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THE MERGING OF CIVIC REPUBLICANISM, POLITE CULTURE, AND CHRISTIANITY IN HUGH BLAIR’S LECTURES ON RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES1 Arthur E. Walzer The focus of this paper is Lecture 34 of Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Lecture 34 is the last of ten lectures devoted to what Blair calls “Public Speaking.”2 Th ese ten lectures on public speaking comprise Blair’s concentrated attention to the “rhetoric” part of his title, to distinguish this theme from the emphasis on taste and criticism that constitutes “belles lettres.” Th ese rhetoric lectures are an interesting instance in historical appropriation: Blair is deeply committed to classical rhetoric, which was central to his educational experience at Edinburgh. In his Lectures, he would appropriate the civic, republican rhetorical tradition to his own Enlightenment, Christian, Scottish, post-Union context. Th e challenges of this appropriation are considerable and come to a head in Lecture 34, “Means of Improving in Eloquence.” Th e lecture references Quintilian and argues that one can be an eff ective orator only if one is fi rst a good person; success in oratory and good character are reciprocal, so developing an appropri- ate, moral character is the best means to improving eloquence. But the character traits that Quintilian had in mind – those public, political, Aristocratic virtues of civic republicanism in its Roman context – are not particularly applicable to Blair’s polite, Christian, Scottish, demo- cratic context. Yet Blair is unwilling to abandon the civic republicanism of the rhetorical tradition. He seeks to combine it with the values of politeness so important to Enlightened Edinburgh – and also with the Christian values fundamental to Blair’s program. 1 Some of the ideas in this essay are also developed in Arthur E. Walzer, “Blair’s Ideal Orator: Civic Rhetoric and Christian Politeness in Lectures 25–34,” Rhetorica 25 (2007), 269–95. 2 Hugh Blair: Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, eds. Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloran (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), Lecture 25, 264. Lecture numbers and page numbers cited henceforth refer to this edition. 304 arthur e. walzer In this paper, I will fi rst describe these three diff erent ideologies – civic republican, polite, and Christian – as Blair presents them. Th en I bring this discussion to bear on four paragraphs in Lecture 34 in which Blair attempts to combine them in his portrait of his ideal orator. Blair was formally initiated into the classical ideal of civic republi- canism while a student at Edinburgh University, beginning in 1730. John Stevenson, Blair’s rhetoric and logic professor, was among the Edinburgh faculty who sought to establish civic republicanism as a secular formative ideal that could be an alternative to a return to “godly” education proposed by a conservative faction within the Kirk following the Revolution Settlement of 1688–89.3 Within the ideology of civic rhetoric, participatory citizenship is the ideal, leading to the fullest development of our social human nature. Within this ideology, liberty, in the sense of participating in the rule of all by all, is the highest ideal. Virtue is understood in public, political terms – as devotion to the public good – and expressed as a passion for service to country. We should sacrifi ce for the fatherland and devote our lives to our country and our fortunes to public projects. Doing so is the basis for honor. Luxury, which involves spending on vanity, puts self before country and is therefore wrong.4 3 Peter Jones, “Th e Scottish Professoriate and the Polite Academy, 1720–46” in Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff , eds., Wealth and Virtue: Th e Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 89–118, 89. 4 For the history of the idea of civic republicanism, the standard work is J. G. A. Pocock, Th e Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Th ought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975); see also Pocock’s Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Th ought and History, Chiefl y in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). For civic repub- licanism in Scotland, see Nicolas Phillipson, “Th e Scottish Enlightenment” in Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich eds., Th e Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 19–41; also Phillipson’s “Adam Smith as Civic Moralist,” in Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff eds., Wealth and Virtue: Th e Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 179–202; and John Robertson, “Th e Scottish Enlightenment at the Limits of the Civic Tradition,” also in Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff eds., Wealth and Virtue, 137–178. .

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