]\IAY 28, 18G0.] OBITUARY.— HAMILTON. 127 



Elgin having obtained from the Porte the gift of the famous 

 marbles of the Parthenon, Mr. Hamilton was conveying them to 

 England when the ship was wrecked at Cerigo, and those treasures 

 were submerged. But, thanks to the perseverance and zeal of our 

 deceased Associate, these productions of the very finest period of 

 Greek Art were extricated from the deep, and have long constituted 

 the chief ornaments of our great National Museum. 



Following up %is leading bent, Mr. Hamilton became a Fellow 

 of the Society of Antiquaries in 1804, and distinguished himself by 

 various publications in the Transactions of that body, among which 

 his memoir * Eemarks on the Ancient Fortresses of Greece ' was 

 the precursor of that valuable and more extensive publication which 

 he issued in 1810, under the title of ' iEgyptiacse.' 



His public career was in the mean time essentially bound up 

 with the business of the Foreign Office. Acting as secretary of 

 Lord Harrowby and precis writer to Lord Mulgrave, he became 

 Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs in 1809. In the stormy and 

 eventful period of the next six years, including the Peninsular 

 War, and the battle of Waterloo, Mr. Hamilton held the same im- 

 portant office, which he occupied even to the year 1822, when he 

 was appointed Minister at Naples. At the peace of Paris, in 1815, 

 when he accompanied Lord Castlereagh to the Continent, we find 

 Mr. Hamilton again standing forward in his love of the Fine Arts, 

 and serving as an agent of the British Government in procuring 

 the restitution to Italy of those famous paintings and sculptures of 

 which she had been deprived by the French conquests. 



In the fine arts then, as in antiquarian research, Italy as well as 

 our own country has been deeply indebted to two William Ilamil- 

 tons — the one the celebrated contemporary of Nelson, the other our 

 deceased Member, and both of them British Ministers at Naples. 

 The last official appointment indeed held by Mr. Hamilton was that 

 of Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the King 

 of Naples, in which position he truly enjoyed life, by studying the 

 relics of classical art, and in cultivating the acquaintance of all the 

 eminent Italians, including Canova. 



Returning to England in 1825, and retiring from public life on 

 his well-earned pension, Mr. Hamilton then gave himself up to 

 the pursuits of literature and science, in promoting which he proved 

 so eminently useful. As early indeed as 1813 he had become a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1830, when this Society was 

 founded, he took an active part in its formation, and also acted 



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