SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.

SCOTLAND has recently lost in rapid succession three of her greatest men, Dr. Chalmers, Professor Wilson, and Sir William Hamilton, who during more than a quarter of a century have been respectively her foremost representatives in Theology, Literature, and Philosophy. Professors together for years in the same university, they had in common a breadth of nature, a strength and concentration of intellect, in a word, a harmony of mental power, that stamped the seal of a rare excellence on all they did, and carried their fame far beyond the scene of their personal labours. They were indeed the three men that an intelligent stranger visiting Edinburgh probably wished most of all to see, and they were precisely the three whose appearance would least disappoint his expectations. Dr. Chalmers, perhaps, at first sight might scarcely look equal to his fame, for in repose his countenance was certainly heavy and his eye dull; but the moment he opened his lips to give even the most ordinary greeting, or ask the most common-place question, a flash of genial light revealed the man; and if you found out his class-room at the temporary college in George Street, and spent an hour of the short winter afternoon on these dimly lighted and densely crowded benches, you would, in all likelihood, learn the true secret of his power, and be amply rewarded for the trouble. At first,

indeed, the reading of the lecture would go on quietly enough, with nothing particular to remark except a certain glow of subdued fervour in the tone; but by and by, on coming to some point in the manuscript which suggested further expansion, or struck him as calling for special application, the

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lecturer would pause in the reading, raise his head from the desk, and keeping his forefinger on the line to mark the place, begin his extempore comment with, "Here, gentlemen, I would just say "-speaking at first only in an animated conversational tone. Gradually, however, you perceived a change, the sibilants came with greater force and frequency, the vowels were broadened, the strong consonants strengthened the emphatic syllables rendered more emphatic still, until at length kindling with the subject, as new views of its importance crowded thickly upon him—especially if it had a practical bearing, and touched at all upon the future fortunes of the church-his whole manner would undergo a rapid change; abandoning the manuscript altogether, he would suddenly rise from his chair, the professor's gown fluttering about him as he rose, and reaching over the desk with outstretched arm, flashing eye, and dilated form, burst into a strain of impassioned eloquence, of solemn warning, exhortation or entreaty, that thrilled through the hearer as he sat, making him feel for the moment that he was verily listening to the message of an inspired prophet, though, from the strangeness of the accent and manner, he might well believe, one who had been summoned to the work, like the prophets of old, from following the sheep amidst the mountains, or driving the oxen afield, with the herdsmen of Tekoa.

Professor Wilson was in body as in mind the very perfection of manly health and strength, a king of men, every inch a king. Nothing could possibly disguise him, not even the sad-coloured garments, the square Puritanic collar, and low broad-brimmed hat that of late years it was his delight to wear. If you saw him on his way to college amidst the crowd in Princes Street, or met him facing the blast on the North Bridge, his long tawny locks floating away from his coat collar before the wind, you would at once recognise in the erect and lofty frame, magnificent chest, firm elastic step, and stout oak cudgel of the Professor, the Christopher North of the Noctes and the Recreations. Nor was Sir William Hamilton's appearance at all less characteristic. Though not so tall as Professor Wilson, he was above the middle height, and the sinewy vigour of his well-compacted frame, the strength and penetration of his look, the

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perfect self-reliance and finished courtesy of his manner, would at once have impressed you anywhere; while on the opportunity of a nearer view in his class-room, it was impossible to see the massive head, decisive yet finely cut features, dark, calm, piercing eye of the lecturer, and listen to his deep, firm, truthful voice, expounding the problems or annihilating some obnoxious theory of his science, in sentences strong and brilliant as polished steel, without feeling that here at least was a master,- -one who had learnt the lesson given by the oracle to the wisest of men, who had fearlessly confronted the cruel Sphinx of self-consciousness and read her riddle, who, holding the keys of an invisible world, could unlock the hidden mysteries of thought; and having found such an one you might be pardoned if, in the enthusiasm of the moment, you were almost ready to exclaim, with Socrates in the Phædo," that you would follow him as a god."

Sir William Hamilton was less popularly known than either of his distinguished contemporaries. Till the last few years, indeed, he was, in his own country at least, scarcely known at all. Nor is this surprising. Too ardent and severe a student to become actively identified with any considerable party in Church or State, he rarely appeared in public; and the sciences of his choice were precisely those furthest removed from popular sympathy and appreciation. The strange neglect into which these sciences had fallen also prevented for a time the recognition of his rare merit, even where this might have been confidently expected. For the circle of readers, never a very large one, really interested in Mental Philosophy, at the time when Sir W. Hamilton came forward to discuss its problems, was reduced to the narrowest dimensions, if not practically extinct. On the appearance of his first contribution to the Edinburgh Review, nearly thirty years ago, M. Cousin justly said that there were probably not fifty persons in the country who would be able to appreciate its value, or even to understand its meaning. This was strictly true, for the article in question, though for clearness and force of style a perfect model of philosophic exposition, was universally complained of at the time as unintelligible. To-day, the number of those who would welcome such papers

must be counted by hundreds instead of tens; but the change, it would be easy to prove, is mainly due to Sir W. Hamilton himself. When he appeared as its representative, Philosophy was, as I have said, at the lowest possible ebb in Britain. Reid was already forgotten, and the knowledge of mental science possessed, even by the best informed, was at most a polite acquaintance with Stewart, or a popular knowledge of Brown. Across the Channel, France and Germany had been recently roused to new speculative efforts, and the leading minds in both countries were full of excitement on philosophic questions; but in England the profoundest apathy prevailed, none cared for these things. If any reference to them found its way into a magazine or review, it elicited only an unexcited stare, or at most an expression of wonder as to what the writer meant. Logic and Metaphysics were exploded as the worthless relics of a dark and barbarous age, mental science was obsolete, and all that remained of philosophy, in any shape, was to be found in Bridgewater Treatises, Essays on Population and Political Economy, with occasional disquisitions on Jeremy Bentham and his greatest-happiness principle. Under these circumstances, the attempt to gain a hearing for the proscribed science seemed hopeless enough. Nothing daunted, however, Sir William Hamilton made it, and the event sufficiently justified the wisdom and courage of the step. His articles in the Edinburgh Review on the problems of pure philosophy, though by no means fully understood, gradually excited attention; and as the consciousness of ignorance is the beginning of knowledge, many were led to inquire farther, and in the end study the subject for themselves. The progress of this work was, however, at first characteristically slow. Sir William's articles were collected and translated abroad before they were generally known at home; his name was familiarly mentioned in foreign philosophical works before it was heard across the Tweed; the universities and literary societies of the Continent vied with each other in doing honour to his profound learning, when the reproach of ignorance was the only recognition he received from the banks of the Isis and the Cam; and while his cautious countrymen were doubtfully admitting his claim to a chair of philosophy in a Scottish university, he was signalised

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by Brandis, in Germany, as the great master of the Peripatetic Philosophy-by Cousin, in France, as the first metaphysician in Europe.

The publication of Reid's Works, however, at length secured for Sir William Hamilton at home the philosophic reputation he had so long enjoyed abroad. The masterly dissertations appended to that volume at once placed Sir William at the head of living philosophers, and gave a far more powerful impulse to the study of Psychology than any of his other writings. Many who had previously given up the study of speculative science in despair, finding its course a maze rather than a way, welcomed these dissertations, especially the first, on the Philosophy of Common Sense, as the very instrument they needed-the novum organon of a new and thoroughly progressive era in the history of the science. Psychology, as a developed consciousness, was here seen to have a basis, a method, and an end; its foundation being laid in the facts of nature, its progress secured by observation and analysis, its results throwing a flood of light on the whole development alike of the individual and the race-a key for the deeper explanation of the past, the present, and the future. True, little more than the starting-place was fixed, but this was established with such certainty, the surveys from the central point of view were so wide and accurate, and the course which all successful progress in future must take indicated in lines so firm and clear, that the student was led with kindled enthusiasm to explore the outlying country for himself, fully assured that his labours would not be in vain. The number of readers interested in the science who studied Sir William's writings and adopted his views, now rapidly increased every year, so that on the republication of his contributions to the Edinburgh Review, a second edition of the volume, massive alike in size and contents,-was called for within a year after the issue of the first. Sir William Hamilton thus lived to reap the tardy first fruits of what he had so long and so laboriously sown; and these—though a mere scantling to the rich harvest of influence and renown that will hereafter be gathered in to that honoured name-are in themselves by no means small or unimportant results. When summoned from his work, Sir William had effectually broken up