Hamilton, William

1) Hamilton, William of Gilbertfield

(1665?-1751)

   Poet, served in the army, from which he retired with the rank of Lieutenant. He wrote poetical Epistles to Allan Ramsay, and an abridgment in modern Scotch of Blind Harry's Life of Sir William Wallace.

2) Hamilton, William of Bangour

(1704-1754)

   Poet, was b. at the family seat in Linlithgowshire. Cultivated and brilliant, he was a favourite of society, and began his literary career by contributing verses to Allan Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany. He joined the Pretender in 1745, and celebrated the Battle of Prestonpans in Gladsmuir. After Culloden he wandered in the Highlands, where he wrote his Soliloquy, and escaped to France. His friends, however, succeeded in obtaining his pardon, and he returned to his native country. In 1750, on the death of his brother, he succeeded to the family estate, which, however, he did not long live to enjoy. He is best remembered for his fine ballad of The Braes of Yarrow. He also wrote The Episode of the Thistle. He d. at Lyons.

   3) Hamilton, Sir William

(1788-1856)

   Metaphysician, b. in Glasgow, in the Univ. of which his f. and grandfather successively filled the Chair of Anatomy and Botany, ed. there and at Balliol Coll., Oxf., was called to the Scottish Bar, at which he attained little practice, but was appointed Solicitor of Teinds. In 1816 he established his claim to the baronetcy of H. of Preston. On the death of Dr. Thomas Brown in 1820, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy in Edin., but in the following year he was appointed Prof. of History. It was not until 1829 that he gave full proof of his remarkable powers and attainments as a philosopher in a famous article in the Edinburgh Review, a critique of Victor Cousin's doctrine of the Infinite. This paper carried his name over Europe, and won for him the homage of continental philosophers, including Cousin himself. After this H. continued to contribute to the Review, many of his papers being translated into French, German, and Italian. In 1852 they were coll. with notes and additions, and pub. as Discussions in Philosophy and Literature, etc. In 1836 H. was elected Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Edinburgh, which office he held with great reputation until his death, after which the lectures he had delivered were edited and pub. by Prof. Mansel and Veitch. His magnum opus was his edition of the Works of Dr. Thomas Reid, left unfinished, and completed by Mansel. H. was the last, and certainly the most learned and accomplished, of the Scottish school of philosophy, which he considered it his mission to develop and correlate to the systems of other times and countries. He also made various important contributions to the science of logic. During his later years he suffered from paralysis of one side, which, though it left his mind unaffected, impaired his powers of work. A Memoir of H. by Prof. Veitch appeared in 1869.