532 



HAMILTON 



to St Andrews by Archbishop Beaton, uncle of 

 the famous cardinal, and on a renewed charge of 

 heresy was burned at the stake before the gate of 

 St Salvator's College, 29th February 1528. His 

 death probably did more to extend the Reformation 

 in Scotland than even his life could have done. 

 'The reek of Master Patrick Hamilton, 'said one of 

 Beaton's own retainers, ' has infected as many as 

 it did bloAv upon.' 



A peculiar interest has always attached to the 

 name of Patrick Hamilton. His winning personal 

 character, his eagerness for all the best light of his 

 time, his courage, and his early death make him 

 one of the most interesting figures in the religious 

 revolution of Scotland during the 16th century. 

 His martyrdom also gave a distinct impulse to the 

 doctrines for which he died ; and Knox himself, in 

 the most emphatic manner, testifies to Hamilton's 

 importance in the history of the Scottish Reforma- 

 tion. 



See Professor Lorimer's Patrick Hamilton, the first 

 Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation ( 1857 ), 

 and Dr David Laing's edition of Knox's History of the 

 Reformation in Scotland. 



Hamilton, WILLIAM, a Scotch poet, was born 

 in 1704, most probably at his father's estate of 

 Bangour, near Uphall, Linlithgowshire. He con- 

 tributed to Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany (1724), 

 and joined in the second Jacobite rising. On its 

 collapse he escaped to France, but was permitted 

 to return in 1749 and to succeed to the family 

 estate the year after. He died at Lyons, 25th 

 March 1754. The first collection of his poems was 

 issued, without his consent, by Foulis of Glasgow 

 in 1748 ; a fuller collection, with a portrait, 

 appeared under the care of his friends in 1760. 

 One of his poems alone ' The Braes of Yarrow ' 

 will keep his name from ever being forgotten, by 

 the depth and truth of its unsought pathos. See 

 James Paterson, The Poems and Songs of William 

 Hamilton (1850). 



Hamilton, WILLIAM GERARD (1729-96), 

 earned the epithet of ' single-speech Hamilton ' 

 by a speech made in the House of Commons, 

 November 13, 1754, as M.P. for Petersfield in Hants 

 not quite the only speech he ever made in the 

 House. For twenty years he was Chancellor of 

 the Irish Exchequer, and was by some regarded as 

 the author of the letters of Junius (q.v.) 



Hamilton, SIR WILLIAM, grandson of the third 

 Duke of Hamilton, was born in 1730, and in 1758, 

 after eleven years' service in the Foot Guards, 

 married a beautiful Pembrokeshire heiress, with 

 5000 a year, who died in 1782, an only daughter 

 having predeceased her. He was British ambas- 

 sador at the court of Naples from 1764 till 1800, 

 and in 1772 was made a knight of the Bath. Dur- 

 ing his residence in Italy he took an active part in 

 the excavation of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and 

 formed a rare collection of antiquities, which was 

 afterwards purchased for the British Museum. He 

 was author of several sumptuous works Antiquites 

 fitfusques, Grecques, et Romaines, tires du cabinet 

 de M. Hamilton (4 vols. Naples, 1766-67); Observa- 

 tions on Mount Vesuvius (1772); Campi Phlegrcei 

 (Naples, 1776-77), &c. He died 6th April 1803. 

 See HAMILTON (EMMA, LADY). 



Hamilton, SIR WILLIAM, of Preston, the 

 most learned and scientific philosopher of the 

 Scottish school, was born March 8, 1788, at Glas- 

 gow, where his father, Dr William Hamilton, 

 and his grandfather, Dr Thomas Hamilton, held 

 the chairs of Anatomy and Botany. Though the 

 Hamiltons of Preston, in Haddingtonshire, who 

 were raised to a baronetcy in 1673, had not assumed 

 their title since the death of Sir William Hamilton 

 in November 1688, when his brother and heir, Sir 



Robert, the Covenanter, refused to take the oath 

 of allegiance, the philosopher made good his claim 

 to represent them, and therefore to be descended 

 from the leader of the Covenanters at Bothwell 

 Bridge.- After gaining high distinction, especially 

 in the philosophical classes, at Glasgow, he went 

 in 1809 to Balliol College, Oxford, as aSnell exhibi- 

 tioner. He graduated with first-class honours in 

 1810 ; and it was here that he laid the basis of his 

 vast erudition in medieval and modern, as well as 

 in ancient literature. He left Oxford in 1812, and 

 was called to the Scottish bar in 1813; but he 

 seems never to have had any practice in his pro- 

 fession except what became incumbent on him on 

 being appointed crown-solicitor of the Court of 

 Teinds. In 1820, on the death of Dr Brown, he 

 was an unsuccessful competitor for the chair of 

 Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh ; in 1821 he was 

 appointed to the professorship of History. 



Hamilton had now reached his thirtieth year 

 without giving to the world any indication of 

 those speculations which he had been silently and 

 slowly maturing. But in 1829 there appeared in 

 the Edinburgh Review a critique of Cousin's Cours 

 de Philosophic of the previous year, in which was 

 developed that philosopher's doctrine of the In- 

 finite. The critique immediately excited admira- 

 tion both at home and abroad, and for some years 

 after this Hamilton was a regular contributor to 

 the Edinburgh Review. Besides other philosophical 

 articles, two of which, on the Philosophy of Per- 

 ception and on Recent Publications in Logical 

 Science, are especially celebrated, he contributed 

 several papers on education and university reform. 

 Many of these contributions Avere translated into 

 German, French, and Italian ; and in 1852 they 

 were all edited by Hamilton himself, with notes and 

 appendices, under the title of Discussions in Philo- 

 sophy and Literature, Education, and University 

 Reform. In 1836 Hamilton was elected to the 

 chair of Logic and Metaphysics in Edinburgh. 

 During his first session he delivered a course of 

 lectures on metaphysics, which was followed in the 

 succeeding session by a course on logic ; and these 

 tAvo courses he continued to read each alternate 

 year till the close of his life. His influence soon 

 began to show itself in the university among the 

 young men who were attracted thither from differ- 

 ent parts of Scotland, and other countries, in many 

 cases chiefly for the sake of hearing Hamilton. 

 Extensive notes of his lectures were taken by his 

 students, and numerous copies of them, transcribed 

 from shorthand reports, were in circulation during 

 the later years of his life. After his death these 

 were published under the editorship of Professors 

 Mansel and Veitch (Sir William Hamilton's Lec- 

 tures, 4 vols. 1859-61 ). These lectures, which 

 were mostly written during the currency of the 

 sessions in which they were first delivered, want 

 the exactness of thought and expression which 

 mark the works revised by himself for publica- 

 tion ; and it is to be regretted that the materials 

 embodied in these volumes were not wrought into 

 another work which Hamilton had planned. This 

 was his edition of the works of Reid, with notes 

 and supplementary dissertations. The general aim 

 of Hamilton's whole philosophy is, in fact, but 

 the special aim of this edition of Reid ( 1846 ; ad- 

 ditional notes from Hamilton's MSS. by Mansel, 

 1862). His conviction was that the philosophy of 

 Common Sense (q.v.) represents the highest reaches 

 of human speculation ; and he accordingly sought 

 in his annotations of Reid's writings, as in liis 

 independent works, to point out the relation of 

 the Scottish philosophy to the systems of other 

 countries, as well as to translate it into a more 

 scientific expression. His labour on Reid was in- 

 terrupted by ill-health. By the paralysis of his 



