William Forsyth, an English author, born in 1812. He graduated at Cambridge in 1834, studied law, became a queen's counsel in 1857, and subsequently was appointed commissary of the university of Cambridge and standing counsel to the secretary of state for India, the tenure of this office disqualifying him from sitting in parliament, for which he was returned in 1865. His principal works are: "History of Trial by Jury" (London, 1852); "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, from the Journals of Sir H. Lowe" (3 vols., 1853); "Life of Cicero" (2 vols., 1864); and "The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century, in illustration of the Manners and Morals of the Age" (1871).