FRANCIS HAMILTON (ONCE BUCHANAN). кын 
Edinburgh. Най some ha accident i А š TN 
would probably have been Yu ibd. ; ia OPE бунча yep mee: 
EN y had, as we learn f 
Hamilton's letters and as we know from other sources, became very unfashionable pu 
time that he prepared these two works, In England Banks wasno longer ten; ut е » mà 
no longer willing, to stem the tide of philistinism that had set in. feodi бйрт unis 
to face the situation but the treatment ‘which the ‘botanical world но ipee 
Prodromus Flore Nove Hollandie had so mortified him that he refused 5 0 Kn 
the work. This being the case with the giants who wereon the spot, hue i little 
vS Br ae that the Linnean .Society's council should have been induced to 
jac e к то to а cupboard. In Scotland, as we know, the successful 
| he 1 apoleonie wars was marked by the same exacerbation of indiffer- 
ence to science in high places. There, however, a few vigorous intellects refused to be 
disheartened by the conditions that prevailed, and the philistinism во rampant at 
the time, if it went naked, could hardly, in the presence cf men like Brewster 
W 9, Hooker, Greville and a few others, walk wholly unashamed. Had Hamilton’s 
manuscript of the Hortus Malabaricus commentary been given to an Edinburgh journal it 
is highly probable that we should now be in possession of the whole, and even the 
Linnean Society of London might have given us the two books of the Herbarium 
Amboinense for which we are indebted to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. 
In estimating Hamilton’s place as an observer one has to take into consideration 
the many-sided nature of his interests, The earliest estimate of his powers that 
we possess is one by the Rev, Dr, Robertson, minister of Callander. “In 
classical and medical knowledge,” says this authority, writing in 1791, “he has few 
equals, and he is well acquainted with the whole system of nature.” Beveridge, it 
is true, will have it that ‘‘ Buchanan was not a scholar," but it is necessary іп 
dealing with matters of the kind to define one’s terms, and the statement that the 
` author of the ‘Map of India according to the ancient divisions used in the Sanskrita 
Janguage,’ and of the commentaries on the works of Rheede and Rumphius, was not 
a. scholar, is one that the writer at any rate, cannot for a moment admit, 
That Hamilton was keevly interested in linguistic studies we know not only from 
the paper on the subject of the Burmese languages іп the Asiatick Researches, but from 
an interesting reference іп the life of Colebrooke? It appears that ‘in furtherance of 
the views developed by Sir James Mackintosh’ Colebrooke attempted to compile 
practically useful vocabularies of all the languages spoken in India, In order to obtain 
the necessary data Colebrooke issued to officers who were considered cempetent, blank 
forms to be filled up with vocabularies of provincial languages,  Almow the only 
answer he received was from Hamilton. 
Humilton's interest in the literature, religion and history of the peoples of India 
was equally real and equally lasting. It is first shown in one of his early papers 
on Burma, but we find from the papers extracted from his journals € 
Colebrooke between 1826 and 1830 that it was as keen and direct as ever towards 
the close of his Indian service, and the publication of his genealogical tables cf the 
Hindu dynasties shows that i$ continued after his retirement, 
„ыы ————————————— E 
1 Statistical Account of Scotland: Callander 1791. 
2 Life of Н. Т. Colebrooke, by his soa Sir T. E. Colebrooke, p 1 
