for nearly two years, the sisters took up their abode in 1803 at Edinburgh. In 1804 Mrs Hamilton, as she then preferred to be called, published her Life of Agrippina, wife of Germanicus ; and in the same year she received a pension from Government. About this time she consented to take charge for six months of a widowed Scotch noble man s family ; and to his eldest daughter were addressed Letters on the Moral and Religious Principle, published in 1803. Her next publication of importance, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, appeared in 1808. This work, to which the authoress owes most of her fame, is an admirable description of the failings of the Scotch peasantry in their home life, and, while graphic and telling, is " saved from caricature and absurdity." Sir Walter Scott describes it as " a picture of the rural habits of Scotland, of striking and impressive fidelity ; " and Lord Jeffrey reviewed it very favourably in the Edinburgh Review (vol. xii.). Her subsequent works were a supplement to her Letters on Education, under the name of Popular Essays on the Elementary Principles of the Human Mind (1812), and Hints addressed to the Patrons and Directors of Public
Schools (1815). She died at Harrogate, July 23, 1816.
Memoirs of Mrs Elizabeth Hamilton, by Miss Benger, were pub lished in 1818. A notice of her literary life and labours, attributed to Miss Edge-worth, appeared in the ^Monthly Magazine for Sep tember 1816.
HAMILTON, James (1769–1831), the author of the Hamilton!. in system of teaching languages, was born in 1769 and died October 31, 1831. The first part of his life was spant in mercantile pursuits. Having settled in Hamburg and become free of the city, he was anxious to become acquainted with German and accepted the tuition of a French emigre, General D Angelis. In twelve lessons he founl himself able to read an easy German book, his master having discarded the use of a grammar and trans late! to him short stories word for word into French. As a citizen of Hamburg Hamilton started a business in Paris, and during the peace of Amiens maintained a lucrative trade with England ; but at the rupture of the treaty he was micls a prisoner of war, and though the protection of Hamburg was enough to get the words efface de la liste des pnsonniers de guerre inscribed upon his passport, he was detained in custody till the close of hostilities. His busi ness bsing thus ruined, he went in 1814 to America, intend ing to become a farmer and manufacturer of potash ; but, changing his plan before he reached his "location," he started as a teacher in New York. Adopting his old tutor s method, he attained remarkable success in New York, Baltimore, Washington, Boston, Montreal, and Quebec. Returning to England in July 1823, he was equally for tunate in Manchester and elsewhere. His system attracted general attention, and was vigorously attacked and defended. In 1826 Sydney Smith devoted an article to its elucidation in the Edinburgh Review : " We are strongly persuaded," he said, " that, the time being given, this system will make better scholars, and, the degree of scholarship being given, a much shorter time will be needed" than in the ordinary system. As text-books for his pupils Hamilton printed interlinear trxnslations of the Gospel of John, of an Epitome histories sacnx, of ^Esop s ,FaWes,Eutropius,Aurelius Victor, Phajdrus, &c., and many books were issued as Hamiltonian with which he had nothing personally to do. The two master principles of his method, which" has left its traces on our modern linguistic discipline, are that the language is to be presented to the scholar as a living organism, and that its laws are to be learned from observation and not by rules.
See Hamilton s own account The Principles, Practice, and Exults of the Ilamil/onmn System for the last Twelve Years, Man chester, 1829 ; Alberto, Ucber die Hamilton sche Mcthode ; G. F. YVurm, Hamilton und Jacotot, 1831.
HAMILTON, Patrick (1504–1528), son of Sir Patrick Hamilton, well known in Scottish chivalry, and of Catherine Stewart, daughter of Alexander duke of Albany, second son of James II. of Scotland, was born in the diocese of Glasgow, probably at his father s estate of Stonehouse in Lanarkshire. Of his early boyhood and education nothing is known. In 1517 he was appointed titular abbot of Feme, Ross-shire ; and it was probably about the same year that he went to study at Paris, for his name is found in an ancient list of those who graduated there in 1520. It was doubtless during this period that he received the germs of the doctrines he was afterwards so nobly to uphold. From Ales we learn that Hamil ton subsequently went to Louvain, attracted probably by the fame of Erasmus, who in 1521 had his headquarters there. Returning to Scotland, the young scholar naturally selected St Andrews, the capital of the church and of learn ing, as his residence. On the 9th June 1523 he became a member of the university of St Andrews, and on the 3d October 1524 he was admitted to its faculty of arts. There Hamilton attained such influence that he was permitted to conduct in the cathedral a musical mass of his own composi tion. But the Reformed doctrines had now obtained a firm hold on the young abbot, and he was eager to communi cate them to his fellow-countrymen. Early in 1527 the archbishop Beatoun s attention was directed to the hereti cal preaching of the young priest, whereupon lie ordered that Hamilton should be formally summoned and accused. Hamilton fled to Germany, first visiting Luther at Witten berg, and afterwards enrolling himself as a student, under Francis Lambert of Avignon, in the new university of Marburg, opened May 30, 1527, by Philip, lindgrave of Hesse. Frith and Tyndale were among those whom he met there. Late in the autumn of 1527 Hamilton returned to Scotland, bold in the truth of his principles. He went first to his brother s house at Kincavel, near Linlithgow, in which town he preached frequently, and soon afterwards he married a young lady of noble rank, whose name has not come down to us. Beatoun, avoiding open violence through fear of Hamilton s high connexions, invited him to a conference at St Andrews. The reformer resolutely accepted the invitation, and for nearly a month was per mitted to preach freely. At length, however, he was sum moned before a council of bishops and clergy presided over by the archbishop; and though he clearly and calmly answered all the written charges brought against him, his replies gave ground for new accusations of heresy. The council eagerly convicted him, and handed him over to the secular power. The sentence was carried out on the same day (February 29, 1528) lest he should be rescued by his friends, and he was burned at the stake as a heretic. His courageous bearing attracted more attention than ever to the doctrines for which he suffered, and greatly helped to spread the Reformation in Scotland.
Hamilton left a short treatise showing the antithesis between the law and the gospel. Frith s translation of it, under the name of " Patrick s Places," is to be found in Foxe s Acts and Monuments. Patrick Hamilton, the first Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish He- formation, by the Rev. Peter Lorimer, was published at Edinburgh in 1857.
political economy and finance, was born at Pilrig, Edin burgh, on the llth June 1743. He was of good family, his grandfather, William Hamilton, professor of divinity and afterwards principal of Edinburgh University, having been a cadet of the family of Preston. He received an excellent education, and specially distinguished himself in the classes of mathematics at the university of Edinburgh, then under Professor Matthew Stewart. Although desirous of following a literary life, he was induced to enter the
banking-house of Messrs Hogg in order to acquire a prac-
