HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL (1809-1894).--Essayist, novelist, and poet, was _b._ of good Dutch and English stock at Camb., Massachusetts, the seat of Harvard, where he graduated in 1829. He studied law, then medicine, first at home, latterly in Paris, whence he returned in 1835, and practised in his native town. In 1838 he was appointed Prof. of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth Coll., from which he was in 1847 transferred to a similar chair at Harvard. Up to 1857 he had done little in literature: his first book of poems, containing "The Last Leaf," had been _pub._ But in that year the _Atlantic Monthly_ was started with Lowell for ed., and H. was engaged as a principal contributor. In it appeared the trilogy by which he is best known, _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_ (1857), _The Professor_, _The Poet_ (1872), all graceful, allusive, and pleasantly egotistical. He also wrote _Elsie Venner_ (1861), which has been called "the snake story of literature," and _The Guardian Angel_. By many readers he is valued most for the poems which lie imbedded in his books, such as "The Chambered Nautilus," "The Last Leaf," "Homesick in Heaven," "The Voiceless," and "The Boys." HOME, JOHN (1722-1808).--Dramatist, _s._ of the Town-Clerk of Leith, where he was _b._, _ed._ there and at Edin., and entered the Church. Before doing so, however, he had fought on the Royalist side in the '45, and had, after the Battle of Falkirk, been a prisoner in Doune Castle, whence he escaped. His ministerial life, which was passed at Athelstaneford, East Lothian, was brought to an end by the action of the Church Courts on his producing the play of _Douglas_. This drama, which had been rejected by Garrick, but brought out in Edin. in 1756, created an immense sensation, and made its appearance in London the following year. H. then became private sec. to the Earl of Bute, who gave him the sinecure of Conservator of Scots Privileges at Campvere in Holland. Thereafter he was tutor to the Prince of Wales (George III.), who on his accession conferred upon him a pension of £300. Other plays were _The Siege of Aquileia_, _The Fatal Discovery_ (1769), _Alonzo_, and _Alfred_ (1778), which was a total failure. He also wrote a _History of the Rebellion_. In 1778 he settled in Edin., where he was one of the brilliant circle of literary men of which Robertson was the centre. He supported the claims of Macpherson to be the translator of Ossian.