ne of the soundest lawyers
on the bench, and when he was promoted to the court of appeal in 1876
was considered the highest authority on common law. In 1876 he was made
a lord of appeal and a life peer. Both in this capacity and as judge of
the queen's bench he delivered many judgments of the highest importance,
and no decisions have been received with greater respect. In 1886 he was
appointed a member of the commission charged to prepare a digest of the
criminal law, but retired on account of indisposition in the following
year. He died at his country residence, Doonholm in Ayrshire, on the 8th
of January 1896. He was the author of a valuable work on the _Law of
Sales_.

See _The Times_, 10th of January 1896; E. Manson, _Builders of our
Law_ (1904).

BLACKBURN, JONATHAN (c. 1700-c. 1765), American portrait painter, was
born in Connecticut. He seems to have been the son of a painter, and to
have had a studio in Boston in 1750-1765; among his patrons were many
important early American families, including the Apthorps, Amorys,
Bulfinches, Lowells, Ewings, Saltonstalls, Winthrops, Winslows and
Otises of Boston. Some of his portraits are in the possession of the
public library of Lexington, Massachusetts, and of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, but most of them are privately owned and are
scattered over the country, the majority being in Boston. John Singleton
Copley was his pupil, and it is said that he finally left his studio in
Boston, through jealousy of Copley's superior success. He was a good
portrait painter, and some of his pictures were long attributed to
Copley.

BLACKBURN, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Lancashire,
England, 210 m. N.W. by N. from London, and 24-1/2 N.N.W. from
Manchester, served by the Lancashire & Yorkshire and the London & North
Western railways, with several lines from all parts of the county. Pop.
(1891) 120,064; (1901) 127,626. It lies in the valley of a stream called
in early times the Blackeburn, but now known as the Brook. The hills in
the vicinity rise to some 900 ft., and among English manufacturing towns
Blackburn ranks high in beauty of situation. Besides numerous churches
and chapels the public buildings comprise a large town hall (1856),
market house, exchange, county court, municipal offices, chamber of
commerce, free library, and, outside the town, an infirmary. There are
an Elizabethan grammar school, in modern buildings (1884) and an
ex