After serving in several successive curacies he was instituted to the vicarage of Yardley, Hertfordshire, in 1827; a few days before he was nominated to a stall in Llandaff Cathedral by Bishop Sumner. In 1828 Sumner, as bishop of Winchester, gave him the rectory of Wonston, Hampshire. He showed zeal and tact as a parish priest. In 1828 he was appointed rural dean of a large district, and for many years he acted as chaplain to Bishop Sumner in the dioceses of Llandaff and Winchester. The Archbishop of Canterbury conferred on him his M.A. degree.
In 1840 Dallas visited Ireland for the first time, in 1843 he founded the Society for Irish Church Missions, and was its honorary secretary for twenty-one years in Dublin, Connemara, and elsewhere. As recorded on his monuments ‘he was instrumental in having erected 21 churches, 49 schoolhouses, 12 parsonages, and 4 orphanages, in connection with the society's operations.’ In 1849 he married for the second time. His wife, who survived him, published ‘Incidents in the Life and Ministry of the Rev. Alex. R. C. Dallas, A.M.’ (1871), containing an autobiography. He died at Wonston 12 Dec. 1869, and was buried, as he desired, in his own churchyard. Inscriptions to his memory have been placed in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin; in the mission church, Townsend Street, Dublin; and in the parish church of Clifden, Connemara, co. Galway.
Of his numerous writings the following may be specified: 1. ‘Sermons on the Lord's Prayer,’ 1823. 2. ‘Sermons to a Country Congregation,’ 1825. 3. ‘Cottager's Guide to the New Testament,’ 6 vols. 4. ‘Guide to the Acts and Epistles,’ 4 vols. 5. ‘Revelation Readings,’ 3 vols. 6. ‘Pastoral Superintendence,’ 1841. 7. ‘Castelkerke,’ 2nd ed. 1849. 8. ‘The Point of Hope in Ireland's Present Crisis,’ 2nd ed. 1850. 9. ‘The Story of the Irish Church Missions,’ 1867. 10. ‘A Mission Tour Book in Ireland.’
[Incidents in the Life and Ministry of the Rev. Alex. R. C. Dallas, A.M., by his Widow; Men of the Time (ed. 1868), 223.]
DALLAS, ELMSLIE WILLIAM (1809–1879), artist, second son of William Dallas of ‘Lloyd's’ and Sarah Day, was born in London 27 June 1809, and was descended from Alexander Dallas of Cantray, Inverness-shire. He was admitted a student of the Royal Academy in 1831, retiring in 1834 with a gold medal and a travelling studentship, his first picture, the interior of a Roman convent, being hung in the Academy in 1838. In 1840 he assisted Herr L. Grüner in the decoration of the garden pavilion at Buckingham Palace, painting a series of views of Melrose, Abbotsford, Loch Awe, Aros Castle, and Windermere Lake, in illustration of the writings of Scott. In 1841–2 he first exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy, and in consequence of the appreciation with which his works were received he settled in Edinburgh, where his last picture was exhibited in 1858. His chief pictures were highly studied interiors and mediæval subjects, though several landscapes, notably of the Campagna, were successful. For some years he was also a teacher in the School of Design, until placed in retirement in 1858 on the affiliation of the school with the Science and Art Department. In this connection he prepared a work on ‘Applied Geometry,’ which was very highly commended by the late Professor Kelland in his report to the Board of Manufacturers, though regarded as too elaborate for the instruction of youth. In 1851 Dallas was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, before which body he read several valuable papers on the structure of diatomacea, on crystallogenesis, and on the optical mathematics of lenses. In 1859 he married Jane Fordyce, daughter of James Rose, W.S., of Dean Bank, Edinburgh, and he died 26 Jan. 1879.
[Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinb., Session 1879–80, p. 340.]
DALLAS, ENEAS SWEETLAND (1828–1879), journalist and author, elder son of John Dallas of Jamaica, a planter of Scottish parentage, by his wife Elizabeth Baillie, daughter of the Rev. Angus McIntosh of Tain, and sister of Rev. Caldor McIntosh, was born in the island of Jamaica in 1828, and being brought to England when four years of age, was educated at the Edinburgh University, where he studied philosophy under Sir William Hamilton, and acquired the habit of applying notions derived from eclectic psychology to the analysis of æsthetic effects in poetry, rhetoric, and the fine arts. His first publication in which he proved his mastery of this line of investigation was entitled ‘Poetics, an Essay on Poetry,’ a work which he produced in 1852, when he had taken up his residence in London. His abilities were destined, however, to be absorbed chiefly in anonymous journalism. He first made his mark in London by sending an article to the ‘Times,’ a critique which by its vigour and profundity secured immediate attention. For many years afterwards he was on John T. Delane's brilliant staff. Neither biography, politics, literary criticism, nor any other subject came amiss to his comprehensive intellect. Few men wrote more careful, graceful English, a merit well worth
