in Latinis Scotorum Historiis occurrunt explicatio vernacula. … Ex schedis T. Craufurdii excussit … C. Irvine,’ Edinburgh, 1665, 8vo, pp. 79. 6. ‘Historiæ Scoticæ nomenclatura Latino-vernacula,’ Edinburgh, 1682, 8vo, and 1697, 4to, fulsomely dedicated to James, duke of York, at the time he was high commissioner in Scotland (an expansion of No. 5). This has twice been reprinted, by James Watt, Montrose, 1817, 16mo, and at Glasgow, 1819, 12mo. Irvine also projected, but never carried out, a work ‘On the Historie and Antiquitie of Scotland.’
[The fullest account of Irvine is in Chambers's Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen, ed. Thomson, ii. 339; Burke's Landed Gentry.]
IRVINE, JAMES (1833–1889), portrait-painter, born in 1833, was eldest son of John Irvine, wright, of Meadowburn, Menmuir, Forfarshire. He was educated at Menmuir parish school; became a pupil of Colvin Smith [q. v.], the painter, at Brechin; subsequently studied at the Edinburgh Academy, and was afterwards employed by Mr. Carnegy-Arbuthnott of Balnamoon to paint portraits of the old retainers on his estate. Irvine practised as a portrait-painter for some years at Arbroath, and then removed to Montrose. After a period of hard struggle he became recognised as one of the best portrait-painters in Scotland, and received numerous commissions. He was an intimate friend of George Paul Chalmers [q. v.] Among his best-known portraits were those of James Coull, a survivor of the sea-fight between the Shannon and the Chesapeake (which was painted for Mr. Keith of Usan, and of which Irvine painted four replicas), of Dr. Calvert, rector of Montrose Academy, and other well-known residents at Montrose. He also painted some landscapes. He had begun memorial portraits of the Earl and Countess of Dalhousie for the tenantry on the Panmure estate, when he died of congestion of the lungs at his residence, Brunswick Cottage, Hillside, Montrose, 17 March 1889, in his fifty-seventh year.
[Dundee Advertiser, 18 March 1889; Scotsman, 18 March 1889.]
IRVINE, WILLIAM, M.D. (1743–1787), chemist, was the son of a merchant in Glasgow, where he was born in 1743. He entered the university of his native town in 1756, and studied medicine and chemistry under Dr. Joseph Black [q.v.] , whom he assisted in his first experiments on the latent heat of steam. After graduating M.D. he visited London and Paris for purposes of professional improvement, was appointed on his return in 1766 lecturer on materia medica in the university of Glasgow, and succeeded Robison in 1770 in the chair of chemistry. His lectures were described by Cleghorn as remarkable for erudition, sagacity, and explanatory power. His experiments were largely devoted to the furtherance of manufactures. He was working at the improvement of glass-making processes in a large factory in which he was concerned when he was attacked with a fever, which proved fatal on 9 July 1787. The offer of a lucrative post under the Spanish government came to him upon his deathbed. By his wife, Grace Hamilton, he left one son William (1776–1811) [q. v.], who published from his father's papers, with some additions of his own, ‘Essays, chiefly on Chemical Subjects,’ London, 1805. Irvine's doctrine of the varying capacities of different bodies for heat was defended, and his method of experimenting was explained by his son in Nicholson's ‘Journal of Natural Philosophy’ (vi. 25, xi. 50).
[Preface to Irvine's Essays on Chemical Subjects; preface to William Irvine the younger's Letters on Sicily; Edinburgh Medical Commentaries for 1787, p. 455 (Cleghorn); Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Poggendorff's Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch; Black's Lectures on Chemistry, i. 504 (Robison).]
IRVINE, WILLIAM (1741–1804), American brigadier-general, was born near Inniskilling, Ireland, 3 Nov. 1741, studied medicine at Dublin University, and served as a surgeon in the royal navy during part of the war of 1756–63. He resigned before the close of the war, emigrated, and settled in medical practice at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He sided with the colonists at the beginning of the revolution, and took an active part in public affairs. He was a member of the provincial convention assembled at Philadelphia, 15 July 1774, which recommended a general congress. He was appointed by congress colonel of the 6th Pennsylvanian infantry and ordered to Canada. He raised the regiment, led it through the mouth of the Sorel, and commanded it in the attempted surprise of the British at Three Rivers. He was taken prisoner on 16 June 1776, and was released on parole, but was not exchanged until 6 May 1778. He was a member of the court-martial that tried General Charles Lee. In 1778 he commanded the 2nd Pennsylvanian infantry, and in 1779 was made brigadier-general and given command of the 2nd Pennsylvanian brigade, with which he was engaged at Staten Island and in Wayne's unsuccessful attempt on Bull's Ferry, 21–22 July 1780. He attempted unsuccessfully to raise a corps of Pennsylvanian cavalry. In March 1782 he was sent to Fort Pitt to command on the western frontier, where he remained until October 1783. In 1785 he was
