OBITUAKIES, .EUROPEAN. 



673 



August 4. AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONSTONE, 

 a Scottish poet and novelist, died near Elgin, 

 Scotland, aged 52 years. He was a native of 

 Edinburgh ; was educated at the University of 

 which he afterwards became Professor, and in 

 1831 gained a prize for the first poem, "Judith." 

 He was called to the Scottish bar in 1840 ; and 

 in 1845 was appointed by the crown to the 

 chair of Rhetoric .and Belles Lettres in Edin- 

 burgh University. 



He was a contributor for thirty years to 

 " Blackwood " and other magazines under the 

 nom de plume, partly, of Augustus Dunshunner. 

 His ballads, published in connection with Theo- 

 dore Martin's as the "Bon Gaultier" ballads, 

 gave him a wide fame, aside from his magazine 

 reputation. He published " The Lays of the 

 Scottish Cavaliers," first printed in a collected 

 form in 1858, and now in their seventeenth 

 edition ; " Firmilian : a Spasmodic Tragedy," 

 1854, an amusing and effective burlesque of the 

 sensational drama ; "Bothwell: a Poem," giv- 

 ing an episode in the history of Mary, Queen 

 of Scots, published in 1856; an edition of "The 

 Ballads of Scotland," 1857 ; lectures on " Poe- 

 try and Dramatic Literature," delivered in Lon- 

 don in 1853; translations of " Poems and Bal- 

 lads of Goethe," a joint labor with Mr. Theodore 

 Martin; "Norman Sinclair," a novel, first pub- 

 lished from " Blackwood's " pages in 1861. He 

 was also the author of some amusing papers, 

 of which the dry and sly humor, perhaps, was 

 best appreciated by his own countrymen, enti- 

 tled " The Glenmutchkin Railway," a burlesque 

 'of the railway mania; "Howl stood for the 

 Dreepdaily Burghs," a farcical sketch of election- 

 eering, etc. Professor Aytoun was a D. 0. L. 

 of Oxford, and held other academical honors. 



Aug. . HAMILTON, Sir WILLIAM Row AST, 

 Professor of Astronomy in the University of 

 Dublin, and Astronomer Royal of England, 

 born in Dublin, August 4, 1805 ; died at Dun- 

 sink Observatory near Dublin, September 2, 

 1865. At a very early age he gave strong indi- 

 cations of extraordinary intellectual powers. 

 When but four years of age he had made some 

 progress in Hebrew, and at thirteen years was 

 in different degrees acquainted with thirteen 

 languages, among which were some of the 

 Oriental languages. Having access to a Latin 

 copy of Euclid when ten years old, he became 

 deeply interested in geometry. In 1823 he en- 

 tered the University of Dublin, where he was 

 equally distinguished for natural abilities and 

 1'or acquired knowledge of the most varied 

 kind, and his proficiency in classics and science 

 gained for him every honor that the University 

 had to bestow. While still an undergraduate, he 

 was appointed Professor of Astronomy in the 

 University, and Astronomer Royal of Ireland. 

 In 1834 he received the Royal medal of the 

 Royal Society for his discovery of conical re- 

 traction, and the succeeding year his paper on 

 mathematical and astronomical science gained 

 him the applause of the first authorities of Eu- 

 rope. As a lecturer, in his chair, he has been 

 VOL. T. 43 A 



eminently distinguished. His investigations on 

 scientific subjects are published in the " Trans- 

 actions" and " Proceedings " of the Royal Irish 

 Academy and Royal Society, in the "Proceed- 

 ings " of the British Association, in the "Lon- 

 don and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine," 

 etc., and they are universally acknowledged to 

 be some of the grandest specimens of the 

 higher analysis. The last and most elaborate 

 of Hamilton's writings is his "Method or 

 Calculus of Quaternions," which occupied 

 twenty-two years in its elaboration. The three 

 leading traits of the author's mind, originality, 

 generalization, and independence, are conspic- 

 uous in this work. Sir William Rowan Hamil- 

 ton twice gained vice-chancellor's prizes for 

 English poetry. H ranked metaphysics above 

 mathematics in the hierarchy of science, and 

 maintained that its highest province and the 

 region of poetry lay in the same latitude. His 

 manuscripts, in sixty volumes, are deposited in 

 the library of Trinity College. 



Aug. 10. CUMING, HUGH, F. L. S., an Eng- 

 lish botanist and conchologist, died in London, 

 aged V4 years. Apprenticed to a sail-maker, 

 he was brought into contact with sea-faring 

 men, and in 1819 made a voyage to South 

 America and settled in Valparaiso. Here his 

 passion for shells, which had existed from child- 

 hood, found an ample field for development, 

 and in 1826 he gave himself up wholly to his 

 favorite pursuit. With this object he built a 

 yacht expressly fitted for his collections, and 

 cruised among the islands of the South Pacific, 

 along the western coast of America, and sub- 

 sequently among the Philippine Islands, where 

 he was greatly aided in his researches by the 

 Spanish Government. After several years of 

 absence, he returned to England with the rich- 

 est booty that had ever been collected by a sin- 

 gle man. His dried plants numbered 130,000 

 specimens, and his collections of shells num- 

 bered at the time of his death over 60,000, be- 

 ing by far the finest in Europe. Large numbers 

 of birds, reptiles, quadrupeds, and insects, were 

 also added to the museums at home and abroad. 



Aug. 20. TKELAWNEY, KATE HOWARD, for- 

 mer mistress of Louis Napoleon, died at her 

 chateau, near Versailles, aged 42 years. In 

 early life she was remarkable for her beauty, 

 and this, with her charms of manner, gave her 

 great power over Louis Napoleon, from whom 

 she received every mark of favor and consider- 

 ation. On his marriage with the Empress 

 Eug6nie, the chateau and domains of Beauregard 

 were settled upon his former mistress. She 

 was then married to a captain by the name of 

 Trelawney, and during the latter years of her 

 life had grown exceedingly corpulent, so that 

 her carriages were made expressly to accommo- 

 date her great size. The decline of her life wr.s 

 a period of great unhappiness, but she endeav- 

 ored to assuage her own sorrows by extended 

 and carefully administered charity, going in per- 

 son to visit the sick, the suffering, and the poor. 



Aug. 24. RICKAKDS, Rev. SAMUEL, an Eng- 



