HAMILTON, Hugh, D.D., was born at Knock in the county of Dublin, 26th March, 1729. Entering Trinity college, Dublin, in 1742, after a successful coarse he obtained a fellowship in 1751, and was shortly after elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1758 he published his treatise "De Sectionibus Conicis," which was adopted in the British universities, and may justly be considered as forming an epoch in mathematics. Dr. Hamilton was elected to fill the chair of natural philosophy in 1759, and delivered valuable lectures, including three on the phenomena of air and water. Many of these were published, and two of them appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society. In 1764 he resigned his fellowship for the living of Kilmeerenan, whence, in 1767, he was collated to the parish of St. Anne's, Dublin, and to the deanery of Armagh in 1768. Dr. Hamilton published in 1792 his "Essay on the Existence and Attributes of the Supreme Being," and during subsequent years contributed many important papers on various subjects, which are to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. In January, 1796, he was consecrated bishop of Clonfort, and in three years afterwards was transferred to the see of Ossory. He died of fever, December, 1805. Like Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Hamilton was distinguished by "a patient method of thinking;" to this was added great sagacity and extensive knowledge. As a pastor and bishop he was zealous, judicious, and pious, and an earnest promoter and supporter of all public charities. His principal works have been published by his son, Alexander Hamilton, in two vols., London, 1809.—J. F. W.
HAMILTON, James, D.D., an eminently popular religious author, was born at Paisley, 27th November, 1814. His father. Dr. William Hamilton, minister of the parish of Strathblane, was held in high esteem by the Church of Scotland for his piety, learning, and pastoral devotedness, and the spirit of the father passed into his more distinguished son. After a long course of study at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, he was licensed by the presbytery of Edinburgh, and became assistant for a time in the parish of Abernyte, near Dundee. Early in 1841 he was ordained to the pastoral charge of the congregation assembling in Roxburgh chapel, Edinburgh; and in the same year he was removed by a unanimous and cordial call to Regent Square, London, to occupy the pulpit formerly filled by the famous Edward Irving. His success in the metropolis was immediate and complete. The congregation, long scattered and small, was immediately rallied; and a series of tracts on religious subjects, which he began to publish soon after his settlement, and which were written in a captivating style of thought and diction, soon made his name known in all parts of the kingdom. Gifted with an exuberant fancy, well read in history and natural science, and still more in the biography of good and great men and women of all climes and ages, all that he preached, and spoke, and wrote, overflows with happy illustrations. Much of his thought on religious and moral subjects was fresh and sagacious; his views of religious character and life were broad and genial, and his sympathies touched human life and interests at innumerable points. His publications were very numerous; one of the earliest was the "Life and Remains of his Father," in 2 vols. 8vo; "Life in Earnest;" the "Mount of Olives, and other lectures on prayer;" the "Royal Preacher," being lectures on Ecclesiastes; "Lessons from the Great Biography;" the "Happy Home;" the "Plant of Renown, and other Emblems from Eden;" the "Lamp and the Lantern;" besides several biographies, and two serials edited by him, viz., Excelsior, in 6 vols., and our Christian Classics, or readings from the best divines, with notices biographical and critical, in 4 vols. He died on the 24th November, 1867.—P. L.
HAMILTON, Sir John, Lieutenant-general, was born in August, 1755, of the Tyrone family of that name. He was a lieutenant in the 75th, and distinguished himself by leading the storming party at the successful escalade of the rock-fortress of Gwalior, on the 3rd of August, 1780. He was in 1805 a brigadier-general on the staff in Ireland, and in 1809 inspector-general of the Portuguese army, in which capacity he aided effectively in disciplining that section of the duke of Wellington's peninsular force. For his spirited repulse of Soult at Alba de Tormes he was created a baronet in 1815. He was appointed colonel of the 69th regiment in 1823, and spending his later years in retirement, died in 1835.—F. E.
HAMILTON, Patrick, the first preacher and martyr of the Scottish reformation, was born in 1504 somewhere in the diocese of Glasgow, probably at Stonehouse, where his father, Sir Patrick, had a house and barony, the principal seat of the family being at Kincavel, near Linlithgow. He was connected by his mother, Catherine Stewart, with the royal family of Scotland; and by his father with the earl of Arran. As a younger son he was destined for the church; and while yet a boy was made titular abbot of Fern. He does not appear to have studied at any of the Scottish universities, but was sent at an early age to the university of Paris, where he took his master's degree in 1520. He also studied for sometime at Louvain. It was while attending these famous schools of learning that he first became acquainted with the doctrines of Erasmus and Luther. When he returned to Scotland he was already a pronounced Erasmian, and it needed only a few years' study of the great religious controversy of the age to make him also a disciple of Luther. In June, 1523, he was incorporated with the university of St. Andrews; and in October, 1524, he was received into the faculty of arts. In 1526 his Lutheran convictions had grown to ripeness; and "he took upon him priesthood," as John Frith the English reformer tells us, "that he might be admitted to preach the word of God." Of high birth, of courteous speech and manners, and of high intellectual accomplishments, he needed only the inspiration of such convictions to make him a preacher such as the whole Scottish nation would rejoice to hear. It was late in 1526 that rumours first reached James Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews, that Hamilton had openly espoused the cause of Luther. Hamilton was summoned to appear before him, and fled to Germany early in 1527. After visiting Wittemberg and Marburg, where he conversed with and listened to the teaching of the principal reformers, he returned to Scotland in the autumn of the same year, and began to preach again, with fuller knowledge and more fervid zeal, at Kincavel; and "wheresoever he came," says Spottiswood, "he spared not to lay open the corruptions of the Roman church, and to show the errors crept into the christian religion, whereunto many gave ear; and a great following he had, both for his learning and courteous behaviour to all sorts of people." But a career so full of promise was doomed to be cut suddenly short. The young and fervid preacher was again summoned to appear before the archbishop; and in a few weeks after his entry into St. Andrews, on the 29th of February, 1528, he was led out from Beaton's castle to die at the stake in front of St. Salvator's college. His last words were—"How long, Lord, shall darkness overwhelm this kingdom? How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of men? Lord Jesus receive my spirit." The smoke of his pile, as one soon after expressed it, "infected all upon whom it blew." His preaching and martyrdom made a deep impression upon the national mind; numerous disciples continued to propagate his doctrine at the cost of exile and death; and it was not till George Wishart appeared as a preacher in 1543 that the teaching of the Scottish reformers entered into any new phase. The whole of the intervening period, therefore, between 1526 and that year, may fittingly be called the Hamilton period of the Scottish reformation. Shortly after his return from Germany he had married a young lady of noble rank; and a posthumous daughter, Isabel Hamilton, is mentioned among the ladies of the Regent Arran's court. The fact of his marriage, and several other important particulars of his life and character, have only recently become known, and rest upon the unexceptionable authority of Alexander Alane, or Alesius (see Alesius), who was his convert and first biographer.—(See Patrick Hamilton, a historical biography, by Dr. Lorimer, 1857.)—P. L.
HAMILTON, Richard Winter, D.D., LL.D., was a native of London, where he was born July 6, 1794. He received his education partly at different private schools in and near London, partly at the Mill-hill grammar school. In 1810 he entered the dissenting college at Hoxton as a student for the ministry; and after the due course of preparatory study, he accepted a call to become pastor of the Independent church meeting in Albion chapel, Leeds, over which he was ordained in January, 1815. Here the remainder of his life was passed in the diligent pursuit of knowledge, and in the faithful discharge of his official duties. His fame as a preacher and a platform orator steadily extended. In Leeds he was confessedly the master spirit whose influence was felt in all movements of a literary, religious, or social character, and by whom also the action of the community was greatly swayed on many questions of a political nature. Throughout Yorkshire his services were in constant request on occasions of religious or philanthropic interest, whether connected with his own denomination or of a more catholic kind; and his
