ridicule. It was, as he himself tells us, ‘undertaken in opposition to the opinions of some most respectable friends’ (Correspondence, i. 297). Sinclair published his correspondence in two volumes in 1831. These volumes also contain numerous notes concerning the countries he had visited and the famous characters he had met during his travels.
Besides these books, his son John gives in the ‘Memoirs’ a list, ‘probably incomplete,’ of 367 tracts and pamphlets written by Sir John. These are of a most varied character—political, naval, military, critical, poetical, agricultural, financial, medical, and educational.
[Several notices of Sinclair appeared during his life—one in Public Characters 1798–9, vol. i. (couched in a spirit of adulation exemplified by the statement that Sir John had ‘created a science of agriculture which before his time had scarcely an existence’); another in the Agricultural Magazine, No. 49, July 1811; and in the (American) Farmers' Register, 1833, p. 286. Sinclair also prefixed some autobiographical details to his correspondence, 1831. Obituary notices appeared in the Annual Register, 1836, p. 184 (cf. also Annual Reg. 1793, p. 168); Gent. Mag. 1836, i. 431–3; Farmers' Magazine, 1836, iv. 124; Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, 1836 (a long biography running through several numbers), March p. 569, June p. 1, September p. 111, December p. 269. In 1837 appeared the Memoirs of his son, the Rev. John Sinclair, from which succeeding biographies, from the life in Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen (v. 520) to that by Archdeacon Sinclair, Journal R.A.S.E. (1896, vol. vii.), have been largely derived. See also Athenæum, 1837, p. 244; Edinburgh Review, 1814, xxiv. 80, 1846, lxxxiv. 417; the Georgian Era, 1834, iv. 53. All these notices are couched in terms of panegyric; the other side of the question may be seen in various hints in biographies of contemporaries—Lockhart's Life of Scott, quoted above; Trevelyan's Macaulay, 1876, ii. 197, and especially in two articles in the Quarterly Review, 1810 iv. 518, 1811 v. 120. A more discriminating notice appeared in the Quarterly, 1847, lxxxii. 354.]
SINCLAIR, JOHN (1791–1857), vocalist, son of David Sinclair, cotton-spinner, was born in Edinburgh on 9 Dec. 1791. He became a clarionet player in Campbell of Shawfield's regiment, and, going to Aberdeen in that capacity, engaged in music teaching until able to purchase his discharge. Being fond of the stage and having a fine tenor voice, he went to London in search of an engagement, and on 7 Sept. 1810 appeared at the Haymarket Theatre as Cheerly in Shield's ‘Lock and Key.’ After this he became a pupil of Thomas Welsh [q. v.], and was engaged for seven years at Covent Garden, where he created the tenor rôles in Bishop's ‘Guy Mannering’ and the ‘Slave,’ Davy's ‘Rob Roy,’ and other works. He was the first to sing Bishop's ‘Pilgrim of Love,’ and he acquired great popularity in the part of Apollo in ‘Midas.’ With a view to further musical study he went in 1819 to Paris, where he had lessons from Pellegrini, and to Milan, where he was under Banderali at the Conservatoire. In May 1821 he sang to Rossini at Naples, received some instruction from him, and in 1822–3 appeared in opera at Pisa, Bologna, Genoa, Florence, and elsewhere. At Venice Rossini wrote for him the part of Idreno in ‘Semiramide.’ Returning to England with his voice much improved, he reappeared at Covent Garden on 19 Nov. 1823 as Prince Orlando in the ‘Cabinet.’ From 1828 to 1830 he was engaged at the Adelphi and Drury Lane, and after a short visit to America in the latter year, he retired to Margate, where for some years he was director of the Tivoli Gardens. He died at Margate on 23 Sept. 1857. He married, in 1816, a daughter of Captain Norton, and one of his daughters was married to Edwin Forrest, the American tragedian.
Sinclair's voice was a pure tenor, with an unusually fine falsetto, extending to F in alt. His style was, however, somewhat effeminate, and he was known as ‘the leddies' bonnie Sinclair.’ He was one of the earliest exponents of Scottish song after the manner subsequently made popular by David Kennedy [q. v.] As a composer he is remembered for his songs, ‘Come, sit ye doon,’ ‘The bonnie Breast Knots,’ ‘The Mountain Maid,’ ‘Johnny Sands,’ and others in the Scottish style, all of which were very popular and are still sung.
[Dict. of Musicians, 1824; Parke's Musical Memoirs; Life of David Kennedy; Baptie's Musical Scotland; Grove's Dict. of Musicians; Musical Times, November 1857; Parochial Registers of Edinburgh.]
SINCLAIR, JOHN (1797–1875), divine, son of Sir John Sinclair (1754–1835) [q. v.] by his second wife, was born in 1797, and educated first at Edinburgh University. In 1815 he was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1819 and M.A. in 1822. At Edinburgh he helped to found the Rhetorical Society, and at Oxford he promoted a scheme afterwards realised by the formation of the Union Society. He was ordained deacon in 1819 and priest in 1820 by the bishop of Lincoln. After working at Sutterby, Lincolnshire, at Hackney, and at Edinburgh, he was appointed in 1839 secretary of the National Society. He threw
