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following are the chief: Pre-historic Man, or Researches into the Origin of Civilization in the Old World and the New, 2 vols., 8vo; Archæology and Pre-historic Annals of Scotland; Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Times, 2 vols., 4to; Oliver Cromwell and the Protectorate; Chatterton, a Biographical Study. - GEORGE WILSON, M. D., LL. D., 1818-1859, brother of the ethnologist, Daniel Wilson, and highly distinguished as a chemist. He was born in Edinburgh, and studied chemistry in that city and in London. He held several important positions, and for the last few years of his life was Regius Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh. He published Chemistry, a text-book; A Life of Cavendish; A Life of John Reid, the Professor of Medicine in St. Andrew's; A Memoir of Professor Forbes; Electricity and the Electric Telegraph; Researches on Color-Blindness; The Progress of the Telegraph; The Five Gateways of Knowledge (the eye, ear, nose, tongue, hand); Religio Medici, a collection of Religious Essays; Counsels of an Invalid; Letters on Religious Subjects.

Young the Egyptologist.

THOMAS YOUNG, 1773-1829, was one of the most striking characters of the present century, remarkable alike for the originality of his

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researches and investigations, and the variety of his talents.

Young was a precocious child, having studied and mastered, in his fourteenth year, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, and no little mathematics. In 1792 he began the study of medicine, first in London and then in Edinburgh. From Edinburgh he went to Göttingen, where he took his degree. Not only was he a diligent student, but a conspicuous devotee of amusements, excelling in dancing, music, and horsemanship. He returned to England in 1793. To qualify himself for membership in the College of Physicians, Young entered Cambridge, and took his degree in 1799. He practised his profession for a number of years, was Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution, and conducted the Nautical Almanac. While professor in the Royal Institution, Young published a Syllabus of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy, in which he made the first announcement of his theory on the Interference of Light. This remarkable discovery was much attacked at the time, but is now universally accepted. It was the most general discov ery in optics that had been made since the days of Newton, and decided the reception of the undulatory theory. He also published several medical works or treatises, none of which, however, are distinguished for originality.

In 1814, Young first made known his conjectural reading of the Rosetta stone. This he followed up with one or two other articles, until there appeared, in 1819, his celebrated article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, which was the first really successful attempt at reading the great Egyptian riddle. There has been much dispute upon the relative merits of Young and Champollion to the title of discoverer of the key to the hieroglyphic alphabet. It is impossible, of course, for any one except a professed Egyptologist, to speak confidently on such an abstruse matter. The general opinion seems to be that Young was the first to make certain suggestions,—namely, that some of the hieroglyphic characters represented sounds,—and that Champollion caught up these suggestions and developed them with wonderful acuteness and system.

Young worked with great enthusiasm upon his Egyptian investigations until his death, and soon after his death his Rudiments of an Egyptian Dictionary in the Ancient Enchorial Characters was published. He also published during his lifetime several scientific treatises, and contributed a great number of papers to the Encyclopædia Britannica, to the leading reviews, and to various scientific bodies. A selection of his Miscellaneous Works was published in 3 vols. in 1855.

Young appears to have been a man of almost infinite capacities. He had more than the ordinary proficiency in modern European and oriental languages, in botany and physiology, besides making two of the most striking discoveries in two departments of research the most widely apart. He was, in short, one of those rare phenomena that disturb from time to time the speculations of theorists upon the limited range of the human intellect.

Wilkinson.

SIR JOHN GARDNER WILKINSON, 1798

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educated at Harrow and at Oxford, is well known as the author of numerous works on Egyptology.

Conspicuous among the works of Wilkinson is his Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, published in 1837. This work may be said to have created a new era in the popular knowledge of Egypt, and given the impetus to such subsequent labors as those of Layard, Rawlinson, etc. It described the social life of the ancient Egyptians as revealed by the remains of their painting, sculpture, and inscriptions. It has since been recast into an abridged form, entitled A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, which includes recent discoveries down to 1853. A similar work is The Egyptians in the Time of the Pharaohs. His treatise On Color and the Necessity for a General Diffusion of Taste is a valuable, practical work.

Besides the works already mentioned, Wilkinson is the author of others of a more strictly archæological character. Among them are the Materia Hieroglyphica, the Architecture of Ancient Egypt, and the Fragments of the Hieratic Papyrus at Turin. Of a more popular turn, again, are his Handbook of Modern Egypt and Thebes, and his Dalmatia and Montenegro.

Wilkinson is a thorough scholar in whatever he undertakes, and all his works are full of valuable information, skilfully presented and suggesting reflection.

Hayman Wilson.

HORACE HAYMAN WILSON, 1786–1860, a native of London, and a servant of the East India Company, made himself conspicuous by his attainments in Sanscrit.

In 1832, Wilson was appointed Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford, and retained that position until his death. Wilson comes next, in point of time, to Sir William Jones and Sir Charles Wilkins, and surpasses them both in the extent and permanent value of his labors. His principal works are A Sanscrit-English Dictionary, (of which a new edition, by Goldstücker, still unfinished, is in course of publication in Germany,) Hindoo Theatre (selections from Sanscrit Dramatists), a translation of the Vishnu Purâna (system of Hindoo Mythology), History of British India from 1805-1835, a translation of the Rig-Veda Sanhita (the oldest record of the Sanscrit language and Aryan mythology), and a Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Words, etc., in the various languages and dialects of British India.

Wilson sup rintended also the English translation of Bopp's Comparative Grammar, edited numerous Sanscrit texts. and contributed many papers to the Asiatic Researches, the Quarterly Oriental, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, and other societies. A collective edition of his works is now in course of publication by Trübner & Co. Wilson was also celebrated for his musical skill and histrionic powers. His entire

life was passed in the most unceasing and profitable activity, and he has left behind him a scholarly record second to none in his native country.

MONIER WILLIAMS, 1819

ars of England.

is one of the leading Sanscrit schol

Prof. Williams was born at Bombay, and was educated at King's College, at Haileybury, and at Oxford. He was Professor of Oriental studies at Cheltenham, and since 1860 Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford. Prof. Williams's works are all upon subjects directly connected with his chosen line of study. They are an Elementary Grammar of Sanscrit, a translation of Kalidasa's Vikramoroasi and Sakuntala, an English-Sanscrit Dictionary, the Rudiments of Hindustani, a Practical Hindustani Grammar, a Lecture on the Study of Sanscrit in Relation to Missionary Work in India, a series of Lectures on Indian Epic Poetry, a translation of the story of Nâla, etc. Professor Williams has been engaged for a number of years upon a Sanscrit-English Dictionary, to be published at Oxford. He can scarcely be considered as fully the equal of his rival, Max Müller, either in a special knowledge of Sanscrit or in general philological attainments.

V. HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, ETC.

Macaulay.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1800-1859, was in his day the most brilliant living writer in England, in matters of historical criticism. He excelled, indeed, in almost every style of writing, but it was on questions of history, and especially on those involving political issues, that his supremacy was most complete.

Macaulay was a native of England, but of Scotch descent. His father was Zachary Macaulay, an eminent merchant and philanthropist, and his grandfather was the Rev. John Macaulay, a Presbyterian minister in the Scottish Highlands, descended from a clan in the most remote of the Hebrides. His mother was of a Quaker family, the daughter of a bookseller of Bristol. His home education was thoroughly religious. He entered the University of Cambridge at the age of eighteen, and greatly distinguished himself while there by the thoroughness of his scholarship. He twice carried off the prize, the Chancellor's Medal, for English verse. University honors fell thick about his path, but he left them behind and applied himself to the study of the law.

While still a law student, he published two of his most remarkable productions, The Battle of Ivry, at the age of twenty-four, and the Essay on Milton, at the age of twenty-five. Either of these was alone sufficient to mark him as a man of the first

order of genius. The Essay on Milton was followed from time to time by similar brilliant articles in the Edinburgh Review.

In 1830, he entered Parliament, and there by his eloquence in debate rivalled the fame which he had already acquired as a poet and an essayist. His principal speeches were upon the Reform Bill, 1830–32, and upon the affairs of the East India Company, 1833. On the latter subject, especially, he displayed so much knowledge and ability that he was made a minister of the Supreme Council for India, and put at the head of the Commission to prepare a new code of laws for the Indian empire. He sojourned in India for this purpose from 1835 to 1838, and while there acquired that intimate knowledge of the country which appears with such wonderful effect in his articles on Clive and Warren Hastings.

On returning to England, he re-entered Parliament in 1838, as a member from Edinburgh, and was made Secretary at War in the Melbourne ministry.

During this period of political activity, he produced The Lays of Ancient Rome, which were printed in 1842.

Being defeated in an election for Parliament, which took place in 1847, he determined henceforth to devote himself exclusively to literature, and he began the composition of the great historical work, for which all his previous life and writings seemed to be a sort of special preparation. This was intended to be A History of England, from the Accession of James II. down to a Time within the Memory of Persons Still Living. The first two volumes appeared at the close of 1848. Volumes three and four appeared seven years later, in 1855; and a fragment of another volume was published after his death, the whole coming down only to the death of William III., 1702.

Macaulay was chosen, in 1849, Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, a mere office of honor, not requiring residence; he was raised to the Peerage, under the title of Baron Macaulay, in 1857; he died suddenly of an affection of the heart, in 1859. Macaulay was great in everything which he undertook. He was among the first in the list of great parliamentary orators, though after the order of Burke rather than that of Fox; he is equally among the first in the roll of great poets; while, as an essayist, and a painter of historical scenes and personages, he is without a peer.

The sale of his works, particularly of his History, has been enormous. His Essays, as they appeared from time to time in the Edinburgh Review, were received with the same sort of excitement which, in the early part of the century, used to await the appearance of a new fiction by Scott, or a new poem by Byron. His History of England rivalled the most sensational novel in the eagerness with which it was purchased and read. More than sixty thousand copies of the Essays, in 5 vols., were pub lished in Philadelphia alone, within the first five years. The aggregate sale of the third and fourth volumes of his History, within the first four weeks of their publication, was over one hundred and fifty thousand copies.

"Much as these very eminent men [Jeffrey, Mackintosh, and Sydney Smith] differ from each other, Mr. Macaulay is, perhaps, still more clearly distinguished from either. Both his turn of mind and style of writing are peculiar, and exhibit a combination rarely if ever before witnessed in English, or even in modern literature. Unlike Lord Jeffrey, he is deeply learned in ancient and modern lore: his mind is richly stored with the poetry and history both of classical and continental literature. Unlike Mackintosh, he is eminently dramatic and pictorial; he alternately speaks poetry to the soul and pictures to the eye. Unlike Sydney Smith, he has omitted subjects of party contention and passing interest, and grappled with the great questions, the immortal names, which will forever attract the interest and command the attention of man. Milton, Bacon, Machiavelli, first awakened his discriminating and critical taste; Clive, Warren Hastings, Frederick the Great, called forth his dramatic and historic

powers. He has treated of the Reformation and the Catholic reaction, in his review of Ranke; of the splendid despotism of the Popedom in that of Hildebrand; of the French Revolution in that of Barère. There is no danger of his essays being forgot ten, like many of those of Addison; nor of pompous uniformity of style being complained of, as in most of those of Johnson. His learning is prodigious; and perhaps the chief defects of his composition arise from the exuberant riches of the stores from which they are drawn. When warmed in his subject, he is thoroughly in earnest, and his language, in consequence, goes direct to the heart. In many of his writings — and especially the first volume of his history, and his essay on the Reformation — there are reflections, equally just and original, which never have been surpassed in the philosophy of history. That he is imbued with the soul of poetry need be told to none who have read his Battle of the Lake Regillus; that he is a great biographer will be disputed by none who are acquainted with the splendid biographies of Clive and Hastings, by much the finest productions of the kind in the English language." -Sir Archibald Alison.

Grote.

GEORGE GROTE, 1794-1871, the historian of Greece, was the finest specimen in modern times of a man of business who was at the same time in the foremost rank as a scholar and a man of letters.

Something of Mr. Grote's success in the latter, doubtless, is due to the fact that he carried his business habits and solid business sense into the investigation of subjects usually monopolized by mere scholars, who have no practical experience of affairs. He was educated at the Charter-House School, and at the age of sixteen entered as a clerk in the banking-house established by his grandfather, and in which he himself afterwards became a partner. He spent his leisure hours, as a clerk, in patient study, and having early formed the purpose of writing the work which has made him famous, set about the preparation for it with a degree of courage and deliberation that border upon the marvellous. Without a University training, he bent himself to the task of writing the most difficult of all histories, The History of Greece. Not being a classical scholar, he applied himself to master not only the Greek language, but whatever related to Greek life, history, literature, and philosophy.

As clerk, and afterwards as partner in the great banking-house of "Grote and Prescott," he learned sagacity in his dealings with men; and insensibly his knowledge, thus gained, became a knowledge of human nature which shed light on the Greek studies he persistently followed. His History of Greece was begun in 1823; but the ideas which directed it, and gave it originality, were due to his sympathy with the semi-democratic outbreak of the English Reform movement, in 1830 and 1831. Grote threw himself into public life, and, for three successive Parliaments, appeared as the philosophic champion of Radical reform. In 1841, he retired from Parliament, but he had learned the great secret revealed in the struggle of political factions. Hence the peculiar worth, originality, and reality of his History of Greece. Even the tory critics said: "This historian is the only undoubted scholar who knows something more than other scholars know. He has, unfortunately, as a radical, mingled with affairs. He interprets the Greek democracy because he knows something of the democracy of our time. We accept him, as an historian of Greece, provided he shows no ignorance of the slightest point affecting the most delicate scholar-hip in regard to Greek geography, antiquities, history, and literature." Grote stood this test triumphantly. Hence his great fame. He was an English banker and politician; at the same time he was a marvel of Greek scholarship.

The History was completed in 1856, and filled 12 vols., 8vo.

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