HAMILTON, ALEXANDER (1757-1804).—­Statesman and political writer, b. in the West Indies, was one of the framers of the Constitution of the United States, and was the first Sec. of the national Treasury.  He was one of the greatest of American statesmen, and has also a place in literature as the principal writer in the Federalist, a periodical founded to expound and defend the new Constitution, which was afterwards pub. as a permanent work.  He contributed 51 of its 85 articles.

HAMILTON, ELIZABETH (1758-1816).—­Wrote The Cottagers of Glenburnie, a tale which had much popularity in its day, and perhaps had some effect in the improvement of certain aspects of humble domestic life in Scotland.  She also wrote Letters on Education, Essays on the Human Mind, and The Hindoo Rajah.

HAMILTON, THOMAS (1789-1842).—­Novelist, brother of Sir William Hamilton (q.v.), wrote a novel, Cyril Thornton (1827), which was received with great favour.  He was an officer in the army, and, on his retirement, settled in Edin., and became a contributor to Blackwood.  He was also the author of Annals of the Peninsular Campaign (1829), and Men and Manners in America (1833).

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.

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.

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