Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/434

414 four boys and four girls, were left to his widow s care. She survived him half a century, dying at the age of ninety-seven, aud during all that time she remained attired in the widow s dress of the early times.

1em 1em 1em 1em (undefined)  HAMILTON, or (1646–1720), a French classical author, who is especially noteworthy from the fact that, though by birth he was a foreigner, his literary characteristics are more decidedly French than those of many of the most indubitable Frenchmen. His father was George Hamilton, younger brother of James, second earl of Abercorn and head of the family of Ham ilton in the peerage of Scotland, and sixth duke of Chatellerault in the peerage of France ; and his mother was Mary Butler, sister of the duke of Ormonde. He was born in 1646, but the place of his birth has not been ascertained. According to some authorities it was Drogh.3da, but according to the London edition of his works in 1811 it was Roscrea in Tipperary county. From the age of four till he was fourteen the boy was brought up in France, whither his family had removed after the execution of Charles I. The fact that, like his father, hs was a Roman Catholic, prevented his receiving the political promotion he might otherwise have expected on the Restoration, but he became a distin guished member of that brilliant band of courtiers whose most fitting portraiture was destined to be the product of his pen. His connexion with France was always main tained, and the, marriage of his sister to the Comte de Gramont rendered it more intimate if possible than before. On the accession of James he found his religious disabilities transformed into advantages. He obtained an infantry regiment in Ireland, and was appointed governor of Limerick. But the battle of the Boyne, at which he was present, brought disaster on all who were attached to the cause of the Stewarts, and before long he was again in France an exile, but at home. The rest of Ids life was spent for the most part in the chateaux of his friends. With the duchess Ludovise of Maine he became an especial favourite, and it was at her seat at Sceaux that he wrote the Memoires that made him famous. The ill-advised expedition of 1708 was the last political enterprise in which he shared, and he died at St Germain-en-Laye, August G, 1720.

1em  HAMILTON, (1758–1816), novelist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Belfast, of Scotch ex traction, 25th July 1758. Her father s death in 1759 left his wife so embarrassed that Elizabeth was adopted in 1 7G2 by her paternal aunt, Mrs Marshall, who lived in Scot land, near Stirling. There Elizabeth spent her youth and received a good education, at first at school, afterwards in private, and latterly for some months under masters at Edinburgh and Glasgow. In her 15th year she made a tour in the Highlands with some friends, and wrote a journal of it for her aunt s perusal, which was inserted, unknown to the authoress, in a provincial magazine. In 1780 Mrs Marshall died, and Miss Hamilton was prevented by house hold cares from using her pen; but in 1785 she made her first voluntary contribution to the press in the shape of a letter to the Lounger, of which paper it forms the 4Gth number. On the death of Mr Marshall in 1788, Miss Hamilton lived for a time with her brother, Captain Charles Hamilton, who was engaged on his translation of the Hedaya. Prompted by her brother s associations, she pro duced her Letters of a Hindoo Rajah in 1796, and soon after, with her sister Mrs Blake, settled at Bath, where she published in 1800 the Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, a kind of satire on the admirers of the French Revolution. In 1801-2 the Letters on Educa tion appeared, her most valuable though not her most popular work. After travelling though Wales and Scotland 