four boys and four girls, were left to his widow s care. She survived him half a century, dying at the age of ninety-seven, aud during all that time she remained
attired in the widow s dress of the early times.
The peculiarity of Hamilton s genius consisted of qualities which eminently distinguish him from the other great personages of his time. The epithet precocious was never applicable to him. for whatever he did, even in his boyhood, was accomplished with facility, and resulted in a perfection that the works of latter years did not exceed. He was ever mature. His intellect pierced through the most subtle and profound problems, and apparently without the labour of experiment. He " could see consequents yet dormant in their principles," or, as Talleyrand said of him on more than one occasion, "he divined." " Hamilton avait devint Europe," was the reason given by the prince when he compared him to Fox and Napoleon. His industry was marvellous, and his learning equal to the creative faculty of his mind. The fecundity, power, vigour, and maturity of his intellectual works as fully im pressed his contemporaries as they have since impressed posterity.
His political writings seem, in the estimation of judicious "and eminent writers in America, Great Britain, and France, to place him in the first rank of master minds. The most widely known of these writings are those contained in The Federalist. Translations of them were published at Paris (the first as early as 1792), and were studied by the chief public men of that period. It has been asserted that they exhibit an extent and precision of information, a profundity of research, and an accuratencss of understanding which would have done honour to the most illustrious statesmen of ancient or modern times, that for comprehensiveness of design, strength, clearness, and simplicity they have no parallel (Blackicood s Maga zine, January 1825, and The Edinburgh Review, No. 24). Talley rand called the attention of European statesmen to the merits of The Federalist as a copious source of correct maxims and profound thought ; and Guizot says that, " in the application of elementary principles of government to practical administration, it was the greatest work known to him." Laboulaye has expressed at great length his deliberate judgment of Hamilton s genius and wisdom, and of the consummate ability with which he called into existence a new system of government and organized its administration (Histoire des Etats-Unis, tome iii. ). And Hamilton s own country men have not been less emphatic in grateful acknowledgment, especially Chief-Justice Marshall, the judicial interpreter and ex pounder of the principles of the American Constitution.
In person Hamilton was below the medium height, slender, almost delicate in frame, instinct with life, erect and quick in gait ; his general address was graceful and nervous, indicating the energy, exactness, and activity of his mind. His complexion was bright and ruddy, his hair light, and the whole countenance decidedly Scottish in form and expression. His political enemies frankly spoke of his manner and conversation, and regretted its irresistible charm. The best portraits of him are by Trumbull, Weimar, Ames, ami there is a good bust by Cerrachi.
For full memoirs of Hamilton, see the elaborate Life, in 7 vols., by John Church Hamilton, one of his sons, New York, 1857; the Life by Dr llenwick, published in Harper s Family Library ; Life by Morse, 2 voln., Boston, 1876; Edouard Laboulaye s Histoire dcs tats-Unis, tome iii., Paris, 1870 ; Curtis s History of the Constitu tion of the United States, 2 vols., New York, 1858; Keithmiiller s Hamilton and his Contemporaries, London, 1864 ; Bancroft s His tory of the United States, in the 7th and succeeding vols. ; and Shea s Life and Epoch of Hamilton, 2d ed., New York, 1880.
HAMILTON, Anthony or Antoine (1646–1720), a French classical author, who is especially noteworthy from the fact that, though by birth he was a foreigner, his literary characteristics are more decidedly French than those of many of the most indubitable Frenchmen. His father was George Hamilton, younger brother of James, second earl of Abercorn and head of the family of Ham ilton in the peerage of Scotland, and sixth duke of Chatellerault in the peerage of France ; and his mother was Mary Butler, sister of the duke of Ormonde. He was born in 1646, but the place of his birth has not been ascertained. According to some authorities it was Drogh.3da, but according to the London edition of his works in 1811 it was Roscrea in Tipperary county. From the age of four till he was fourteen the boy was brought up in France, whither his family had removed after the execution of Charles I. The fact that, like his father, hs was a Roman Catholic, prevented his receiving the political promotion he might otherwise have expected on the Restoration, but he became a distin guished member of that brilliant band of courtiers whose most fitting portraiture was destined to be the product of his pen. His connexion with France was always main tained, and the, marriage of his sister to the Comte de Gramont rendered it more intimate if possible than before. On the accession of James he found his religious disabilities transformed into advantages. He obtained an infantry regiment in Ireland, and was appointed governor of Limerick. But the battle of the Boyne, at which he was present, brought disaster on all who were attached to the cause of the Stewarts, and before long he was again in France an exile, but at home. The rest of Ids life was spent for the most part in the chateaux of his friends. With the duchess Ludovise of Maine he became an especial favourite, and it was at her seat at Sceaux that he wrote the Memoires that made him famous. The ill-advised expedition of 1708 was the last political enterprise in which he shared, and he died at St Germain-en-Laye, August G, 1720.
It is mainly, as has already been indicated, by the Memoires du Comte de Grammont that Hamilton takes rank with the most classical writers of France. The work was first published anony mously in 1713 under the rubric of Cologne, but it was renlly printed in Holland, at that ti _.,e the great patroness of all ques tionable authors. An English translation by Boycr appeared in 1714. Upwards of thirty editions have since appeared, the best of the French being Kenouard s (1812) and Gustavo Brunet s (1859), and the best of the English Edward s (1793), with 78 engravings, and Malleville s (1811), with 64 portraits by Scriven and others. The original edition was reprinted by Pifteau in 1876. In imitation and satiric parody of the romantic tales which Galland s translation of The Thousand and One Ni(]htsi&< brought into favour in France, Hamilton wrote Le Belin, Flcur d Ferine, Zeneyde, and Lcs Quatre Facardins, which are characterized by the graceful ease of their style and the successful extravagance of their incidents. The first three tales appeared at Paris in 1730, ten years after the death of the author, and a collection of his (Eurrcs Dircrscs in 1731 con tained the unfinished ".Zeneyde." A collected edition of Hamil ton s works was published in six volumes in 1749, and was reprinted in 1762, 1770, 1776, and 1777. A translation of Pope s Essay on Criticism, which procured the author a complimentary acknowledgment from the poet, is still in MSS. , with the excep tion of a fragment printed in the 1812 edition of the works. In the name of his niece, the countess of Stafford, Hamilton main tained a witty correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Moiitagu. See Notices of Hamilton in the 1862 edition of his works, and in Lescure s edition of the Contcs, Sainte-Beuve s Cavscries du Lundi (torn. i. ), and Sayou s Histoire de la litterature fran^aise a I etncngcr, 1853.
miscellaneous writer, was born at Belfast, of Scotch ex traction, 25th July 1758. Her father s death in 1759 left his wife so embarrassed that Elizabeth was adopted in 1 7G2 by her paternal aunt, Mrs Marshall, who lived in Scot land, near Stirling. There Elizabeth spent her youth and received a good education, at first at school, afterwards in private, and latterly for some months under masters at Edinburgh and Glasgow. In her 15th year she made a tour in the Highlands with some friends, and wrote a journal of it for her aunt s perusal, which was inserted, unknown to the authoress, in a provincial magazine. In 1780 Mrs Marshall died, and Miss Hamilton was prevented by house hold cares from using her pen; but in 1785 she made her first voluntary contribution to the press in the shape of a letter to the Lounger, of which paper it forms the 4Gth number. On the death of Mr Marshall in 1788, Miss Hamilton lived for a time with her brother, Captain Charles Hamilton, who was engaged on his translation of the Hedaya. Prompted by her brother s associations, she pro duced her Letters of a Hindoo Rajah in 1796, and soon after, with her sister Mrs Blake, settled at Bath, where she published in 1800 the Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, a kind of satire on the admirers of the French Revolution. In 1801-2 the Letters on Educa tion appeared, her most valuable though not her most
popular work. After travelling though Wales and Scotland
