963 



TENNANT, SMITHSON. 



TENNANT, WILLIAM. 



964 



name of Tennent, by which he has been since known. In the same 

 year, 1832, he was elected M.P. for Belfast, and again for the same 

 place in 1835. He was rejected at the general election of 1837, Imt 

 seated on petition; and again returned in 1841, but unseated on 

 petition. He regained his seat jn 1842, and held it till 1845. He 

 sat for Lisburn in 1852. From September 1841 to July 1845 Mr. 

 Emerson Teunent held the office of Secretary to the India Board ; 

 in July 1845, he accepted the appointment of Civil Secretary to the 

 Colonial Government of Ceylon, he was knighted prior to going 

 out to Ceylon, and he remained there till December 1850 ; after his 

 return, and while member for Lisburn, he held from February till 

 November 1852, the office of Secretary to the Poor-law Board; and 

 since November 1852 he has been one of the joint Secretaries to the 

 Board of Trade. While, thus since 1832 leading an active parlia- 

 mentary, and since 1841 an active parliamentary and official life, Sir 

 James Emerson Tenuent has continued also to appear occasionally as 

 an author. The following are his chief publications in addition to 

 those mentioned above: 'Belgium/ in two volumes, 1841; 'A 

 Treatise on the Copyright of Designs for Printed Fabrics ; with con- 

 siderations on the necessity of its extension, and notices of the state 

 of Calico-printing in Belgium, Germany, and the States of the Prussian 

 Commercial League," 1841; 'Christianity in Ceylon, with an histo- 

 rical sketch of the Brahmanical and Buddhist Superstitions,' 1 850 ; 

 and ' Wine ; its Use and Taxation : an enquiry into the operation of 

 the Wine Duties on Consumption and Revenue/ 1855. 



TENNANT, SMITHSON, a distinguished chemist, was born at 

 Selby, in Yorkshire, November 30, 1761, and died February 22, 1815. 

 He was the only child of the Rev. Calvert Tennant, of whom little is 

 known except that he had been a Fellow of St. John's College, Cam- 

 bridge, and was a friend of Dr. Rutherford, Regius Professor of Divinty in 

 that university. While very young he gave many proofs of a particular 

 turn for chemistry and natural philosophy, and after quitting school he 

 was very desirous of completing his chemical studies under the imme- 

 diate instruction of Dr. Priestley, who was then enjoying a high repu- 

 tation for the extent and variety of his discoveries in pneumatic che- 

 mistry, but this was found impracticable in consequence of the previous 

 engagements of Dr. Priestley. In 1781 he went to Edinburgh with the 

 intention of studying medicine. Of his companions, occupations, or 

 studies while in Scotland, little is known, except that he received instruc- 

 tion from Dr. Black ; he did not however continue long a member in 

 that university, for in October 1782 he was admitted a member of 

 Christ's College, Cambridge, where he then began to reside. 



In the summer of 1784 he travelled into Denmark and Sweden, 

 with the intention, partly of examining the mines of the latter country, 

 but chiefly with the view of becoming personally acquainted with 

 Scheele, for whom he had conceived a high degree of admiration, 

 especially on account of the simplicity of the apparatus which he 

 employed in his chemical regearches. In a year or two afterwards he 

 went to Paris, where he became acquainted with some of the eminent 

 chemists ; thence he went to Holland and the Netherlands, after having 

 recovered from a serious illness with which he was seized during his 

 residence in the French capital. 



In January 1785, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and 

 in 1786 he left Christ's College and removed to Emmanuel College ; 

 in 1788 he took his degree as bachelor of physic, and soon after quitted 

 Cambridge and came to reside in London. In 1796 he took a doctor's 

 degree at Cambridge, but as his fortune was independent, he relin- 

 quished all idea of practice as a physician. In 1813 he was elected 

 Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge, having in the previous year 

 delivered, with great success, a few lectures on the principles of mine- 

 ralogy to some of his friends. 



In the month of September 1814, Mr. Tennant went for the last 

 time to France, and on his return home on the 20th of February 1815, 

 he arrived at Boulogne with Baron Bulow, in order to embark there. 

 They embarked on the 22nd, but were forced back by the wind, and 

 meant to embark again in the evening: in the meantime they took 

 horses and went to see Bonaparte's pillar, about a league off, and going 

 off the road on their return to look at a small fort, of which the 

 drawbridge wanted a bolt, they were both thrown, with their horses, 

 into the ditch. Baron Bulow was merely stunned, but Mr. Tennant's 

 skull was so severely fractured, that he died within an hour after, 

 February 22, 1815. 



The following character of Mr. Tennant is chiefly copied, with some 

 variations, from the 'Annals of Philosophy,' vol. vi., and the writer 

 of this brief notice, having well known the subject of it, is able to 

 testify to the accuracy of the statements in all the more important 

 particulars. Mr. Tennant was tall and slender in his person, with a 

 thin face and light complexion. His appearance, notwithstanding 

 some singularity of manners, and great negligence of dress, was on the 

 whole striking and agreeable. The general cast of his features was 

 expressive, and bore strong marks of intelligence ; and several persons 

 have been struck with a general resemblance in his countenance to the 

 well-known portraits of Locke. Of his intellectual character, the dis- 

 tinguishing and fundamental principle was good sense ; a prompt and 

 intuitive perception of truth, both upon those questions in which 

 certainty is attainable and those which must be determined by the 

 nicer results of moral evidence. In quick penetration, united with 

 soundness and accuracy of judgment, he was perhaps without an 



equal. He saw immediately and with great distinctne.-s where the 

 strength of an argument lay, and upon what points the decision was 

 ultimately to depend; and he was remarkable for the faculty of 

 stating the merits of an obscure and complicated question very 

 shortly, and with great simplicity and precision. The calmness and 

 temper, as well as the singular perspicuity, which he displayed on 

 such occasions, were alike admirable ; and seldom failed to convince 

 the unprejudiced, and to disconcert or silence his opponents. 



The ' Philosophical Transactions ' contain eight papers by Mr. 

 Tennant: 1, 'On the Decomposition of Fixed Air/ 1791; 2, 'On 

 the Nature of the Diamond/ 1797; 3, ' On the Action of Nitre upon 

 Gold and Platina;' 4, ' On the different Sorts of Lime used in Agri- 

 culture/ 1799 ; 5, ' On the Composition of Emery/ 1802; 6, ' On two 

 Metals found in the Black Powder of the solution of Platina/ 1804 ; 

 7, ' On an easier Mode of procuring Potassium than that which is now 

 adopted;' 8, 'On the Mode of producing a Double Distillation by 

 the same Heat.' In the first volume of the ' Transactions ' of the 

 Geological Society, 1811, he published the analysis of 'A Volcanic 

 Substance containing the Boracic Acid.' 



In his experiments on the diamond, he proved it to be pure carbon, 

 by heating it in a gold tube with nitre ; the diamond was converted 

 into carbonic acid by combining with the oxygen of the decomposed 

 nitric acid, and this united with the potash of the nitre; by the 

 evolution of the carbonic acid, the quantity of carbon, in a given 

 weight of diamond, was estimated. In his paper on 'Limestones,' 

 he showed that the presence of carbonate of magnesia in them 

 rendered them prejudicial when calcined and applied as a manure. 

 In the paper on ' Emery/ he proved that this substance is merely a 

 variety of corundum, or sapphire. The two metals which he found 

 in native platina were osmium and iridium. With respect to these 

 memoirs it may be observed that they all bear the impress of origin- 

 ality, and that the operations which they include and describe are of 

 the greatest possible simplicity, aud stated in the plainest language. 



TENNANT, WILLIAM, was born in 1785 at the little fishing- 

 town of .Easter Anstruther, in the county of Fife, Scotland, and was 

 educated in the town-school, where he had for a fellow- student the 

 afterwards celebrated Dr. Chalmers. In 1799 he was sent to the Uni- 

 versity of St. Andrews, and acquired some knowledge of and a taste 

 for the classical languages from the instruction and lectures of Dr. Hill 

 and Dr. Hunter, but circumstances prevented his continuance for moro 

 than two sessions. At an early period of life he had lost the use of hia 

 feet, and could only move by the assistance of crutches. He was thus 

 precluded from most active employments, and in 1801 he became clerk 

 to his brother, who carried on the business of a corn-factor at Glasgow, 

 whence he subsequently removed to Anstruther. Whilst in this situ- 

 ation he most zealously prosecuted his studies. He made himself 

 acquainted with the best classics in verse and prose ; with Ariosto, 

 Camoens, and Wieland, in modern languages ; and with Hebrew ; 

 nearly all of which was accomplished by his own unaided effort?. 

 While residing in his father's house at Anstruther, and painfully aware 

 of approaching commercial embarrassments, he wrote, and published 

 anonymously in 1812, in his own little town his chief poem, 'Anster Fair.' 

 It is a humorous fairy tale, adopting Maggie Lauder for its heroine, 

 describing the scenery, the customs, and characters to be found and 

 observed at Anstruther Fair and in the neighbouring towns aud villages, 

 written with a slight sprinkling of the Scottish dialect, in the ottava 

 rima, which had fallen into disuse, though soon afterwards adopted by 

 Lord Byron,Jwhose example was quickly followed by others. The poem 

 made but little way with the public at first, indeed it was hardly 

 made known ; but it attracted the attention and praise of A. F. Tytler, 

 Lord Woodhouselee, and in 1814 a highly favourable review of it 

 appeared in the ' Edinburgh Review ' from the pen of Mr. Jeffrey. 

 In his own narrow circle however it had made an impression in his 

 favour, and probably assisted in procuring him the appuntment in 

 the autumn of 1813 of parish schoolmaster of Dunino, a rural upland 

 district between Anstruther and St. Andrews, of which the income 

 was about 40Z. a year. While residing here, with the assistance of 

 books from the library of the neighbouring university, he made him- 

 self master of the Arabic, Syriac, and Persian languages. In 1816 he 

 was removed to a school at Lasswade, a pleasant village near Edin- 

 burgh, with a larger salary, affording him also an opportunity of 

 becoming known to the most eminent literary men of that capital. 

 He continued to prosecute his studies, and in 1819 was elected teacher 

 of the classical and oriental languages in the institution founded under 

 the will of Mr. M'Nab for promoting education at Dollar in Clack- 

 mannanshire. Here he continued till the beginning of 1835, when he 

 succeeded the Rev. Archibald Baird in the professorship of Oriental 

 languages at St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. At St. Andrews, 

 where the university session extends from early in November to the 

 end of May, he henceforward passed his winters, while the summers 

 were spent at a little villa called Devon Grove, near Dollar. His 

 leisure was employed in compiling grammars of the Syriac and Chaldee 

 languages, published in 1840. His other works were ' The Thane of 

 Fife/ 1822 ; ' Cardinal Beaton/ a tragedy, 1823, and ' John Balliol/ 

 a drama, 1825, both pieces, though not ranking high as dramas, dis- 

 playing much poetical power, with considerable originality ; ' The 

 Dinging Down of the Cathedral' [of St. Andrews], a descriptive poem 

 in the Scottish dialect ; ' Hebrew Dramas, founded on Bible History/ 



