ment of the insane. This story was a special favourite with the poet Wordsworth. The ‘King's Messengers’ was written during the very last months of Adams's life. Its object is to illustrate the danger of a wrong, and the blessedness of a right, use of money; and in the delineation of the characters the writer shows a dramatic power which he had not before displayed. There is a very similar story written in Latin by Barlaan in the fourteenth century. Besides the works which bear William Adams's name there are two others which are to be ascribed to him, the ‘Cherry Stones, or Charlton School,’ a capital story, deservedly popular with boys, for the completion and editing of which the public is indebted to his brother, the Rev. H. C. Adams, a well-known author; and ‘Silvio,’ an allegory written before any of the others, and revised and published with a modest preface by another brother in 1862.
The popularity of Adams's allegories, which, besides passing through many editions in English, have been translated into more than one modern language, has been out of all proportion to their apparent slightness. The circumstances of their composition, no doubt, give a tinge of romantic interest to them—an interest which extends to the brief career of their pious and gifted author. But apart from this, there is a peculiar fascination about them which carries the reader along, and which thoroughly reflects the personal character of the man. He had a singular gift of attracting all kinds of people to him, from the highly cultivated Oxonian down to the Bonchurch peasant, who used to speak of him after his death as ‘the good gentleman.’
[Memoir prefixed to the Sacred Allegories; Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, by J. W., 1849; Neale's Earthly Resting Places of the Just; information from the Rev. H. C. Adams, the Rev. Coker Adams, and C. Warren Adams, Esq., all brothers of William Adams, and from the Rev. F. W. Erskine Knollys, his very intimate friend.]
ADAMS, WILLIAM, LL.D. (1772–1851), a learned lawyer, was the youngest son of Patience Thomas Adams, filazer of the court of King's Bench, and was born at 39 Hatton Garden, London, 13 Jan. 1772. By his father's side he was connected with an old Essex family, and his mother was a descendant of William of Wykeham. He was educated at Tunbridge school, and in 1788 entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. At the age of twenty-five he began to attend the courts at Doctors' Commons. In 1799 he took the degree of LL.D., and in November of the same year he was admitted into the College of Advocates. Obtaining a high reputation for business capacity and mastery of legal details, he rendered valuable service on several important commissions. He served on the commission appointed in 1811 to regulate the practice of the vice-admiralty courts abroad, and on that which was occupied from 1815 till 1824 in inquiring into the duties, offices, and salaries of the courts of justice and the ecclesiastical courts of England. His chief claim to distinction is, however, the part he took in the negotiations for a treaty with the United States in 1814 after the capture of Washington; he was one of the three commissioners sent to represent England, and was entrusted with the sole preparation of the despatches relating to maritime law, the most delicate and important part of the negotiation. In 1815 he was also named one of the three plenipotentiaries sent to conclude a convention of commerce between Great Britain and the United States, which was signed on 3 July. Excessive labour connected with the preparation of the case against Queen Caroline had serious effects on his health, and in 1825 he was compelled on this account to resign his profession. He spent the last years of his life in retirement at Thorpe in Surrey, where he died 11 June 1851.
[Gent. Mag. (new series), xxxvi. 197–9; Annual Register, xciii. 297.]
ADAMS, WILLIAM BRIDGES (1797–1872) was an ingenious and prolific inventor in the early days of railroads. The invention by which he is best known is the fish-joint for the rails of railways. Before the date of this invention (1847) engineers had failed in all their efforts to contrive a joint which should firmly unite the ends of the rails while allowing fast traffic to be carried over them. Bridges Adams applied the well-known ‘fish’ or overlapping plate to the ends of the rails, and set the joint in the space between two of the supporting ‘chairs,’ instead of immediately over a ‘chair,’ so that the destructive effect of the pressure between the wheels and the chair was avoided. This joint is still universally used on railways. Adams also originated many valuable improvements in rolling stock, and did much to reduce the inordinate weight of the earlier locomotives. For a time he manufactured railway plant at works at Bow, but he was unsuccessful alike in his commercial enterprises and in his inventions. His works failed, and he realised but small profit from any of his many patents; even that for the fish-joint brought him in very little,
