Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/214

 mental errors imperfectly investigated. Moonlit and other nights unfavourable to the discovery of nebulæ were devoted by Dunlop at Paramatta to the observation of double stars, of which 254 were catalogued, and 29 micrometrically measured by him. In the form of a letter to Brisbane these results were imparted to the Astronomical Society on 9 May 1828, and were published in their ‘Transactions’ with the title ‘Approximate Places of Double Stars in the Southern Hemisphere’ (Mem. R. A. Soc. iii. 257). Some have not since been re-identified, no doubt owing to faultiness in their assigned positions.

Dunlop returned to Europe in April 1827 and took charge of Sir Thomas Brisbane's observatory at Makerstoun in Roxburghshire, where he observed Encke's comet 26 Oct. to 25 Dec. 1828 (ib. iv. 186), and determined the ‘difference of the right ascensions of the moon and stars in her parallel,’ with a four-foot transit instrument in 1829–30 (ib. v. 349). In 1827, 1828, and 1829 he made an extensive series of magnetic observations in various parts of Scotland, and arranged the ascertained particulars in ‘An Account of Observations made in Scotland on the Distribution of the Magnetic Intensity,’ communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 19 April 1830 by Brisbane, who had borne the entire expense of the undertaking (Edinb. Phil. Trans. xii. 1). A chart of the isodynamical magnetic lines throughout Scotland was appended.

On Rümker's resignation in 1829, Dunlop was by the government of New South Wales appointed director of the Paramatta Observatory, and repaired to his post in 1831. He there discovered two small comets on 30 Sept. 1833 and 19 March 1834 respectively (Monthly Notices, iii. 100); determined the relative brightness of about four hundred southern stars with a double image eye-piece (ib. ii. 190); and his observations of the ‘Moon and Moon-culminating Stars, Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites, and Occultations of Fixed Stars by the Moon’ during 1838 were laid by Brisbane before the Royal Astronomical Society (ib. v. 8). These were the last signs of activity from the Paramatta Observatory. Dunlop resigned in 1842, and the instruments were removed to Sydney five years later. He died at Bora Bora, Brisbane Water, on 22 Sept. 1848, aged 53. He had been since 1828 a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and he was a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences.

[Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Sept. 1848; Comptes Rendus, xxxii. 261; Observatory, iii. 614; H. C. Russell on the Sydney Observatory; Roy. Soc.'s Cat. of Sci. Papers.] 

DUNLOP, JOHN (1755–1820), song-writer, born November 1755, was the youngest son of Provost Colin Dunlop of Carmyle in the parish of Old Monkland, Lanarkshire. He began life as a merchant, and was lord provost of Glasgow in 1796. He lived at Rosebank, near Glasgow, a property which he planted and beautified. Early in the eighteenth century it came into the possession of Provost Murdoch, and through his daughter, Margaret, it fell to her son-in-law, John Dunlop. He was appointed collector of customs at Borrowstounness, whence he was afterwards removed to Port Glasgow. An active-minded man, he is described as ‘a merchant, a sportsman, a mayor, a collector, squire, captain and poet, politician and factor.’ His humour and social qualities made him sought after. He sang well and wrote songs, some of which show a graceful lyrical faculty and are still popular. ‘Oh dinna ask me gin I lo'e ye’ is perhaps the best known, and with ‘Here's to the year that's awa’ is often included in collections of Scottish poetry. These and two others by him are in the ‘Modern Scottish Minstrel’ (1857, v. 77–81) of Dr. C. Rogers. Dunlop was also known as a writer of monumental and other inscriptions. He was a leading member of the convivial Hodge Podge Club in Glasgow, for which some of his verses were composed (, Glasgow and its Clubs, 2nd edit. 1857, pp. 43–6, 50, 53). In figure he was a ‘hogshead,’ but ‘as jolly a cask as ere loaded the ground.’ In 1818 he edited for a son of Sir James and Lady Frances Steuart some letters to them from Lady Mary W. Montagu, since reprinted by Lord Wharncliffe. He printed for private circulation a couple of volumes of his occasional pieces, and his son, John Colin Dunlop [q. v.], the author of the ‘History of Fiction,’ edited a volume of his poems in 1836. According to the statement of the Rev. Charles Rogers, four volumes of poetry in manuscript are in existence (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iv. 435). He died at Port Glasgow 4 Sept. 1820, aged 65 (Scots Magazine, October 1820, p. 383).

His works are: 1. ‘Poems on several Occasions,’ Greenock, 1817–19, 2 vols. 8vo (only ten copies, privately printed; one is in the Abbotsford Library). 2. ‘Original Letters from the Right Hon. Lady Mary W. Montagu to Sir James and Lady Frances Steuart, and Memoirs and Anecdotes of those distinguished Persons,’ 12mo, Greenock, 1818 (privately printed). 3. ‘Poems on several Occasions from 1793 to 1816,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1836 (only fifty copies privately printed by J. Colin Dunlop). Not one of these three works is in the British Museum. 