Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/676

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652 WILSON elected him for the third time to the senate. In 1870 he made a summer visit to Europe. In 1872 he was nominated by the republican national convention for vice president, with Gen. Grant for president, and was elected. In the following year Mr. Wilson while at Boston sustained a shock of apoplexy, causing partial paralysis, from which he had nearly recovered when on Nov. 10, 1875, a second shock pros- trated him in the capitol. For twelve days he lay ill in the vice president's room, and died very suddenly from a third shock. In the lat- ter years of his life he wrote the following books : " History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of the 37th and 38th United States Congress- es " (Boston, 1864) ; " History of the Recon- struction Measures of the 39th and 40th Con- gresses" (Hartford, 1868); and " History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America " (3 vols., Boston, 1871-'6). The last is his prin- cipal work, and the third volume was not quite finished when he died. WILSON, Horace Ilayman, an English oriental- ist, born in London in 1786, died there, May 8, 1860. He studied medicine, and went to Calcutta in 1808 as assistant surgeon in the East India company's service, but was attached to the mint at Calcutta, and afterward became assay master and secretary. In 1812 ho was elected secretary of the Asiatic society of Ben- gal, and in 1819 was appointed on the commis- sion to remodel the Sanskrit college at Benares. He was elected Boden professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1833, and was appointed librarian at the Ivist India house, and director of the royal Asiatic society. He published a " San- skrit and English Dictionary" (Calcutta, 1819; 2d ed., enlarged, London, 1832); "Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, with Plays " (2 vols., Calcutta, 1826-'7 ; 2d ed., London, 1835), with translations and valuable disquisitions; "History of British India from 1805 to 1835 " (3 vols., London, 1844-'8); "Sanskrit Gram- mar" (2d ed., London, 1847); besides transla- tions of the Meghaduta, the Sakuntald, the Vishnu- Purdna, a great part of the Rig- Veda, and other works. He made a Bengalee trans- lation of Todd's edition of Johnson's English dictionary (2 voli., Calcutta, 1843). WILSON. I. Janes, a signer of the Declara- tion of Independence, born near St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1742, died in Edenton, N. 0., Aug. 28, 1798. He studied at St. Andrews, Edin- burgh, and Glasgow, and in. 1766 emigrated to Philadelphia, where he was admitted to the bar. He sat in the provincial convention of Pennsyl- vania in 1774, and in May, 1775, was chosen a member of the continental congress, and was re- peatedly rechosen. Upon the commencement of hostilities he obtained a colonel's commission. From 1779 to 1783 he was advocate general of France in the United States. He was a mem- ber of the convention that framed the federal constitution, and of the Pennsylvania conven- tion that adopted it, and was one of the first judges of the supreme court of the United States. In 1790 he became the first professor of law in the college of Philadelphia, and de- livered lectures which were published together with others of his works by his son (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1803-'4). II. Bird, an American clergyman, son of the preceding, born in Car- lisle, Pa., Jan. 8, 1777, died in New York, April 14, 1859. He graduated at the college (now university) of Pennsylvania in 1792, was admitted to the bar in 1797, and was appointed president judge of the court of common pleas of the seventh circuit at the age of 25. After- ward he studied for the ministry of the Epis- copal church, and was admitted to orders March 12, 1819. He became rector of St. John's church, Norristown, in 1820, and in 1821 was. appointed professor of systematic di- vinity in the Episcopal general theological seminary, New York, which chair he resigned in 1850. He was secretary of the house of bishops from 1829 to 1841. Besides editing his father's works, he published " Abridgment of the Law by Matthew Bacon, "'with notes, &c. (7 vols., 1811-'13), and "Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Rev. Bishop White " (1839). WILSON. I. John, a Scottish author, popular- ly known as Christopher North, born in Pais- ley, May 19, 1785, died in Edinburgh, April 3, 1854. Ho was educated at Glasgow university and at Oxford, where in 1803 he gained the Newdigato prize for an English poem " On the Study of Greek and Roman Architecture." He was the boldest rider, the stoutest oarsman, and the most indefatigable walker among his contemporaries, and frequently distinguished himself in the "gown and town" riots. He graduated B. A. in 1807, and soon afterward purchased a small estate called Elleray on Lake Windermere, in Westmoreland, in the imme- diate vicinity of the residence of Wordsworth, where he lived two years. He married in 1811, and in 1812 published "The Isle of Palms," a poem of the lake school, abounding in glowing descriptions of tropical scenery. In 1815 he was admitted to the Scottish bar, at which how- ever his practice was only nominal. In 1816 appeared his " City of the Plague," a dramatic poem on the great plague of London in 1665. He was one of the chief contributors to " Black- wood's Edinburgh Magazine " from its first ap- pearance in 1817, writing tales, criticisms, and discursive essays which greatly promoted its popularity. In 1820, through the efforts of Scott and other influential friends, he was ap- pointed professor of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, as successor of Dr. Thomas Brown; and for the next 30 years he lectured to largo classes. In 1822 he published " Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," a collec- tion of tales, in 1823 "The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay," and in 1824 "The Foresters." He acquired his greatest reputation as the chief author of the "Noctes Ambrosianop," contrib- uted to " Blackwood " between 1822 and 1835 ; and bis pseudonyme of " Christopher North," adopted in connection with these amusing pa-