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WAL
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WAL

lieutenant of Kinross-shire. He possesses a very extensive and valuable herbarium, and he has done much to advance the cause of botany in Scotland.—J. H. B.

WALL, John, M.D., was born at Powick in Worcestershire in 1708. He received his early education at the grammar-school of Leigh-Sinton, and at the college school at Worcester, where he obtained a scholarship in Worcester college, Oxford. He went to Oxford in 1726, and in 1735 was elected a fellow of Merton. Shortly after he took the M.B. degree, and then commenced practice in Worcester. In 1759 he graduated M.D. He died at Bath after a lingering illness, on 27th June, 1776, and was buried in the Abbey church. Dr. Wall was a man of considerable eminence. He was the first who drew public attention to the value of the Malvern waters, in a treatise entitled "Experiments and Observations on the Malvern Waters," Worcester, 1763. He was well versed in the chemical science of his time, and applied his knowledge to the improvement of the Worcester manufacture of porcelain. He was physician to the Worcester infirmary, and enjoyed a large practice. A volume of medical tracts written by him, was published in 1780 by his son. Dr. Martin Wall, F.R.S.—F. C. W.

WALL, Martin, M.D., son of Dr. John Wall, was born at Worcester. He graduated at Oxford, and studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's hospital and in Edinburgh. In 1781 he was appointed reader in chemistry at Oxford, and in 1785 Lord Lichfield's professor of clinical medicine. He died in June, 1824. He was the author of "Dissertations on Select Subjects in Chemistry and Medicine," 1783; and "Clinical Observations on the Use of Opium in Slow Fevers," 1786.—F. C. W.

WALL, William, a learned English divine, was born in 1646, and was vicar of Shoreham, Kent, for fifty-two years. He is principally known for his controversy with Dr. Gale in favour of infant baptism, and as the author of a "History of Infant Baptism," published in 1707, and of a "Defence" of his history, for which the university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.D. He was also author of "Critical Notes on the Old Testament," with a preface in opposition to the views of Mr. Whiston. Wall died in 1728.—F.

WALLACE, James, Colonel, an intrepid covenanter, is supposed to have belonged to the family of the Wallaces of Dundonald in Ayrshire, but the date and place of his birth are unknown. He had fought in the civil war against Montrose and royalism; but the Scotch in 1649 fancying that the cause of the covenant could be united with that of Charles II., on the arrival of that monarch in Scotland in 1650, Wallace was appointed lieutenant-colonel of his foot regiment of guards, and was taken prisoner at Dunbar. After the Restoration he seems to have lived in retirement until 1666, when the exactions of Sir James Turner produced the insurrectionary and covenanting movement known as the Pentland risings. Wallace was very active in it during its brief course, and at the so-called battle of Pentland (28th November, 1666) commanded the nine hundred poorly-armed, wearied, and undisciplined peasants who "from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve," heroically resisted two thousand trained and well-appointed soldiers of the royal army. Wallace escaped to Holland, where he resided till his death at Rotterdam towards the close of 1678. There is a long memoir of him in Chambers' Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen.—F. E.

WALLACE, Robert, D.D., a distinguished Scottish clergyman, was the only son of Matthew Wallace, parish minister of Kincardine in Perthshire, and was born in 1697. He was educated at the grammar-school of Stirling and the university of Edinburgh, was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Dumblane in 1722, and in the following year was presented by the marquis of Annandale to the parish of Moffat. In 1729 he published a sermon which, as moderator, he had preached before the synod of Dumfries. It was brought under the notice of Queen Caroline, who was so much pleased with it that she recommended the author to the good offices of the earl of Islay, then manager of public affairs in Scotland. In 1733 Wallace was in consequence appointed one of the ministers of the Greyfriars' church in Edinburgh; but he lost the favour of the government, in 1736, by refusing to read from the pulpit the act respecting the far-famed Porteous mob. On the downfall of Walpole in 1742, Dr. Wallace became the confidential adviser of the new ministry in the management of Scottish ecclesiastical affairs, and displayed great prudence and moderation in that responsible position. He took an active part in the establishment of the ministers' widows' fund, his mathematical attainments were of a high order, and the original calculations on which the scheme was based were made by him. In 1744 he was appointed one of the royal chaplains for Scotland. He died in 1771. Dr. Wallace was the author of several works, the most important of which are—"A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind in ancient and modern times;" "Characteristics of the Present State of Great Britain;" and "Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence."—His son George became an advocate, and wrote a work on the descent of ancient peerages, and "Principles of the Law of Scotland."—J. T.

WALLACE, William, the famous Scottish patriot, sprung from an ancient family of Anglo-Norman descent, which settled in Renfrewshire and Ayrshire in the reign of David I. He was the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, near Paisley, but the precise date of his birth is unknown. When the patriot himself was very young, his father and elder brother were slain in some of the skirmishes of the times, and he was educated at Dunipace in Stirlingshire by his uncle, a patriotic priest, by whom the love of freedom and of his country was early instilled into his mind. At this period Scotland was suffering great misery under the tyrannical domination of Edward I.; and at a very early age Wallace manifested a strong dislike to the oppressors of his country. According to Blind Harry he was outlawed, when a mere youth, for killing the son of the English governor of Dundee, who had grossly insulted him. But the story is not supported by any trustworthy evidence; and Bower, an accurate writer, asserts that the hostility of Wallace to the English arose from his indignation at beholding their oppression of his relatives and countrymen. Tradition has recorded numerous instances in which he took signal vengeance upon the invaders for personal or public injuries, and special mention is made of the bloody retribution which he exacted for the treacherous murder of his uncle, the sheriff of Ayr. But the incident which finally caused him to take up arms against his country's oppressors arose out of a quarrel between him and some English officers in Lanark, where he was then residing (1297). Overpowered by numbers he took refuge in the Cartland Crags, a rugged and rocky glen near that town; but Hazelrigg, the English sheriff, enraged at the patriot's escape, burned his house and put his wife and servants to death. Wallace immediately collected a small band of his friends and avenged the atrocious murder of his wife by the slaughter of Hazelrigg, whose dead body he is said, in the indictment presented against him on his trial, to have cut to pieces. From this period Wallace devoted himself to the task of redressing his country's wrongs, and having gathered around him a body of fierce and determined men, he carried on against the invaders a kind of guerilla warfare, for which the district around Lanark was admirably fitted. Issuing suddenly from the fastness in which he had taken refuge, he attacked isolated detachments of the enemy, intercepted provisions for their garrisons, stormed a number of their strongholds, and then made a rapid retreat through those wild passes into which it was most perilous for the English to follow him.

The fame of his exploits awoke the dormant spirit of some of the Scottish nobles; and while Wallace by a rapid march on Scone surprised and routed Ormesby, the English justiciary, and obtained a rich booty. Sir William Douglas, a brave and powerful baron, captured the castles of Disdeir and Sanquhar, and then uniting their forces, he and Wallace marched to the west of Scotland, and soon wrested almost every fortress in that district from the enemy. The fame of these successes attracted the steward of Scotland, the bishop of Glasgow, Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, and other powerful barons, to the patriotic standard; and even the younger Bruce, earl of Carrick, who had hitherto adhered to the English interest, was induced to embrace the popular cause. The tidings of this formidable insurrection alarmed Edward for the security of his newly-acquired dominions, and he promptly sent an army of forty thousand men, under Henry Percy and Robert de Clifford, to crush the insurgents. Wallace and his associates had taken up a strong position in the neighbourhood of Irvine, and prepared to give battle to the enemy; but dissensions unfortunately arose amongst the leaders. The ambition and untractable pride of the barons made them unwilling to submit to the leadership of a man who, however brave and skilful, was their inferior in rank. The confederacy fell to pieces like a rope of sand, the Steward, Bruce, Douglas, and their friends