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HAMERTON ruined for a time its enormous trade, so that it had to appeal for aid. Population 1,015,707.  Ham′erton, Philip Gilbert, an English writer on art, was born at Laneside in Lancashire, Sept. 10, 1834. He began his career as an art-critic by writing for the Fine Arts Quarterly and the Fortnightly and Saturday Reviews. In 1855 he published a poem on The Isles of Loch Awe and in 1862 A Painter's Camp in the Highlands and Thoughts about Art. From 1869 to 1889 he edited The Portfolio, an art-journal. Others of his works are The Intellectual Life, The Graphic Arts, Human Intercourse, Landscape, Portfolio Papers (1889) and a number of novels. He was a writer of keen discrimination, and had a picturesque and impressive style. He died at Boulogne, Nov. 6, 1894.  Hamilcar, a Carthaginian general, the father of Hannibal and one of the greatest generals of ancient times. He was surnamed Barca or Lightning. While still a young man, he was placed in command of the Carthaginian forces in Sicily (247 B. C.), when almost all the island had been taken by the Romans. He seized Ercte, a hill 2,000 feet high, and from this stronghold as a base he ravaged the coast of Italy and for three years, with a small force, defied every effort of the Romans to dislodge him. In 244 B. C. he occupied Mt. Eryx, two miles from the coast, and for two years, with his handful of men, held his own against the Roman army, "fighting," says Polybius, "like a royal eagle, which stops only to gather strength for the next attack." The Carthaginian navy being defeated, 241 B. C., Sicily yielded to Rome, but Hamilcar marched out with all the honors of war. Immediately after peace had been made with Rome, a revolt of the mercenaries and African tribes threatened the overthrow of the state. Hanno, a personal enemy of Hamilcar, undertook to suppress it and failed. Hamilcar was then placed in command and crushed the revolt in 238 B. C. In the same year Rome again made war on Carthage, and Hamilcar was placed in command of the Carthaginian army. He now crossed into Spain, determined there to gather and drill an army capable of meeting the Roman legions, and then wage war on Roman soil. He entered Spain in 237 B. C., and in nine years built up a new empire; but in 228 B. C. he fell fighting the Vetones, leaving the plans of the great Hamilcar to be carried out by his greater son, Hannibal. See Carthage and the Carthaginians by Bosworth Smith.  Hamilton, Alexander, one of the greatest of American statesmen, was born on Jan. 11, 1757, in the West Indian island of Nevis. His father, a Scotch merchant, failed in business, and Alexander, when 12 years of age, entered the employ of a merchant at St. Croix. His marked abilities at the same time secured him the interest of friends, who sent him to a school at Elizabeth, N. J., and in 1774 he entered King's (now Columbia) College, New York. While at college and but 18 years old, he wrote a series of papers in defense of the colonies which were at first credited to the eminent statesman, John Jay, and at once brought him to the notice of the public.



When the War of the Revolution began, Hamilton was made a captain of artillery, and in 1777 was appointed aid-de-camp by Washington and became his valued friend and adviser. In 1780 he married a daughter of General Schuyler. At the close of the war he studied law, and soon became one of the most eminent lawyers of New York. He was elected to Congress in 1782, and in 1787 was a leader in the convention at Philadelphia which framed the constitution of the United States. In October of the same year he began a series of articles explaining the scope and power of the constitution, which were published under the name of The Federalist. Of the 85 essays in the collection, 51 were written by Hamilton, and these deservedly gave him his widest fame. When Washington became president of the new government in 1789, he appointed Hamilton secretary of the treasury. Here his able management, which raised the public