Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/244

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failed, the last of Home's acted dramas, ‘Alfred.’ In the same year he indulged his old military tastes by entering the South fusiliers, a regiment raised by Henry, duke of Buccleuch. Even after more than one fall from his horse, which did some permanent injury to his brain, it was with difficulty that his friends persuaded him to abandon soldiering. In 1779 he left Kilduff and settled in Edinburgh, where he was received with veneration, and he liberally entertained the surviving friends of his youth. Scott has given a pleasing account of his hospitalities (Misc. Works, i. 835–6). In 1802 appeared his last work, ‘The History of the Rebellion of 1745,’ dedicated by permission to the king. He had originally intended it for posthumous publication, but he modified its tone, to its disadvantage from every point of view, in order to fit it for publication in his lifetime and for acceptance by George III. The cruelties of the Duke of Cumberland after Culloden, for instance, are omitted, but the work has some historical value as a record of Home's personal experiences. He died in his eighty-sixth year, 5 Sept. 1808, at Merchiston, near Edinburgh, after some years of much bodily and mental infirmity.

In 1770 Home made a happy, although childless, marriage with Mary, daughter of William Home, minister of Foggo from 1758 to 1785 (Hew Scott, Fash. Eccl. Scot. pt. ii. 415). The lady was not personally attractive. Hume is said to have asked him ‘how he could ever think of such a woman,’ and to have received the reply, ‘Ah! David, if I had not, who else would have taken her?’ (Hume's Letters, p. 321).

Home's collected works were published in 1822, edited with a memoir by Henry Mackenzie, author of ‘The Man of Feeling.’ The collection omits some minor pieces printed in vol. ii. of ‘Original Poems by Scottish Gentlemen,’ 1762, as well as a ‘letter by A. T., Blacksmith’ on the public worship of the church of Scotland (London, 1759; 2nd edition, Edinburgh, 1826), which has been doubtfully ascribed to Home. A portrait by Raeburn is in the National Portrait Gallery.

[Home's Works with Henry Mackenzie's memoir; Scott's Miscellaneous Prose Works, 1841, vol. i., ‘Life and Works of John Home;’ Life in Encycl. Brit., 9th edition; Chambers's Biog. Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen; Burton's Life of David Hume, 1846; Letters of David Hume to Strachan, 1888; Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle, 1860; New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1845 vol. ii., ‘Haddingtonshire;’ Sir Walter Scott's Journal, ed. Douglas, 1890, i. 372, 384; authorities cited.]

F. E.

HOME, ROBERT (d. 1836?), painter, son of Robert Boyne Home, army surgeon, of Greenlaw Castle, Berwickshire, and brother of Sir Everard Home, bart. [q. v.], was for some time a pupil of Angelica Kauffmann, R.A., and studied art at Rome. In 1770 and 1771, and again in 1778, he exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy. About 1778 he went to Dublin, where he practised for some years as a portrait-painter, and was a frequent contributor to exhibitions there. In 1781 he sent from Dublin to the Royal Academy ‘Zadig discovering Astarte,’ which was afterwards engraved by F. Haward. In 1789 he returned to London, and shortly afterwards went to India. Home settled at Lucknow, was for several years chief painter to the king of Oude, and amassed a considerable fortune by painting ceremonial pictures. After residing at Calcutta he died at Cawnpore, 12 Sept. 1834, aged 83 (Bengal Directory and Annual Register, 1835). In 1797 he sent home to England for exhibition at the Royal Academy ‘The Reception of the Mysore Princes as Hostages by the Marquis Cornwallis’ and ‘The Death of Colonel Morehouse at the Storming of Bangalore.’ At Hampton Court there is a painting by Home of ‘The Shah Zumeen, King of Oude, receiving Tribute,’ presented by Sir Everard Home in 1828. Home made numerous topographical drawings in India, and published in 1794 ‘Select Views in Mysore, the Country of Tippoo Sultan,’ representing scenes in the campaign, and in 1796 six views of Seringapatam, to illustrate ‘A Description of Seringapatam, the Capital of Tippoo Sultan.’ Home painted in India full-length portraits of Marquis Wellesley as commander-in-chief, and of the Duke of Wellington (as Colonel Wellesley) when governor of Mysore. Both portraits have been engraved. Home's portraits were well drawn and painted, but not of surpassing interest; many of them were engraved. He had two sons in the Indian army, one of whom fell at the battle of Sobraon.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Seguier's Dict. of Painters; Royal Academy Catalogues.]

L. C.

HOME, ROBERT (1837–1879), colonel royal engineers, born in the island of Antigua, West Indies, on 29 Dec. 1837, was eldest son of Major James Home, who served for some years in the 30th regiment, and afterwards settled in Ireland as a land-agent. Robert Home was early thrown on his own resources, and when, for a short time during the Crimean war, commissions in the artillery and engineers were thrown open to pub-