lities till his death. At the age of eighty (1701) he dictated his famous 'Memoirs,' chiefly dealing with his life in England, to Anthony Hamilton. When in Grammont's own interests the censor of the press, Fontenelle, declined to license them, Grammont indignantly appealed to the chancellor and got the prohibition removed. He died 10 Jan. 1707, but his 'Memoirs' were not published till 1713, when they appeared at Cologne. The countess died on 3 Jan. 1708. They had issue two daughters only: (1) Claude Charlotte, who married at St. Germains on 3 April 1694 Henry Howard, earl of Stafford, and (2) Marie Elisabeth, who became the abbess of Ste. Marie de Poussey in Lorraine. The countess's portrait was painted several times by Lely with more than usual care, and was considered by him to be his best work. Some of these pictures are now at Windsor Castle, others are at Hampton Court, and one is in the National Portrait Gallery.
[Mémoires du Comte de Grammont, cap. vii. and ix.; Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, i. 6; Anderson's Scottish Nation; art. 'Philibert, Comte de Grammont,' in Biographie Générale.]
HAMILTON, ELIZABETH, Duchess of Hamilton and afterwards of Argyll (1734-1790). [See Gunning.]
HAMILTON, ELIZABETH (1758–1816), miscellaneous writer, was born at Belfast on 21 July 1758. She was of the Scottish Hamiltons of Woodhall, but straitened family circumstances had sent her father, Charles Hamilton, into a mercantile house in London. He married Katherine Mackay of Dublin, and at his death in 1759 there were three children, Katherine, Charles, and Elizabeth. Her father's sister, the wife of Mr. Marshall, a Stirlingshire farmer, took Elizabeth home, and when Mrs. Hamilton died the child, aged nine, was left to the kindly and somewhat primitive care of these worthy relatives. They educated her well, and though her studious habits rather puzzled them they were proud of her talents. Her brother, Charles Hamilton (1753–1792) [q. v.], before going off to the duties of an Indian cadetship, visited Elizabeth in 1772, and their cherished arrangement for a regular correspondence produced an interesting and valuable body of letters. Elizabeth's leisure had already been occupied with a journal of a highland tour, and she presently began an historical novel in the form of letters, with Arabella Stuart for heroine and Shakespeare as a subordinate character. In 1782 her aunt died, and between that and 1786, when her brother returned on a five years' furlough, she devoted herself to her uncle, and made considerable literary progress. In December 1785 a paper of hers formed No. 46 of the 'Lounger,' and a poem on 'Anticipation' belongs to the same year.
Miss Hamilton took a direct practical interest in the progress of her brother's 'Hedaya,' on which he was engaged during his holiday in Scotland, and with him, in 1788, she visited London, forming several important friendships. About the end of the year, after her return, her uncle died, when she rejoined her brother in London, remaining with him and her sister, Mrs. Blake, for about two years. In this sojourn she made the acquaintance of Dr. George Gregory [q. v.] and his wife, who continued to be close and valued friends. The death of Charles Hamilton in 1792 was a great blow to his sisters (Letters on Education, vol. i.), who for the next four years were together at Hadleigh, Suffolk, and then at Sonning, Berkshire. In 1796 Miss Hamilton published her 'Hindoo Rajah,' a series of criticisms on England somewhat in the manner of the 'Citizen of the World,' and influenced by impressions from her brother. Her next work, 'Memoirs of Modern Philosophers,' a series of humorous sketches prompted by a conversation with Dr. Gregory, and written in London, in Gloucestershire, and at Bath, appeared in 1800, and ran through two editions in a year. Meanwhile Miss Hamilton had an attack of gout, an ailment ultimately chronic with her, and Mrs. Blake, who had been in Ireland, returned and nursed her. Recovering, she published 'Letters on Education,' 1801-2, and in 1804 'Memoirs of the Life of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus,' Bath, 3 vols. 8vo, which is practically 'an epitome of Roman laws, customs, and manners,' After a tour through Wales and the Lake country, the sisters in 1804 fixed their residence in Edinburgh, Miss Hamilton at the same time having a pension settled on her by government. For six months she was guardian to a nobleman's family, writing in Essex in 1806 'Letters on the Formation of the Religious and the Moral Principle to the Daughter of a Nobleman.' Returning to Edinburgh she contrasted the two modes of life, and warmly indicated her own preference in 'My ain Fireside,' a true Scottish song, resting on a certain independence of attitude, and suffused with sturdy sentiment and tenderness of feeling.
From this time Mrs. Hamilton (as she at length preferred to be called) was important and influential. She was a true philanthropist, and her desire for the improvement of Scottish rustics induced her to write her noteworthy story, 'The Cottagers of Glenburnie,'
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