is more justly measured than Madison’s (in 1831): “That he possessed intellectual powers of the first order, and the moral qualities of integrity and honour in a captivating degree, has been awarded him by a suffrage now universal. If his theory of government deviated from the republican standard he had the candour to avow it, and the greater merit of co-operating faithfully in maturing and supporting a system which was not his choice.”
In person Hamilton was rather short and slender; in carriage, erect, dignified and graceful. Deep-set, changeable, dark eyes vivified his mobile features, and set off his light hair and fair, ruddy complexion. His head in the famous Trumbull portrait is boldly poised and very striking. The captivating charm of his manners and conversation is attested by all who knew him, and in familiar life he was artlessly simple. Friends he won readily, and he held them in devoted attachment by the solid worth of a frank, ardent, generous, warm-hearted and high-minded character. Versatile as were his intellectual powers, his nature seems comparatively simple. A firm will, tireless energy, aggressive courage and bold self-confidence were its leading qualities; the word “intensity” perhaps best sums up his character. His Scotch and Gallic strains of ancestry are evident; his countenance was decidedly Scotch; his nervous speech and bearing and vehement temperament rather French; in his mind, agility, clarity and penetration were matched with logical solidity. The remarkable quality of his mind lay in the rare combination of acute analysis and grasp of detail with great comprehensiveness of thought. So far as his writings show, he was almost wholly lacking in humour, and in imagination little less so. He certainly had wit, but it is hard to believe he could have had any touch of fancy. In public speaking he often combined a rhetorical effectiveness and emotional intensity that might take the place of imagination, and enabled him, on the coldest theme, to move deeply the feelings of his auditors.
Bibliography.—Hamilton’s Works have been edited by H. C. Lodge (New York, 9 vols., 1885–1886, and 12 vols., 1904); all references above are first to the latter edition, secondly (in brackets) to the former. There are various additional editions of The Federalist, notably those of H. B. Dawson (1863), H. C. Lodge (1888), and—the most scholarly—P. L. Ford (1898); cf. American Historical Review, ii. 413, 675. See also James Bryce, “Predictions of Hamilton and de Tocqueville,” in Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol. 5 (Baltimore, 1887); and the capital essay of Anson D. Morse in the Political Science Quarterly, v. (1890), pp. 1-23. For a bibliography of the period see the Cambridge Modern History, vol. vii. pp. 780-810. The unfinished Life of Alexander Hamilton, by his Son, J. C. Hamilton, going only to 1787 (New York, 2 vols., 1834–1840), was superseded by the same author’s valuable, but partisan and uncritical History of the Republic ... as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton (New York, 7 vols., 1857–1864; 4th ed., Boston, 1879). Professor W. G. Sumner’s Alexander Hamilton (Makers of America series, New York, 1890) is appreciative, and important for its criticism from the point of view of an American free-trader; see also, on Hamilton’s finance and economic views, Prof. C. F. Dunbar, Quarterly Journal of Economics, iii. (1889), p. 32; E. G. Bourne in ibid. x. (1894), p. 328; E. C. Lunt in Journal of Political Economy, iii. (1895), p. 289. Among modern studies must also be mentioned J. T. Morse’s able Life (1876); H. C. Lodge’s (in the American Statesmen series, 1882); and G. Shea’s two books, his Historical Study (1877) and Life and Epoch (1879). C. J. Riethmüller’s Hamilton and his Contemporaries (1864), written during the Civil War, is sympathetic, but rather speculative. The most vivid account of Hamilton is in Mrs Gertrude Atherton’s historical romance, The Conqueror (New York, 1902), for the writing of which the author made new investigations into the biographical details, and elucidated some points previously obscure; see also her A Few of Hamilton’s Letters (1903). F. S. Oliver’s brilliant Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American Union (London, 1906), which uses its subject to illustrate the necessity of British imperial federation, is strongly anti-Jeffersonian, but no other work by a non-American author brings out so well the wider issues involved in Hamilton’s economic policy. (F. S. P.; H. Ch.)
HAMILTON, ANTHONY, or Antoine (1646–1720), French
classical author, was born about 1646. He is especially noteworthy
from the fact that, though by birth he was a foreigner,
his literary characteristics are more decidedly French than those
of many of the most indubitable Frenchmen. His father was
George Hamilton, younger brother of James, 2nd earl of
Abercorn, and head of the family of Hamilton in the peerage
of Scotland, and 6th duke of Châtellerault in the peerage of
France; and his mother was Mary Butler, sister of the 1st
duke of Ormonde. According to some authorities he was born
at Drogheda, but according to the London edition of his works
in 1811 his birthplace was Roscrea, Tipperary. From the age
of four till he was fourteen the boy was brought up in France,
whither his family had removed after the execution of Charles I.
The fact that, like his father, he was a Roman Catholic, prevented
his receiving the political promotion he might otherwise have
expected on the Restoration, but he became a distinguished
member of that brilliant band of courtiers whose chronicler
he was to become. He took service in the French army, and
the marriage of his sister Elizabeth, “la belle Hamilton,” to
Philibert, comte de Gramont (q.v.) rendered his connexion with
France more intimate, if possible, than before. On the accession
of James II. he obtained an infantry regiment in Ireland, and
was appointed governor of Limerick and a member of the privy
council. But the battle of the Boyne, at which he was present,
brought disaster on all who were attached to the cause of the
Stuarts, and before long he was again in France—an exile, but
at home. The rest of his life was spent for the most part at the
court of St Germain and in the châteaux of his friends. With
Ludovise, duchesse du Maine, he became an especial favourite,
and it was at her seat at Sceaux that he wrote the Mémoires
that made him famous. He died at St Germain-en-Laye on the
21st of April 1720.
It is mainly by the Mémoires ducomte de Gramont that Hamilton takes rank with the most classical writers of France. It was said to have been written at Gramont’s dictation, but it is very evident that Hamilton’s share is the most considerable. The work was first published anonymously in 1713 under the rubric of Cologne, but it was really printed in Holland, at that time the great patroness of all questionable authors. An English translation by Boyer appeared in 1714. Upwards of thirty editions have since appeared, the best of the French being Renouard’s (1812), forming part of a collected edition of Hamilton’s works, and Gustave Brunet’s (1859), and the best of the English, Edwards’s (1793), with 78 engravings from portraits in the royal collections at Windsor and elsewhere, A. F. Bertrand de Moleville’s (2 vols., 1811), with 64 portraits by E. Scriven and others, and Gordon Goodwin’s (2 vols., 1903). The original edition was reprinted by Benjamin Pifteau in 1876. In imitation and satiric parody of the romantic tales which Antoine Galland’s translation of The Thousand and One Nights had brought into favour in France, Hamilton wrote, partly for the amusement of Henrietta Bulkley, sister of the duchess of Berwick, to whom he was much attached, four ironical and extravagant contes, Le Bélier, Fleur d’épine, Zénéyde and Les Quatre Facardins. The saying in Le Bélier’ “Bélier, mon ami, tu me ferais plaisir si tu voulais commencer par le commencement,” has passed into a proverb. These tales were circulated privately during Hamilton’s lifetime, and the first three appeared in Paris in 1730, ten years after the death of the author; a collection of his Œuvres diverses in 1731 contained the unfinished Zénéyde. Hamilton was also the author of some songs as exquisite in their way as his prose, and interchanged amusing verses with the duke of Berwick. In the name of his niece, the countess of Stafford, Hamilton maintained a witty correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
See notices of Hamilton in Lescure’s edition (1873) of the Contes, Sainte-Beuve’s Causeries du lundi, tome i., Sayou’s Histoire de la littérature française à l’étranger (1853), and by L. S. Auger in the Œuvres complètes (1804).
HAMILTON, ELIZABETH (1758–1816), British author, was
born at Belfast, of Scottish extraction, on the 21st of July 1758.
Her father’s death in 1759 left his wife so embarrassed that
Elizabeth was adopted in 1762 by her paternal aunt, Mrs
Marshall, who lived in Scotland, near Stirling. In 1788 Miss
Hamilton went to live with her brother Captain Charles Hamilton
(1753–1792), who was engaged on his translation of the Hedaya.
Prompted by her brother’s associations, she produced her
