceTo comment on this story, journey on over to the Forums

    Henry Hume, Lord Kames (1696-1782)       Henry Hume, Lord Kames was a distant relative as well as friend to David Hume, although they spell their names differently.  David Hume changed the spelling so that his English readers would pronounce it properly.  Henry Hume kept the original spelling H-O-M-E.               Unlike David Hume, Lord Kames did not go to university nor even have the benefit of a sojourn to France to broaden his education. Much more like Jane Austen’s Lizzie Bennet, Kames was born the third son out of nine children to a heavily indebted but well-respected family.  He was educated at home with his siblings and was apprenticed as a solicitor.  Unlike Lizzie Bennet, who faces limitations due to her gender, Kames was able to participate in a number of philosophical societies and gentlemen’s clubs.  He further expanded his knowledge through jobs such as Curator of the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh which gave him access to a wealth of books.        There are a number of factors contributing to Kames success.  Clearly two of these factors were his talent and his drive.  Another was the luck of a long life.  Kames was born in 1696 and lived through much of the eighteenth century to the ripe age of 86.  Contemporaries commented on his remarkable good health in old age, the longevity of his memory, and his feisty personality.  Kames is quoted as saying of old age “why should I sit with my finger in my cheek waiting for death to take me?’  He did not specify which cheek.        After his apprenticeship he worked his way up through the judicial ranks to become a highly respected judge, which is how he acquired the title Lord—it was not a hereditary title but an honor associated with his work as a judge.  Lord Kames again like Lizzie Bennett benefited from a lucky marriage.  He waited until age 47 to finally decide to marry.  His bride, Agatha Drummond, an attractive socialite eleven years his junior came from the wealthy Blair Drummond family.  James Boswell’s journals praise her for her looks, conversational skills and sense of humor—high praise from Bozzie.  Agatha’s original marriage portion was a moderate £1000 without any prospects due to an older brother with a family of his own.  However in 1766, Agatha unexpectedly became heiress to the entire Blair Drummond estate upon the unfortunate death of her brother and his son.  Thereafter, she and her children styled themselves Home-Drummond to acknowledge her family’s legacy and her husband Kames actively worked to enjoy and care for the sumptuous estate.       The inheritance impacted Kames’ work by providing a country writing retreat.  He was a prolific writer with 8 legal histories, plus books on diverse subjects like agriculture, and political science.  His book with the greatest impact on the history of rhetoric and the subject of our talk today was Elements of Criticism.  Published in 1761, Elements of Criticism brought the Enlightenment’s “scientific” view of human nature to the critical evaluation of the fine arts.  I would like to highlight how this interesting eighteenth century text connects to some very recent conversations about multimodal, visual and spatial rhetorics.                 Elements of Criticism made a splash and was a bit controversial due to its expansive inclusion of the visual arts with belle lettres.  Developing a theory of criticism for the fine artsrequired Kames to take sides in debates about human nature, beauty, and human nature.  He is participating in these with writers like Frances Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, and Edmund Burke.  At the time he was writing the orthodox and moderate factions of the Presbyterian church were vying for power in Scotland.  Based on theological ideas going back to the Reformation, both sides had mixed feelings about the impact of visual arts like paintings and sculpture on the viewer. In some areas theater was illegal.          Most of Elements of Criticism engages with literary texts for its examples and illustrations but his methods take into account the multimodality of the work.  For example, Kames takes encourages readers to take into account the musical and melodic qualities of poetry in his analysis of meter.  In spite of the disapproval of theater in Edinburgh, he works in criticism of plays and operas—not just the librettos but also of the staging and sets tacitly indicating through these inclusions his views on theater debate.       For those listeners interested in spatial theory or rhetorics of space, Kames applies the final chapter of the book the criticism of gardening and architecture.  The chapter thinks about how progression through space and the arrangement of objects in space can influence the mind and especially the emotions.  Kames emphasizes the natural style of gardening over more ornate or fantastic styles.  He presents the ornate French gardens as an example of what not to do, and praises the harmony of Chinese models.       Many of Kames’s proscriptive and prescriptive critiques participate in a larger Scottish Enlightenment conversation about taste in which moderates posed that fine arts were acceptable if morally improving to the audience or reader.  In this argument the wealthier members of society had an obligation to develop their taste as a sort of moral education.  For Kames, taste could also be developed by the lower classes through proximity to and observation of tasteful public works.  This idea represents a synthesis of ideas about the human tendency towards imitation and new concepts of the moral sense.  This chapter along with Sir John Dalrymple’s Essay on Landscape Gardening popularized the natural garden trend in mid-eighteenth century Scotland.               Elements of Criticism had a lasting impact as a textbook well into the 19th century and was by no means confined to Scotland.  The work was quickly translated into German and appeared in the library of Emmanuel Kant.  It crossed the Atlantic where it was taught in rhetoric courses at Yale side-by-side with texts by authors like Hugh Blair and George Campbell, according to the research of Gregory Clark.         To close our discussion of Elements of Criticism I would like to bring things back to the author himself.  Lord Kames, after all, did not have the benefit of a formal education, nor did he have the restrictions.  Although his writing is clear, he does not aspire to the heights of rhetorical eloquence.  In his judicial practice he was well known for using casual and even ribald language with his colleagues.  According to local legend, Kames at his retirement took leave of his colleagues with a cheery “Fare ye a’weel, ye bitches!”       Thanks for listening to our podcast today.  This is Connie Steel at the University of Texas for Mere Rhetoric.           Chambers, Robert.  Traditions of Edinburgh, Vol 2.  Edinburgh:  W. & C. Tait 1825, p 171.   Googlebooks Web.        Clark, Greg.  “Timothy Dwight's Moral Rhetoric at Yale College, 1795–1817.” Rhetorica:  A Journal of the History of Rhetoric.  Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring 1987) pp 149-161.   Home, Henry, Lord Kames. Elements of Criticism.  Edited with an Introduction by Peter Jones (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). 2 Vols.  www.libertyfund.org May 31, 2015. Web.       Lehmann, William C. Henry Home, Lord Kames, and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Study in National Character and in the History of Ideas.  The Hague:  Martinus Hijhoff, 1971.  (International Archives of the History of Ideas.  Info on Agatha and the family, on Agatha p 64-65.  “Bitches” 135 (from Chambers).       Miller, Thomas.  “The Formation of College English:  A Survey of the Archives of Eighteenth-Century Rhetorical Theory and Practice.”  Rhetoric Society Quarterly.  Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 1990) pp 261-286.                          

Dr James Loxley describes the reception and influence of Shakespeare's work in Scotland, including around Hugh Blair's time. Recorded Friday 17 February 2012.Audio version. Listen to podcast

Professor Susan Manning, Dr Bob Irvine, Professor Randall Stevenson discuss Hugh Blair's appointment to the first Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in 1762, and the literary ambience at the time, including in the work of Burns. Recorded Friday 3 February 2012.Audio version. Listen to podcast