HAMILTON, Sir William, a diplomatist and patron of the fine arts, was a native of Scotland, where he was born in 1730. On the threshold of youth he was condemned (to use his own words) to make his way in the world with an illustrious name and a thousand pounds. He took the first step with characteristic caution and boldness, and made his career in life smooth and easy by marrying in 1755 a lady of large fortune, with the additional recommendations of youth, birth, and beauty. Nine years after this Sir William was made ambassador at Naples, and retained that office till 1800. After the death of his first wife he married (in 1791) the beautiful but abandoned Emma Harte, whose name as Lady Hamilton is so painfully associated with that of Nelson. (See NELSON.) Sir William returned to England in the first year of the present century, and died there in very reduced circumstances in 1803.
It is not as a diplomatist but as a lover of art that Sir William Hamilton has a claim to posthumous renown. His great work, the Campi Phlegrati, is a noble monument of mingled art and science. It consists of a series of coloured engravings executed with admirable taste and spirit, showing the volcanic action of Vesuvius, and some of the most remarkable eruptions that occurred in the course of his sojourn at Naples. His collection of vases was one of the best private collections of that day. Engravings and descriptions of the most valuable pieces are given in the famous Antiquités Etrusques, Grecques, et Romaines, tirées du Cabinet de M. Hamilton, edited by d'Hancarville. Many of these are now in the Townley Gallery in the British Museum. The interest that Sir William took in art and antiquity is attested by his contributions to the Philosophical Transactions, his Observations on Vesuvius, Mount Etna, &c., and his zeal in furthering and superintending the excavations made at Herculaneum and Pompeii. He even contributed liberally out of his private fortune the means of forming the museum at Portici, and of properly caring for and profiting by the MSS. and other valuable articles rescued from the buried cities. The Neapolitan government looked upon his enthusiasm with coldness if not positive suspicion.