Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/121

  His handis maid rycht lik till a pawmer [palmer], Off manlik mak, with naless gret and cler; Proportionyt lang and fayr was his wesage; Rycht sad of spech, and abill in curage; Braid breyst and heych, with sturdy crag and gret; His lyppys round, his noys was squar and tret; Bowand bron haryt, on browis and breis lycht; [i.e. Wavy brown hair on brows and eyebrows light]; Cler aspre eyn, lik dyamondis brycht. Wndyr the chyn, on the left syd was seyn, Be hurt, a wain; his colour was sangweyn. Woundis he had in mony diuers place, Bot fair and weill kepyt was his face. [The sources of the life of Wallace are numerous but meagre. Of the contemporary English chronicles, Hemingburgh, Langtoft, the Scala Chronica, the Flores Historiarum of Matthew of Westminster, and the Chronicle of Lanercost are the most important. The political poems of Edward I, edited by Wright for the Camden Society, show the popular as distinguished from the ecclesiastical view, which agrees as to Wallace's, but differs widely as to Edward I's, character. There is no contemporary Scottish chronicle, but Wyntoun's Chronicle was written before 1424, and book viii. chap. 20, which refers to the capture of Wallace by Sir John Menteith, is part of the portion of Wyntoun which he found written and adopted (book viii. chap. 19). It may not improbably be by a contemporary. The addition by Bower to the Scotichronicon of Fordun was written before 1447. The records are to be found in Sir F. Palgrave's Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland, and Kalendars and Inventories of His Majesty's Exchequer, vol. i.; Joseph Stevenson's Wallace Papers (Maitland Club), 1842, and Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland (1286–1306); and the Calendar of Documents edited by Mr. Joseph Bain for the Lord Clerk Register, vols. ii. and iv. For Blind Harry's account of Wallace see. A Latin poem ‘Valliados libris tribus opus inchoatum,’ by Patrick Panter, professor of divinity at St. Andrews, was published in 1633. W. Hamilton of Gilbertfield's Wallace (1722) is a modernised edition of Blind Harry, and became a favourite chap-book. The best editions of Blind Harry are Dr. Jamieson's (1820) and that edited for the Scottish Text Society by Mr. James Moir of Aberdeen. There are several modern lives, of which the only ones deserving mention are the Life of Wallace by David Carrick (3rd ed. London, 1840), the Memoir by P. F. Tytler in the Scottish Worthies (2nd ed. London, 1845), a Memoir by Mr. James Moir (1886), and an instructive Life by A. W. Murison (Famous Scots Series, 1898), who has attempted the difficult, and well-nigh impossible, task of weaving together the anecdotes of Blind Harry and authentic facts. The third marquis of Bute published two lectures—(1) The Early Life of Wallace, 1876; (2) The Burning of the Barns of Ayr, 1878. English historians seldom write of him without prejudice, but Mr. C. H. Pearson's History of England is an exception. Robert Benton Seeley [q. v.], author of the Greatest of the Plantagenets, compares him to Nana Sahib, rivalling Matthew of Westminster, who compared him to ‘Herod, Nero, and the accursed Ham.’ Scottish historians can scarcely avoid partiality. The fairest account of Wallace's part in the war of independence is by R. Pauli in his Geschichte Englands. Tytler, in his History of Scotland, is fuller than Hill Burton as to Wallace, and in general trustworthy. Hailes's Annals is not so satisfactory as usual. The numerous poems and novels on Wallace do not aid history; but Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs (London, 1810), and Wallace, a Tragedy, by Professor Robert Buchanan (Glasgow, 1856), deserve notice for their spirit. There is a Bibliotheca Wallasiana appended to the anonymous Life of Wallace (Glasgow, 1858). The Life itself is mainly taken from Carrick's Memoir.] 

WALLACE, WILLIAM (1768–1843), mathematician, son of a leather manufacturer in Dysart, Fifeshire, was born there on 23 Sept. 1768. On his father's removal to Edinburgh, William was apprenticed to a bookbinder, and afterwards became a warehouseman in a printing office. Here, by his own industry, he mastered Latin, French, and mathematics. After being for some time a bookseller's shopman, acting as a private teacher, and attending classes at the university, in 1794 he was appointed assistant mathematical teacher in Perth Academy. During this period he contributed to the ‘Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’ and the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ In 1803 his patron, John Playfair [q. v.], advised him to apply for the office of mathematical master in the Royal Military College at Great Marlow. This post he obtained as the result of competitive examination. He also lectured on astronomy to the students.

In 1819 he succeeded (Sir) John Leslie [q. v.] as professor of mathematics in Edinburgh University, and occupied the chair till 1838, when he retired owing to ill-health, and was accorded a civil-list pension of 300l. a year. He received the degree of LL.D. from the university on 17 Nov. 1838. He died at Edinburgh on 28 April 1843. His portrait, by Andrew Geddes, is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.

Wallace was mainly instrumental in the erection of the observatory on the Calton Hill, and of a monument to Napier, the inventor of logarithms.

Wallace was the inventor of the eidograph for copying plans and other drawings, and of the chorograph, for describing on paper