HAMILTON, ANTHONY (?1645-1720), French author, was born about 1645, probably in Tyrone or Tipperary. His grandfather, Earl of Aberdare, settled in Ireland in the Plantation of Ulster. The family moved to France in 1651, and returned at the Restoration to a house near Whitehall. Anthony's sister Eliza beth, La Belle Hamilton, married the Comte de Gramont (q.v.). Anthony probably went to France in 1667 with his brother George, after the expulsion of the Roman Catholics from the army. In any case, we find him serving in the regiment d'Hamilton, getting wounded in the Palatinate in 1674, and at intervals going over to Ireland for recruits. The regiment was not a success after George's death, and Anthony seems to have left France for Ireland in 1678. James II. gave him command of an Irish regiment in 1687. After the siege of Limerick, Anthony joined the court of James at St. Germain, where he shared the general poverty, and died on April 21, 1720.
The Memoires du Comte de Gramont were written, theoretically at Gramont's dictation, at the château of the duchesse du Maine at Sceaux, and published, probably much against the author's will, under the rubric of Cologne, but really in Holland, in 1713. They are after the manner of Bussy Rabutin, half-way between English memoirs and the French roman pretendu historique. The prose is typically early 18th century, well-bred and conversational. They are generally accurate in substance, though weak in chronology, and are especially valuable for their pictures of the English court. Of Hamilton's other works, Le Belier is a parody on the followers of Perrault, and the Contes des Fees, Fleur d'Epine, Zeneyde and Les Quatre Facardines satirize the romantic tales popularized by Galland's Arabian Nights. He also wrote some light verse and corresponded with Lady Mary Wortley Montague. His Oeuvres Diverses were collected in The Memoires were translated into English by Boyer in 1714, and there have been over 3o editions since. See Sayou, Histoire de la litterature francaise a l'etranger (1853) ; Ruth Clark, The Life of Anthony Hamilton (1921).