Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Hinduism" to "Home, Earls of"
Author: Various
Release date: March 23, 2012 [eBook #39232]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber’s note: |
A few typographical errors have been corrected. They
appear in the text like this, and the
explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked
passage. Sections in Greek will yield a transliteration
when the pointer is moved over them, and words using diacritic characters in the
Latin Extended Additional block, which may not display in some fonts or browsers, will
display an unaccented version. Links to other EB articles: Links to articles residing in other EB volumes will be made available when the respective volumes are introduced online. |
Articles in This Slice
HINDUISM, a term generally employed to comprehend the social institutions, past and present, of the Hindus who form the great majority of the people of India; as well as the multitudinous crop of their religious beliefs which has grown up, in the course of many centuries, on the foundation of the Brahmanical scriptures. The actual proportion of the total population of India (294 millions) included under the name of “Hindus” has been computed in the census report for 1901 at something like 70% (206 millions); the remaining 30% being made up partly of the followers of foreign creeds, such as Mahommedans, Parsees, Christians and Jews, partly of the votaries of indigenous forms of belief which have at various times separated from the main stock, and developed into independent systems, such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism; and partly of isolated hill and jungle tribes, such as the Santals, Bhils (Bhilla) and Kols, whose crude animistic tendencies have hitherto kept them, either wholly or for the most part, outside the pale of the Brahmanical community. The name “Hindu” itself is of foreign origin, being derived from the Persians, by whom the river Sindhu was called Hindhu, a name subsequently applied to the inhabitants of that frontier district, and gradually extended over the upper and middle reaches of the Gangetic valley, whence this whole tract of country between the Himalaya and the Vindhya mountains, west of Bengal, came to be called by the foreign conquerors “Hindustan,” or the abode of the Hindus; whilst the native writers called it “Aryavarta,” or the abode of the Aryas.
But whilst, in its more comprehensive acceptation, the term Hinduism would thus range over the entire historical development of Brahmanical India, it is also not infrequently used in a narrower sense, as denoting more especially the modern phase of Indian social and religious institutions—from the earlier centuries of the Christian era down to our own days—as distinguished from the period dominated by the authoritative doctrine of pantheistic belief, formulated by the speculative theologians during the centuries immediately succeeding the Vedic period (see Brahmanism). In this its more restricted sense the term may thus practically be taken to apply to the later bewildering variety of popular sectarian forms of belief, with its social concomitant, the fully developed caste-system. But, though one may at times find it convenient to speak of “Brahmanism and Hinduism,” it must be clearly understood that the distinction implied in the combination of these terms is an extremely vague one, especially from the chronological point of view. The following considerations will probably make this clear.
The characteristic tenet of orthodox Brahmanism consists in the conception of an absolute, all-embracing spirit, the Brahma (neutr.), being the one and only reality, itself unconditioned, and the original cause and ultimate Connexion with Brahmanism. goal of all individual souls (jīva, i.e. living things). Coupled with this abstract conception are two other doctrines, viz. first, the transmigration of souls (saṃsāra), regarded by Indian thinkers as the necessary complement of a belief in the essential sameness of all the various spiritual units, however contaminated, to a greater or less degree, they may be by their material embodiment; and in their ultimate re-union with the Paramātman, or Supreme Self; and second, the assumption of a triple manifestation of the ceaseless working of that Absolute Spirit as a creative, conservative and destructive principle, represented respectively by the divine personalities of Brahma (masc.), Vishṅu and Śiva, forming the Trimūrti or Triad. As regards this latter, purely exoteric, doctrine, there can be little doubt of its owing its origin to considerations of theological expediency, as being calculated to supply a sufficiently wide formula of belief for general acceptance; and the very fact of this divine triad including the two principal deities of the later sectarian worship, Vishṇu and Śiva, goes far to show that these two gods at all events must have been already in those early days favourite objects of popular adoration to an extent sufficient to preclude their being ignored by a diplomatic priesthood bent upon the formulation of a common creed. Thus, so far from sectarianism being a mere modern development of Brahmanism, it actually goes back to beyond the formulation of the Brahmanical creed. Nay, when, on analysing the functions and attributes of those two divine figures, each of them is found to be but a compound of several previously recognized deities, sectarian worship may well be traced right up to the Vedic age. That the theory of the triple manifestation of the deity was indeed only a compromise between Brahmanical aspirations and popular worship, probably largely influenced by the traditional sanctity of the number three, is sufficiently clear from the fact that, whilst Brahma, the creator, and at the same time the very embodiment of Brahmanical class pride, has practically remained a mere figurehead in the actual worship of the people, Śiva, on the other hand, so far from being merely the destroyer, is also the unmistakable representative of generative and reproductive power in nature. In fact, Brahma, having performed his legitimate part in the mundane evolution by his original creation of the universe, has retired into the background, being, as it were, looked upon as functus officio, like a venerable figure of a former generation, whence in epic poetry he is commonly styled pitāmaha, “the grandsire.” But despite the artificial character of the Trimūrti, it has retained to this day at least its theoretical validity in orthodox Hinduism, whilst it has also undoubtedly exercised considerable influence in shaping sectarian belief, in promoting feelings of toleration towards the claims 502 of rival deities; and in a tendency towards identifying divine figures newly sprung into popular favour with one or other of the principal deities, and thus helping to bring into vogue that notion of avatars, or periodical descents or incarnations of the deity, which has become so prominent a feature of the later sectarian belief.
Under more favourable political conditions,1 the sacerdotal class might perhaps, in course of time, have succeeded in imposing something like an effective common creed on the heterogeneous medley of races and tribes scattered over the peninsula, just as they certainly did succeed in establishing the social prerogative of their own order over the length and breadth of India. They were, however, fated to fall far short of such a consummation; and at all times orthodox Brahmanism has had to wink at, or ignore, all manner of gross superstitions and repulsive practices, along with the popular worship of countless hosts of godlings, demons, spirits and ghosts, and mystic objects and symbols of every description. Indeed, according to a recent account by a close observer of the religious practices prevalent in southern India, fully four-fifths of the people of the Dravidian race, whilst nominally acknowledging the spiritual guidance of the Brahmans, are to this day practically given over to the worship of their nondescript local village deities (grāma-devatā), usually attended by animal sacrifices frequently involving the slaughter, under revolting circumstances, of thousands of victims. Curiously enough these local deities are nearly all of the female, not the male sex. In the estimation of these people “Siva and Vishnu may be more dignified beings, but the village deity is regarded as a more present help in trouble, and more intimately concerned with the happiness and prosperity of the villagers. The origin of this form of Hinduism is lost in antiquity, but it is probable that it represents a pre-Aryan religion, more or less modified in various parts of south India by Brahmanical influence. At the same time, many of the deities themselves are of quite recent origin, and it is easy to observe a deity in making even at the present day.”2 It is a significant fact that, whilst in the worship of Siva and Vishnu, at which no animal sacrifices are offered, the officiating priests are almost invariably Brahmans, this is practically never the case at the popular performance of those “gloomy and weird rites for the propitiation of angry deities, or the driving away of evil spirits, when the pujaris (or ministrants) are drawn from all other castes, even from the Pariahs, the out-caste section of Indian society.”
As from the point of view of religious belief, so also from that of social organization no clear line of demarcation can be drawn between Brahmanism and Hinduism. Though it was not till later times that the network of class Caste. divisions and subdivisions attained anything like the degree of intricacy which it shows in these latter days, still in its origin the caste-system is undoubtedly coincident with the rise of Brahmanism, and may even be said to be of the very essence of it.3 The cardinal principle which underlies the system of caste is the preservation of purity of descent, and purity of religious belief and ceremonial usage. Now, that same principle had been operative from the very dawn of the history of Aryanized India. The social organism of the Aryan tribe did not probably differ essentially from that of most communities at that primitive stage of civilization; whilst the body of the people—the Viś (or aggregate of Vaiśyas)—would be mainly occupied with agricultural and pastoral pursuits, two professional classes—those of the warrior and the priest—had already made good their claim to social distinction. As yet, however, the tribal community would still feel one in race and traditional usage. But when the fair-coloured Aryan immigrants first came in contact with, and drove back or subdued the dark-skinned race that occupied the northern plains—doubtless the ancestors of the modern Dravidian people—the preservation of their racial type and traditionary order of things would naturally become to them a matter of serious concern. In the extreme north-western districts—the Punjab and Rajputana, judging from the fairly uniform physical features of the present population of these parts—they seem to have been signally successful in their endeavour to preserve their racial purity, probably by being able to clear a sufficiently extensive area of the original occupants for themselves with their wives and children to settle upon. The case was, however, very different in the adjoining valley of the Jumna and Ganges, the sacred Madhyadesa or Middle-land of classical India. Here the Aryan immigrants were not allowed to establish themselves without undergoing a considerable admixture of foreign blood. It must remain uncertain whether it was that the thickly-populated character of the land scarcely admitted of complete occupation, but only of a conquest by an army of fighting men, starting from the Aryanized region—who might, however, subsequently draw women of their own kin after them—or whether, as has been suggested, a second Aryan invasion of India took place at that time through the mountainous tracts of the upper Indus and northern Kashmir, where the nature of the road would render it impracticable for the invading bands to be accompanied by women and children. Be this as it may, the physical appearance of the population of this central region of northern India—Hindustan and Behar—clearly points to an intermixture of the tall, fair-coloured, fine-nosed Aryan with the short-sized, dark-skinned, broad-nosed Dravidian; the latter type becoming more pronounced towards the lower strata of the social order.4 Now, it was precisely in this part of India that mainly arose the body of literature which records the gradual rise of the Brahmanical hierarchy and the early development of the caste-system.
The problem that now lay before the successful invaders was how to deal with the indigenous people, probably vastly outnumbering them, without losing their own racial identity. They dealt with them in the way the white race usually deals with the coloured race—they kept them socially apart. The land being appropriated by the conquerors, husbandry, as the most respectable industrial occupation, became the legitimate calling of the Aryan settler, the Vaiśya; whilst handicrafts, gradually multiplying with advancing civilization and menial service, were assigned to the subject race. The generic name applied to the latter was Śūdra, originally probably the name of one of the subjected tribes. So far the social development proceeded on lines hardly differing from those with which one is familiar in the history of other nations. The Indo-Aryans, however, went a step farther. What they did was not only to keep the native race apart from social intercourse with themselves, but to shut them out from all participation in their own higher aims, and especially in their own religious convictions and ceremonial practices. So far from attempting to raise their standard of spiritual life, or even leaving it to ordinary intercourse to gradually bring about a certain community of intellectual culture and religious sentiment, they deliberately set up artificial barriers in order to prevent their own traditional modes of worship from being contaminated with the obnoxious practices of the servile race. The serf, the Śūdra, was not to worship the gods of the Aryan freemen. The result was the system of four castes (varṇa, i.e. “colour”; or jāti, “gens”). Though the Brahman, who by this time had firmly secured his supremacy over the kshatriya, or noble, in matters spiritual as well as in legislative and administrative functions, would naturally be the prime mover in this regulation of the social 503 order, there seems no reason to believe that the other two upper classes were not equally interested in seeing their hereditary privileges thus perpetuated by divine sanction. Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable in the whole development of the caste-system than the jealous pride which every caste, from the highest to the lowest, takes in its own peculiar occupation and sphere of life. The distinctive badge of a member of the three upper castes was the sacred triple cord or thread (sūtra)—made of cotton, hemp or wool, according to the respective caste—with which he was invested at the upanayana ceremony, or initiation into the use of the sacred sāvitri, or prayer to the sun (also called gāyatrī), constituting his second birth. Whilst the Arya was thus a dvi-ja, or twice-born, the Sudra remained unregenerate during his lifetime, his consolation being the hope that, on the faithful performance of his duties in this life, he might hereafter be born again into a higher grade of life. In later times, the strict adherence to caste duties would naturally receive considerable support from the belief in the transmigration of souls, already prevalent before Buddha’s time, and from the very general acceptance of the doctrine of karma (“deed”), or retribution, according to which a man’s present station and manner of life are the result of the sum-total of his actions and thoughts in his former existence; as his actions here will again, by the same automatic process of retribution, determine his status and condition in his next existence. Though this doctrine is especially insisted upon in Buddhism, and its designation as a specific term (Pali, Kamma) may be due to that creed, the notion itself was doubtless already prevalent in pre-Buddhist times. It would even seem to be necessarily and naturally implied in Brahmanical belief in metempsychosis; whilst in the doctrine of Buddha, who admits no soul, the theory of the net result or fruit of a man’s actions serving hereafter to form or condition the existence of some new individual who will have no conscious identity with himself, seems of a peculiarly artificial and mystic character. But, be this as it may, “the doctrine of karma is certainly one of the firmest beliefs of all classes of Hindus, and the fear that a man shall reap as he has sown is an appreciable element in the average morality ... the idea of forgiveness is absolutely wanting; evil done may indeed be outweighed by meritorious deeds so far as to ensure a better existence in the future, but it is not effaced, and must be atoned for” (Census Report, i. 364).
In spite, however, of the artificial restrictions placed on the intermarrying of the castes, the mingling of the two races seems to have proceeded at a tolerably rapid rate. Indeed, the paucity of women of the Aryan stock would probably render these mixed unions almost a necessity from the very outset; and the vaunted purity of blood which the caste rules were calculated to perpetuate can scarcely have remained of more than a relative degree even in the case of the Brahman caste. Certain it is that mixed castes are found referred to at a comparatively early period; and at the time of Buddha—some five or six centuries before the Christian era—the social organization would seem to have presented an appearance not so very unlike that of modern times. It must be confessed, however, that our information regarding the development of the caste-system is far from complete, especially in its earlier stages. Thus, we are almost entirely left to conjecture on the important point as to the original social organization of the subject race. Though doubtless divided into different tribes scattered over an extensive tract of land, the subjected aborigines were slumped together under the designation of Sudras, whose duty it was to serve the upper classes in all the various departments of manual labour, save those of a downright sordid and degrading character which it was left to vratyas or outcasts to perform. How, then, was the distribution of crafts and habitual occupations of all kinds brought about? Was the process one of spontaneous growth adapting an already existing social organization to a new order of things; or was it originated and perpetuated by regulation from above? Or was it rather that the status and duties of existing offices and trades came to be determined and made hereditary by some such artificial system as that by which the Theodosian Code succeeded for a time in organizing the Roman society in the 5th century of our era? “It is well known” (says Professor Dill) “that the tendency of the later Empire was to stereotype society, by compelling men to follow the occupation of their fathers, and preventing a free circulation among different callings and grades of life. The man who brought the grain from Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker who made it into loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought pigs from Samnium, Lucania or Bruttium, the purveyors of wine and oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths, were bound to their callings from one generation to another. It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions. Every avenue of escape was closed. A man was bound to his calling not only by his father’s but also by his mother’s condition. Men were not permitted to marry out of their gild. If the daughter of one of the baker caste married a man not belonging to it, her husband was bound to her father’s calling. Not even a dispensation obtained by some means from the imperial chancery, not even the power of the Church could avail to break the chain of servitude.” It can hardly be gainsaid that these artificial arrangements bear a very striking analogy to those of the Indian caste-system; and if these class restrictions were comparatively short-lived on Italian ground, it was not perhaps so much that so strange a plant found there an ethnic soil less congenial to its permanent growth, but because it was not allowed sufficient time to become firmly rooted; for already great political events were impending which within a few decades were to lay the mighty empire in ruins. In India, on the other hand, the institution of caste—even if artificially contrived and imposed by the Indo-Aryan priest and ruler—had at least ample time allowed it to become firmly established in the social habits, and even in the affections, of the people. At the same time, one could more easily understand how such a system could have found general acceptance all over the Dravidian region of southern India, with its merest sprinkling of Aryan blood, if it were possible to assume that class arrangements of a similar kind must have already been prevalent amongst the aboriginal tribes prior to the advent of the Aryan. Whether a more intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of those rude tribes that have hitherto kept themselves comparatively free from Hindu influences may yet throw some light on this question, remains to be seen. But, by this as it may, the institution of caste, when once established, certainly appears to have gone on steadily developing; and not even the long period of Buddhist ascendancy, with its uncompromising resistance to the Brahman’s claim to being the sole arbiter in matters of faith, seems to have had any very appreciable retardant effect upon the progress of the movement. It was not only by the formation of ever new endogamous castes and sub-castes that the system gained in extent and intricacy, but even more so by the constant subdivision of the castes into numerous exogamous groups or septs, themselves often involving gradations of social status important enough to seriously affect the possibility of intermarriage, already hampered by various other restrictions. Thus a man wishing to marry his son or daughter had to look for a suitable match outside his sept, but within his caste. But whilst for his son he might choose a wife from a lower sept than his own, for his daughter, on the other hand, the law of hypergamy compelled him, if at all possible, to find a husband in a higher sept. This would naturally lead to an excess of women over men in the higher septs, and would render it difficult for a man to get his daughter respectably married without paying a high price for a suitable bridegroom and incurring other heavy marriage expenses. It can hardly be doubted that this custom has been largely responsible for the crime of female infanticide, formerly so prevalent in India; as it also probably is to some extent for infant marriages, still too common in some parts of India, especially Bengal; and even for the all but universal repugnance to the re-marriage of widows, even when these had been married in early childhood and had never joined their husbands. Yet violations of these 504 rules are jealously watched by the other members of the sept, and are liable—in accordance with the general custom in which communal matters are regulated in India—to be brought before a special council (panchāyat), originally consisting of five (pancha), but now no longer limited to that number, since it is chiefly the greater or less strictness in the observance of caste rules and the orthodox ceremonial generally that determine the status of the sept in the social scale of the caste. Whilst community of occupation was an important factor in the original formation of non-tribal castes, the practical exigencies of life have led to considerable laxity in this respect—not least so in the case of Brahmans who have often had to take to callings which would seem altogether incompatible with the proper spiritual functions of their caste. Thus, “the prejudice against eating cooked food that has been touched by a man of an inferior caste is so strong that, although the Shastras do not prohibit the eating of food cooked by a Kshatriya or Vaiśya, yet the Brahmans, in most parts of the country, would not eat such food. For these reasons, every Hindu household—whether Brahman, Kshatriya or Sudra—that can afford to keep a paid cook generally entertains the services of a Brahman for the performance of its cuisine—the result being that in the larger towns the very name of Brahman has suffered a strange degradation of late, so as to mean only a cook” (Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, Hindu Castes and Sects). In this caste, however, as in all others, there are certain kinds of occupation to which a member could not turn for a livelihood without incurring serious defilement. In fact, adherence to the traditional ceremonial and respectability of occupation go very much hand-in-hand. Thus, amongst agricultural castes, those engaged in vegetable-growing or market-gardening are inferior to the genuine peasant or yeoman, such as the Jat and Rajput; whilst of these the Jat who practises widow-marriage ranks below the Rajput who prides himself on his tradition of ceremonial orthodoxy—though racially there seems little, if any, difference between the two; and the Rajput, again, is looked down upon by the Babhan of Behar because he does not, like himself, scruple to handle the plough, instead of invariably employing low-caste men for this manual labour. So also when members of the Baidya, or physician, caste of Bengal, ranging next to that of the Brahman, farm land on tenure, “they will on no account hold the plough, or engage in any form of manual labour, and thus necessarily carry on their cultivation by means of hired servants” (H. H. Risley, Census Report).
The scale of social precedence as recognized by native public opinion is concisely reviewed (ib.) as revealing itself “in the facts that particular castes are supposed to be modern representatives of one or other of the original castes of the theoretical Hindu system; that Brahmans will take water from certain castes; that Brahmans of high standing will serve particular castes; that certain castes, though not served by the best Brahmans, have nevertheless got Brahmans of their own whose rank varies according to circumstances; that certain castes are not served by Brahmans at all but have priests of their own; that the status of certain castes has been raised by their taking to infant-marriage or abandoning the re-marriage of widows; that the status of others has been modified by their pursuing some occupations in a special or peculiar way; that some can claim the services of the village barber, the village palanquin-bearer, the village midwife, &c., while others cannot; that some castes may not enter the courtyards of certain temples; that some castes are subject to special taboos, such as that they must not use the village well, or may draw water only with their own vessels, that they must live outside the village or in a separate quarter, that they must leave the road on the approach of a high-caste man and must call out to give warning of their approach.” ... “The first point to observe is the predominance throughout India of the influence of the traditional system of four original castes. In every scheme of grouping the Brahman heads the list. Then come the castes whom popular opinion accepts as the modern representatives of the Kshatriyas; and these are followed by the mercantile groups supposed to be akin to the Vaiśyas. When we leave the higher circles of the twice-born, the difficulty of finding a uniform basis of classification becomes apparent. The ancient designation Sudra finds no great favour in modern times, and we can point to no group that is generally recognized as representing it. The term is used in Bombay, Madras and Bengal to denote a considerable number of castes of moderate respectability, the higher of whom are considered ‘clean’ Sudras, while the precise status of the lower is a question which lends itself to endless controversy.” ... In northern and north-western India, on the other hand, “the grade next below the twice-born rank is occupied by a number of castes from whose hands Brahmans and members of the higher castes will take water and certain kinds of sweetmeats. Below these again is rather an indeterminate group from whom water is taken by some of the higher castes, not by others. Further down, where the test of water no longer applies, the status of the caste depends on the nature of its occupation and its habits in respect of diet. There are castes whose touch defiles the twice-born, but who do not commit the crowning enormity of eating beef.... In western and southern India the idea that the social state of a caste depends on whether Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats from its members is unknown, for the higher castes will as a rule take water only from persons of their own caste and sub-caste. In Madras especially the idea of ceremonial pollution by the proximity of an unclean caste has been developed with much elaboration. Thus the table of social precedence attached to the Cochin report shows that while a Nayar can pollute a man of a higher caste only by touching him, people of the Kammalan group, including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters and workers in leather, pollute at a distance of 24 ft., toddy-drawers at 36 ft., Pulayan or Cheruman cultivators at 48 ft., while in the case of the Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef the range of pollution is no less than 64 ft.”
In this bewildering maze of social grades and class distinctions, the Brahman, as will have been seen, continues to hold the dominant position, being respected and even worshipped by all the others. “The more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration for the priestly class to such a degree that they will not cross the shadow of a Brahman, and it is not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat any food in the morning, before drinking Bipracharanamrita, i.e. water in which the toe of a Brahman has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the Brahmans is such that they do not bow to even the images of the gods worshipped in a Sudra’s house by Brahman priests” (Jog. Nath Bh.). There are, however, not a few classes of Brahmans who, for various reasons, have become degraded from their high station, and formed separate castes with whom respectable Brahmans refuse to intermarry and consort. Chief amongst these are the Brahmans who minister for “unclean” Sudras and lower castes, including the makers and dealers in spirituous liquors; as well as those who officiate at the great public shrines or places of pilgrimage where they might be liable to accept forbidden gifts, and, as a matter of fact, often amass considerable wealth; and those who officiate as paid priests at cremations and funeral rites, when the wearing apparel and bedding of the deceased are not unfrequently claimed by them as their perquisites.
As regards the other two “twice-born” castes, several modern groups do indeed claim to be their direct descendants, and in vindication of their title make it a point to perform the upanayana ceremony and to wear the sacred thread. But though the Brahmans, too, will often acquiesce in the reasonableness of such claims, it is probably only as a matter of policy that they do so, whilst in reality they regard the other two higher castes as having long since disappeared and been merged by miscegenation in the Sudra mass. Hence, in the later classical Sanskrit literature, the term dvija, or twice-born, is used simply as a synonym for a Brahman. As regards the numerous groups included under the term of Sudras, the distinction between “clean” and “unclean” Sudras is of especial importance for the upper classes, inasmuch as only the former—of whom nine distinct castes are usually recognized—are as a rule considered fit for employment in household service.
The picture thus presented by Hindu society—as made up of a confused congeries of social groups of the most varied standing, each held together and kept separate from others by a traditional body of ceremonial rules and by the Theology. notion of social gradations being due to a divinely instituted order of things—finds something like a counterpart in the religious life of the people. As in the social sphere, so also in the sphere of religious belief, we find the whole scale of types represented from the lowest to the highest; and here as there, we meet with the same failure of welding the confused mass into a well-ordered whole. In their theory of a triple manifestation of an impersonal deity, the Brahmanical theologians, as we have seen, had indeed elaborated a doctrine which might have seemed to form a reasonable, authoritative creed for 505 a community already strongly imbued with pantheistic notions; yet, at best, that creed could only appeal to the sympathies of a comparatively limited portion of the people. Indeed, the sacerdotal class themselves had made its universal acceptance an impossibility, seeing that their laws, by which the relations of the classes were to be regulated, aimed at permanently excluding the entire body of aboriginal tribes from the religious life of their Aryan masters. They were to be left for all time coming to their own traditional idolatrous notions and practices. However, the two races could not, in the nature of things, be permanently kept separate from each other. Indeed, even prior to the definite establishment of the caste-system, the mingling of the lower race with the upper classes, especially with the aristocratic landowners and still more so with the yeomanry, had probably been going on to such an extent as to have resulted in two fairly well-defined intermediate types of colour between the priestly order and the servile race and to have facilitated the ultimate division into four “colours” (varna). In course of time the process of intermingling, as we have seen, assumed such proportions that the priestly class, in their pride of blood, felt naturally tempted to recognize, as of old, only two “colours,” the Aryan Brahman and the non-Aryan Sudra. Under these conditions the religious practices of the lower race could hardly have failed in the long run to tell seriously upon the spiritual life of the lay body of the Brahmanical community. To what extent this may have been the case, our limited knowledge of the early phases of the sectarian worship of the people does not enable us to determine. But, on the other hand, the same process of racial intermixture also tended to gradually draw the lower race more or less under the influence of the Brahmanical forms of worship, and thus contributed towards the shaping of the religious system of modern Hinduism. The grossly idolatrous practices, however, still so largely prevalent in the Dravidian South, show how superficial, after all, that influence has been in those parts of India where the admixture of Aryan blood has been so slight as to have practically had no effect on the racial characteristics of the people. These present-day practices, and the attitude of the Brahman towards them, help at all events to explain the aversion with which the strange rites of the subjected tribes were looked upon by the worshippers of the Vedic pantheon. At the same time, in judging the apparently inhuman way in which the Sudras were treated in the caste rules, one has always to bear in mind the fact that the belief in metempsychosis was already universal at the time, and seemed to afford the only rational explanation of the apparent injustice involved in the unequal distribution of the good things in this world; and that, if the Sudra was strictly excluded from the religious rites and beliefs of the superior classes, this exclusion in no way involved the question of his ultimate emancipation and his union with the Infinite Spirit, which were as certain in his case as in that of any other sentient being. What it did make impossible for him was to attain that union immediately on the cessation of his present life, as he would first have to pass through higher and purer stages of mundane existence before reaching that goal; but in this respect he only shared the lot of all but a very few of the saintliest in the higher spheres of life, since the ordinary twice-born would be liable to sink, after his present life, to grades yet lower than that of the Sudra.
To what extent the changes, which the religious belief of the Aryan classes underwent in post-Vedic times, may have been due to aboriginal influences is a question not easily answered, though the later creeds offer only too many features in which one might feel inclined to suspect influences of that kind. The literary documents, both in Sanskrit and Pali, dating from about the time of Buddha onwards—particularly the two epic poems, the Mahabharata and Ramayana—still show us in the main the personnel of the old pantheon; but the character of the gods has changed; they have become anthropomorphized and almost purely mythological figures. A number of the chief gods, sometimes four, but generally eight of them, now appear as lokapalas or world-guardians, having definite quarters or intermediate quarters of the compass assigned to them as their special domains. One of them, Kubera, the god of wealth, is a new figure; whilst another, Varuna, the most spiritual and ethical of Vedic deities—the king of the gods and the universe; the nightly, star-spangled firmament—has become the Indian Neptune, the god of waters. Indra, their chief, is virtually a kind of superior raja, residing in svarga, and as such is on visiting terms with earthly kings, driving about in mid-air with his charioteer Matali. As might happen to any earth-lord, Indra is actually defeated in battle by the son of the demon-king of Lanka (Ceylon), and kept there a prisoner till ransomed by Brahma and the gods conferring immortality on his conqueror. A quaint figure in the pantheon of the heroic age is Hanuman, the deified chief of monkeys—probably meant to represent the aboriginal tribes of southern India—whose wonderful exploits as Rama’s ally on the expedition to Lanka Indian audiences will never weary of hearing recounted. The Gandharvas figure already in the Veda, either as a single divinity, or as a class of genii, conceived of as the body-guard of Soma and as connected with the moon. In the later Vedic times they are represented as being fond of, and dangerous to, women; the Apsaras, apparently originally water-nymphs, being closely associated with them. In the heroic age the Gandharvas have become the heavenly minstrels plying their art at Indra’s court, with the Apsaras as their wives or mistresses. These fair damsels play, however, yet another part, and one far from complimentary to the dignity of the gods. In the epics considerable merit is attached to a life of seclusion and ascetic practices by means of which man is considered capable of acquiring supernatural powers equal or even superior to those of the gods—a notion perhaps not unnaturally springing from the pantheistic conception. Now, in cases of danger being threatened to their own ascendancy by such practices, the gods as a rule proceed to employ the usually successful expedient of despatching some lovely nymph to lure the saintly men back to worldly pleasures. Seeing that the epic poems, as repeated by professional reciters, either in their original Sanskrit text, or in their vernacular versions, as well as dramatic compositions based on them, form to this day the chief source of intellectual enjoyment for most Hindus, the legendary matter contained in these heroic poems, however marvellous and incredible it may appear, still enters largely into the religious convictions of the people. “These popular recitals from the Ramayan are done into Gujarati in easy, flowing narrative verse ... by Premanand, the sweetest of our bards. They are read out by an intelligent Brahman to a mixed audience of all classes and both sexes. It has a perceptible influence on the Hindu character. I believe the remarkable freedom from infidelity which is to be seen in most Hindu families, in spite of their strange gregarious habits, can be traced to that influence; and little wonder” (B. M. Malabari, Gujarat and the Gujaratis). Hence also the universal reverence paid to serpents (naga) since those early days; though whether it simply arose from the superstitious dread inspired by the insidious reptile so fatal to man in India, or whether the verbal coincidence with the name of the once-powerful non-Aryan tribe of Nagas had something to do with it must remain doubtful. Indian myth represents them as a race of demons sprung from Kadru, the wife of the sage Kasyapa, with a jewel in their heads which gives them their sparkling look; and inhabiting one of the seven beautiful worlds below the earth (and above the hells), where they are ruled over by three chiefs or kings, Sesha, Vasuki and Takshaka; their fair daughters often entering into matrimonial alliances with men, like the mermaids of western legend.
In addition to such essentially mythological conceptions, we meet in the religious life of this period with an element of more serious aspect in the two gods, on one or other of whom the religious fervour of the large majority of Hindus has ever since concentrated itself, viz. Vishnu and Siva. Both these divine figures have grown out of Vedic conceptions—the genial Vishnu mainly out of a not very prominent solar deity of the same name; whilst the stern Siva, i.e. the kind or gracious one—doubtless a euphemistic name—has his prototype in the old fierce 506 storm-god Rudra, the “Roarer,” with certain additional features derived from other deities, especially Pushan, the guardian of flocks and bestower of prosperity, worked up therewith. The exact process of the evolution of the two deities and their advance in popular favour are still somewhat obscure. In the epic poems which may be assumed to have taken their final shape in the early centuries before and after the Christian era, their popular character, so strikingly illustrated by their inclusion in the Brahmanical triad, appears in full force; whilst their cult is likewise attested by the coins and inscriptions of the early centuries of our era. The co-ordination of the two gods in the Trimurti does not by any means exclude a certain rivalry between them; but, on the contrary, a supreme position as the true embodiment of the Divine Spirit is claimed for each of them by their respective votaries, without, however, an honourable, if subordinate, place being refused to the rival deity, wherever the latter, as is not infrequently the case, is not actually represented as merely another form of the favoured god. Whilst at times a truly monotheistic fervour manifests itself in the adoration of these two gods, the polytheistic instincts of the people did not fail to extend the pantheon by groups of new deities in connexion with them. Two of such new gods actually pass as the sons of Siva and his consort Parvati, viz. Skanda—also called Kumara (the youth), Karttikeya, or Subrahmanya (in the south)—the six-headed war-lord of the gods; and Ganese, the lord (or leader) of Siva’s troupes of attendants, being at the same time the elephant-headed, paunch-bellied god of wisdom; whilst a third, Kama (Kamadeva) or Kandarpa, the god of love, gets his popular epithet of Ananga, “the bodiless,” from his having once, in frolicsome play, tried the power of his arrows upon Siva, whilst engaged in austere practices, when a single glance from the third (forehead) eye of the angry god reduced the mischievous urchin to ashes. For his chief attendant, the great god (Mahadeva, Maheśvara) has already with him the “holy” Nandi—presumably, though his shape is not specified, identical in form as in name with Siva’s sacred bull of later times, the appropriate symbol of the god’s reproductive power. But, in this respect, we also meet in the epics with the first clear evidence of what in after time became the prominent feature of the worship of Siva and his consort all over India, viz. the feature represented by the linga, or phallic symbol.
As regards Vishnu, the epic poems, including the supplement to the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, supply practically the entire framework of legendary matter on which the later Vaishnava creeds are based. The theory of Avataras which makes the deity—also variously called Narayana, Purushottama, or Vasudeva—periodically assume some material form in order to rescue the world from some great calamity, is fully developed; the ten universally recognized “descents” being enumerated in the larger poem. Though Siva, too, assumes various forms, the incarnation theory is peculiarly characteristic of Vaishnavism; and the fact that the principal hero of the Ramayana (Rama), and one of the prominent warriors of the Mahabharata (Krishna) become in this way identified with the supreme god, and remain to this day the chief objects of the adoration of Vaishnava sectaries, naturally imparts to these creeds a human interest and sympathetic aspect which is wholly wanting in the worship of Siva. It is, however, unfortunately but too true that in some of these creeds the devotional ardour has developed features of a highly objectionable character.
Even granting the reasonableness of the triple manifestation of the Divine Spirit, how is one to reconcile all these idolatrous practices, this worship of countless gods and godlings, demons and spirits indwelling in every imaginable object round about us, with the pantheistic doctrine of the Ekam Advitiyam, “the One without a Second”? The Indian theosophist would doubtless have little difficulty in answering that question. For him there is only the One Absolute Being, the one reality that is all in all; whilst all the phenomenal existences and occurrences that crowd upon our senses are nothing more than an illusion of the individual soul estranged for a time from its divine source—an illusion only to be dispelled in the end by the soul’s fuller knowledge of its own true nature and its being one with the eternal fountain of blissful being. But to the man of ordinary understanding, unused to the rarefied atmosphere of abstract thought, this conception of a transcendental, impersonal Spirit and the unreality of the phenomenal world can have no meaning: what he requires is a deity that stands in intimate relation to things material and to all that affects man’s life. Hence the exoteric theory of manifestations of the Supreme Spirit; and that not only the manifestations implied in the triad of gods representing the cardinal processes of mundane existence—creation, preservation, and destruction or regeneration—but even such as would tend to supply a rational explanation for superstitious imaginings of every kind. For “the Indian philosophy does not ignore or hold aloof from the religion of the masses: it underlies, supports and interprets their polytheism. This may be accounted the keystone of the fabric of Brahmanism, which accepts and even encourages the rudest forms of idolatry, explaining everything by giving it a higher meaning. It treats all the worships as outward, visible signs of some spiritual truth, and is ready to show how each particular image or rite is the symbol of some aspect of universal divinity. The Hindus, like the pagans of antiquity, adore natural objects and forces—a mountain, a river or an animal. The Brahman holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak of indwelling, divine energy, which inspires everything that produces awe or passes man’s understanding” (Sir Alfred C. Lyall, Brahminism).
During the early centuries of our era, whilst Buddhism, where countenanced by the political rulers, was still holding its own by the side of Brahmanism, sectarian belief in the Hindu gods seems to have made steady progress. The caste-system, Sectarianism. always calculated to favour unity of religious practice within its social groups, must naturally have contributed to the advance of sectarianism. Even greater was the support it received later on from the Puranas, a class of poetical works of a partly legendary, partly discursive and controversial character, mainly composed in the interest of special deities, of which eighteen principal (maha-purana) and as many secondary ones (upa-purana) are recognized, the oldest of which may go back to about the 4th century of our era. It was probably also during this period that the female element was first definitely admitted to a prominent place amongst the divine objects of sectarian worship, in the shape of the wives of the principal gods viewed as their sakti, or female energy, theoretically identified with the Maya, or cosmic Illusion, of the idealistic Vedanta, and the Prakriti, or plastic matter, of the materialistic Sankhya philosophy, as the primary source of mundane things. The connubial relations of the deities may thus be considered “to typify the mystical union of the two eternal principles, spirit and matter, for the production and reproduction of the universe.” But whilst this privilege of divine worship was claimed for the consorts of all the gods, it is principally to Siva’s consort, in one or other of her numerous forms, that adoration on an extensive scale came to be offered by a special sect of votaries, the Saktas.
In the midst of these conflicting tendencies, an attempt was made, about the latter part of the 8th century, by the distinguished Malabar theologian and philosopher Sankara Acharya to restore the Brahmanical creed to Sankara. something like its pristine purity, and thus once more to bring about a uniform system of orthodox Hindu belief. Though himself, like most Brahmans, apparently by predilection a follower of Siva, his aim was the revival of the doctrine of the Brahma as the one self-existent Being and the sole cause of the universe; coupled with the recognition of the practical worship of the orthodox pantheon, especially the gods of the Trimurti, as manifestations of the supreme deity. The practical result of his labours was the foundation of a new sect, the Smartas, i.e. adherents of the smriti or tradition, which has a numerous following amongst southern Brahmans, and, whilst professing Sankara’s doctrines, is usually classed as one of the Saiva sects, its members adopting the horizontal sectarial mark peculiar to Saivas, consisting in their case of a triple line, the tripundra, prepared from the ashes of burnt cow-dung and painted on the forehead. Sankara also founded four Maths, or convents, for Brahmans; the chief one being that of Sringeri in Mysore, the spiritual head (Guru) of which wields considerable power, even that of excommunication, over the Saivas of southern India. In northern India, the professed followers of Sankara are mainly limited to certain classes of mendicants 507 and ascetics, although the tenets of this great Vedanta teacher may be said virtually to constitute the creed of intelligent Brahmans generally.
Whilst Sankara’s chief title to fame rests on his philosophical works, as the upholder of the strict monistic theory of Vedanta, he doubtless played an important part in the partial remodelling of the Hindu system of belief at a time when Buddhism was rapidly losing ground in India. Not that there is any evidence of Buddhists ever having been actually persecuted by the Brahmans, or still less of Sankara himself ever having done so; but the traditional belief in some personal god, as the principal representative of an invisible, all-pervading deity, would doubtless appeal more directly to the minds and hearts of the people than the colourless ethical system promulgated by the Sakya saint. Nor do Buddhist places of worship appear as a rule to have been destroyed by Hindu sectaries, but they seem rather to have been taken over by them for their own religious uses; at any rate there are to this day not a few Hindu shrines, especially in Bengal, dedicated to Dharmaraj, “the prince of righteousness,” as the Buddha is commonly styled. That the tenets and practices of so characteristic a faith as Buddhism, so long prevalent in India, cannot but have left their marks on Hindu life and belief may readily be assumed, though it is not so easy to lay one’s finger on the precise features that might seem to betray such an influence. If the general tenderness towards animals, based on the principle of ahimsa, or inflicting no injury on sentient beings, be due to Buddhist teaching, that influence must have made itself felt at a comparatively early period, seeing that sentiments of a similar nature are repeatedly urged in the Code of Manu. Thus, in v. 46-48, “He who does not willingly cause the pain of confinement and death to living beings, but desires the good of all, obtains endless bliss. He who injures no creature obtains without effort what he thinks of, what he strives for, and what he fixes his mind on. Flesh-meat cannot be procured without injury to animals, and the slaughter of animals is not conducive to heavenly bliss: from flesh-meat, therefore, let man abstain.” Moreover, in view of the fact that Jainism, which originated about the same time as Buddhism, inculcates the same principle, even to an extravagant degree, it seems by no means improbable that the spirit of kindliness towards living beings generally was already widely diffused among the people when these new doctrines were promulgated. To the same tendency doubtless is due the gradual decline and ultimate discontinuance of animal sacrifices by all sects except the extreme branch of Sakti-worshippers. In this respect, the veneration shown to serpents and monkeys has, however, to be viewed in a somewhat different light, as having a mythical background; whilst quite a special significance attaches to the sacred character assigned to the cow by all classes of Hindus, even those who are not prepared to admit the claim of the Brahman to the exalted position of the earthly god usually conceded to him. In the Veda no tendency shows itself as yet towards rendering divine honour to the cow; and though the importance assigned her in an agricultural community is easily understood, still the exact process of her deification and her identification with the mother earth in the time of Manu and the epics requires further elucidation. An idealized type of the useful quadruped—likewise often identified with the earth—presents itself in the mythical Cow of Plenty, or “wish-cow” (Kamadhenu, or Kamadugha, i.e. wish-milker), already appearing in the Atharvaveda, and in epic times assigned to Indra, or identified with Surabhi, “the fragrant,” the sacred cow of the sage Vasishtha. Possibly the growth of the legend of Krishna—his being reared at Gokula (cow-station); his tender relations to the gopis, or cow-herdesses, of Vrindavana; his epithets Gopala, “the cowherd,” and Govinda, “cow-finder,” actually explained as “recoverer of the earth” in the great epic, and the go-loka, or “cow-world,” assigned to him as his heavenly abode—may have some connexion with the sacred character ascribed to the cow from early times.
Since the time of Sankara, or for more than a thousand years, the gods Vishnu and Siva, or Hari and Hara as they are also commonly called—with their wives, especially that of the latter god—have shared between them the Worship. practical worship of the vast majority of Hindus. But, though the people have thus been divided between two different religious camps, sectarian animosity has upon the whole kept within reasonable limits. In fact, the respectable Hindu, whilst owning special allegiance to one of the two gods as his ishṭā devatā (favourite deity), will not withhold his tribute of adoration from the other gods of the pantheon. The high-caste Brahman will probably keep at his home a śālagrām stone, the favourite symbol of Vishnu, as well as the characteristic emblems of Siva and his consort, to both of which he will do reverence in the morning; and when he visits some holy place of pilgrimage, he will not fail to pay his homage at both the Saiva and the Vaishnava shrines there. Indeed, “sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness are to be found chiefly among the professional leaders of the modern brotherhoods and their low-caste followers, who are taught to believe that theirs are the only true gods, and that the rest do not deserve any reverence whatever” (Jog. Nath). The same spirit of toleration shows itself in the celebration of the numerous religious festivals. Whilst some of these—e.g. the Sankranti (called Pongal, i.e. “boiled rice,” in the south), which marks the entrance of the sun into the sign of Capricorn and the beginning of its northward course (uttarāyana) on the 1st day of the month Māgha (c. Jan. 12); the Gaṇeśa-caturthī, or 4th day of the light fortnight of Bhadra (August-September), considered the birthday of Ganesa, the god of wisdom; and the Holi, the Indian Saturnalia in the month of Phālgunḁ (February to March)—have nothing of a sectarian tendency about them; others again, which are of a distinctly sectarian character—such as the Krishna-janmāshṭamī, the birthday of Krishna on the 8th day of the dark half of Bhadra, or (in the south) of Śrāvaṇa (July-August), the Durga-puja and the Dipavali, or lamp feast, celebrating Krishna’s victory over the demon Narakasura, on the last two days of Aśvina (September-October)—are likewise observed and heartily joined in by the whole community irrespective of sect. Widely different, however, as is the character of the two leading gods are also the modes of worship practised by their votaries.
Siva has at all times been the favourite god of the Brahmans,5 and his worship is accordingly more widely extended than that of his rival, especially in southern India. Indeed there is hardly a village in India which cannot boast of a shrine dedicated to Siva, and containing the emblem of his reproductive power; for almost the only form in which the “Great God” is adored is the Linga, consisting usually of an upright cylindrical block of marble or other stone, mostly resting on a circular perforated slab. The mystic nature of these emblems seems, however, to be but little understood by the common people; and, as H. H. Wilson remarks, “notwithstanding the acknowledged purport of this worship, it is but justice to state that it is unattended in Upper India by any indecent or indelicate ceremonies, and it requires a rather lively imagination to trace any resemblance in its symbols to the objects they are supposed to represent.” In spite, however, of its wide diffusion, and the vast number of shrines dedicated to it, the worship of Siva has never assumed a really popular character, especially in northern India, being attended with scarcely any solemnity or display of emotional spirit. The temple, which usually stands in the middle of a court, is as a rule a building of very moderate dimensions, consisting either of a single square chamber, surmounted by a pyramidal structure, or of a chamber for the linga and a small vestibule. The worshipper, having first circumambulated the shrine as often as he pleases, keeping it at his right-hand side, steps up to the threshold of the sanctum, and presents his offering of flowers or fruit, which the officiating priest receives; he then prostrates himself, or merely lifts his hands—joined so as to leave a hollow space between the palms—to his forehead, muttering a short prayer, and takes his departure. Amongst the many thousands of Lingas, twelve are usually regarded as of especial sanctity, one of which, that of Somnath in Gujarat, where Siva is worshipped as “the lord of Soma,” was, however, shattered by Mahmud of Ghazni; whilst another, representing Siva as Visvesvara, or “Lord of the Universe,” is the chief object of adoration at Benares, the great centre of Siva-worship. The Saivas of southern India, on the other hand, single out as peculiarly sacred five of their temples which are supposed to enshrine as many characteristic aspects (linga) of the god in the form of the five elements, the most holy of these being the shrine of Chidambaram (i.e. “thought-ether”) in S. Arcot, supposed to contain the ether-linga. According to Pandit S. M. Natesa (Hindu Feasts, Fasts and Ceremonies), “the several forms of the god Siva in these sacred shrines are considered to be the bodies or casements of the soul whose 508 natural bases are the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether. The apprehension of God in the last of these five as ether is, according to the Saiva school of philosophy, the highest form of worship, for it is not the worship of God in a tangible form, but the worship of what, to ordinary minds, is vacuum, which nevertheless leads to the attainment of a knowledge of the all-pervading without physical accessories in the shape of any linga, which is, after all, an emblem. That this is the case at Chidambaram is known to every Hindu, for if he ever asks the priests to show him the God in the temple he is pointed to an empty space in the holy of holies, which has been termed the Akasa, or ether-linga.” But, however congenial this refined symbolism may be to the worshipper of a speculative turn of mind, it is difficult to see how it could ever satisfy the religious wants of the common man little given to abstract conceptions of this kind.
From early times, detachment from the world and the practice of austerities have been regarded in India as peculiarly conducive to a spirit of godliness, and ultimately to a state of ecstatic communion with the deity. On these Mendicant orders. grounds it was actually laid down as a rule for a man solicitous for his spiritual welfare to pass the last two of the four stages (āśrama) of his life in such conditions of renunciation and self-restraint. Though there is hardly a sect which has not contributed its share to the element of religious mendicancy and asceticism so prevalent in India, it is in connexion with the Siva-cult that these tendencies have been most extensively cultivated. Indeed, the personality of the stern God himself exhibits this feature in a very marked degree, whence the term mahāyogī or “great ascetic” is often applied to him.
Of Saiva mendicant and ascetic orders, the members of which are considered more or less followers of Sankara Acharya, the following may be mentioned: (1) Daṇḍīs, or staff-bearers, who carry a wand with a piece of red cloth, containing the sacred cord, attached to it, and also wear one or more pieces of cloth of the same colour. They worship Siva in his form of Bhairava, the “terrible.” A sub-section of this order are the Dandi Dasnamis, or Dandi of ten names, so called from their assuming one of the names of Sankara’s four disciples, and six of their pupils. (2) Yogis (or popularly, Jogis), i.e. adherents of the Yoga philosophy and the system of ascetic practices enjoined by it with the view of mental abstraction and the supposed attainment of superhuman powers—practices which, when not merely pretended, but rigidly carried out, are only too apt to produce vacuity of mind and wild fits of frenzy. In these degenerate days their supernatural powers consist chiefly in conjuring, sooth-saying, and feats of jugglery, by which they seldom fail in imposing upon a credulous public. (3) Sannyasis, devotees who “renounce” earthly concerns, an order not confined either to the Brahmanical caste or to the Saiva persuasion. Those of the latter are in the habit of smearing their bodies with ashes, and wearing a tiger-skin and a necklace or rosary of rudraksha berries (Elaeocarpus Ganitrus, lit. “Rudra’s eye”), sacred to Siva, and allowing their hair to grow till it becomes matted and filthy. (4) Parama-hamsas, i.e. “supreme geese (or swans),” a term applied to the world-soul with which they claim to be identical. This is the highest order of asceticism, members of which are supposed to be solely engaged in meditating on the Brahma, and to be “equally indifferent to pleasure or pain, insensible of heat or cold, and incapable of satiety or want.” Some of them go about naked, but the majority are clad like the Dandis. (5) Aghora Panthis, a vile and disreputable class of mendicants, now rarely met with. Their filthy habits and disgusting practices of gross promiscuous feeding, even to the extent of eating offal and dead men’s flesh, look almost like a direct repudiation of the strict Brahmanical code of ceremonial purity and cleanliness, and of the rules regulating the matter and manner of eating and drinking; and they certainly make them objects of loathing and terror wherever they are seen.
On the general effect of the manner of life led by Sadhus or “holy men,” a recent observer (J. C. Oman, Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India, p. 273) remarks: “Sadhuism, whether perpetuating the peculiar idea of the efficiency of austerities for the acquisition of far-reaching powers over natural phenomena, or bearing its testimony to the belief in the indispensableness of detachment from the world as a preparation for the ineffable joy of ecstatic communion with the Divine Being, has undoubtedly tended to keep before men’s eyes, as the highest ideal, a life of purity, self-restraint, and contempt of the world and human affairs. It has also necessarily maintained amongst the laity a sense of the righteous claims of the poor upon the charity of the more affluent members of the community. Moreover, sadhuism, by the multiplicity of the independent sects which have arisen in India, has engendered and favoured a spirit of tolerance which cannot escape the notice of the most superficial observer.”
An independent Saiva sect, or, indeed, the only strictly Saiva sect, are the Vīra Śaivas, more commonly called Lingayats (popularly Lingaits) or Lingavats, from their practice of wearing on their person a phallic emblem Lingayats. of Siva, made of copper or silver, and usually enclosed in a case suspended from the neck by a string. Apparently from the movable nature of their badge, their Gurus are called Jangamas (“movable”). This sect counts numerous adherents in southern India; the Census Report of 1901 recording nearly a million and a half, including some 70 or 80 different, mostly endogamous, castes. The reputed founder, or rather reformer, of the sect was Basava (or Basaba), a Brahman of the Belgaum district who seems to have lived in the 11th or 12th century. According to the Basava-purana he early in life renounced his caste and went to reside at Kalyana, then the capital of the Chalukya kingdom, and later on at Sangamesvara near Ratnagiri, where he was initiated into the Vīra Śaiva faith which he subsequently made it his life’s work to propagate. His doctrine, which may be said to constitute a kind of reaction against the severe sacerdotalism of Sankara, has spread over all classes of the southern community, most of the priests of Saiva temples there being adherents of it; whilst in northern India its votaries are only occasionally met with, and then mostly as mendicants, leading about a neatly caparisoned bull as representing Siva’s sacred bull Nandi. Though the Lingayats still show a certain animosity towards the Brahmans, and in the Census lists are accordingly classed as an independent group beside the Hindus, still they can hardly be excluded from the Hindu community, and are sure sooner or later to find their way back to the Brahmanical fold.
Vishnu, whilst less popular with Brahmans than his rival, has from early times proved to the lay mind a more attractive object of adoration on account of the genial and, so to speak, romantic character of his mythical personality. Avatars. It is not, however, so much the original figure of the god himself that enlists the sympathies of his adherents as the additional elements it has received through the theory of periodical “descents” (avatāra) or incarnations applied to this deity. Whilst the Saiva philosophers do not approve of the notion of incarnations, as being derogatory to the dignity of the deity, the Brahmans have nevertheless thought fit to adopt it as apparently a convenient expedient for bringing certain tendencies of popular worship within the pale of their system, and probably also for counteracting the Buddhist doctrines; and for this purpose Vishnu would obviously offer himself as the most attractive figure in the Brahmanical trinity. Whether the incarnation theory started from the original solar nature of the god suggestive of regular visits to the world of men, or in what other way it may have originated, must remain doubtful. Certain, however, it is that at least one of his Avatars is clearly based on the Vedic conception of the sun-god, viz. that of the dwarf who claims as much ground as he can cover by three steps, and then gains the whole universe by his three mighty strides. Of the ten or more Avatars, assumed by different authorities, only two have entered to any considerable extent into the religious worship of the people, viz. those of Rama (or Ramachandra) and Krishna, the favourite heroes of epic romance. That these two figures would appeal far more strongly to the hearts and feelings of the people, especially the warlike Kshatriyas,6 than the austere Siva is only what might have been expected; and, indeed, since the time of the epics their cult seems never to have lacked numerous adherents. But, on the other hand, the essentially human nature of these two gods 509 would naturally tend to modify the character of the relations between worshipper and worshipped, and to impart to the modes and forms of adoration features of a more popular and more human kind. And accordingly it is exactly in connexion with these two incarnations of Vishnu, especially that of Krishna, that a new spirit was infused into the religious life of the people by the sentiment of fervent devotion to the deity, as it found expression in certain portions of the epic poems, especially the Bhagavadgita, and in the Bhagavata-purana (as against the more orthodox Vaishnava works of this class such as the Vishnu-purana), and was formulated into a regular doctrine of faith in the Sandilya-sutra, and ultimately translated into practice by the Vaishnava reformers.
The first successful Vaishnava reaction against Sankara’s reconstructed creed was led by Ramanuja, a southern Brahman of the 12th century. His followers, the Ramanujas, or Sri-Vaishnavas as they are usually called, worship Ramanujas. Vishnu (Narayana) with his consort Sri or Lakshmi (the goddess of beauty and fortune), or their incarnations Rama with Sita and Krishna with Rukmini. Ramanuja’s doctrine, which is especially directed against the Linga-worship, is essentially based on the tenets of an old Vaishnava sect, the Bhagavatas or Pancharatras, who worshipped the Supreme Being under the name of Vasudeva (subsequently identified with Krishna, as the son of Vasudeva, who indeed is credited by some scholars with the foundation of that monotheistic creed). The sectarial mark of the Ramanujas resembles a capital U (or, in the case of another division, a Y), painted with a white clay called gopi-chandana, between the hair and the root of the nose, with a red or yellow vertical stroke (representing the female element) between the two white lines. They also usually wear, like all Vaishnavas, a necklace of tulasī, or basil wood, and a rosary of seeds of the same shrub or of the lotus. Their most important shrines are those of Srirangam near Trichinopoly, Mailkote in Mysore, Dvaraka (the city of Krishna) on the Kathiawar coast, and Jagannath in Orissa; all of them decorated with Vishnu’s emblems, the tulasi plant and salagram stone. The Ramanuja Brahmans are most punctilious in the preparation of their food and in regard to the privacy of their meals, before taking which they have to bathe and put on woollen or silk garments. Whilst Sankara’s mendicant followers were prohibited to touch fire and had to subsist entirely on the charity of Brahman householders, Ramanuja, on the contrary, not only allowed his followers to use fire, but strictly forbade their eating any food cooked, or even seen, by a stranger. On the speculative side, Ramanuja also met Sankara’s strictly monistic theory by another recognizing Vishnu as identical with Brahma as the Supreme Spirit animating the material world as well as the individual souls which have become estranged from God through unbelief, and can only attain again conscious union with him through devotion or love (bhakti). His tenets are expounded in various works, especially in his commentaries on the Vedanta-sutras and the Bhagavadgita. The followers of Ramanuja have split into two sects, a northern one, recognizing the Vedas as their chief authority, and a southern one, basing their tenets on the Nalayir, a Tamil work of the Upanishad order. In point of doctrine, they differ in their view of the relation between God Vishnu and the human soul; whilst the former sect define it by the ape theory, which makes the soul cling to God as the young ape does to its mother, the latter explain it by the cat theory, by which Vishnu himself seizes and rescues the souls as the mother cat does her young ones.
Madhva Acharya, another distinguished Vedanta teacher and founder of a Vaishnava sect, born in Kanara in A.D. 1199, was less intolerant of the Linga cult than Ramanuja, but seems rather to have aimed at a reconciliation of Madhvas. the Saiva and Vaishnava forms of worship. The Madhvas or Madhvacharis favour Krishna and his consort as their special objects of adoration, whilst images of Siva, Parvati, and their son Ganesa are, however, likewise admitted and worshipped in some of their temples, the most important of which is at Udipi in South Kanara, with eight monasteries connected with it. This shrine contains an image of Krishna which is said to have been rescued from the wreck of a ship which brought it from Dvaraka, where it was supposed to have been set up of old by no other than Krishna’s friend Arjuna, one of the five Pandava princes. Followers of the Madhva creed are but rarely met with in Upper India. Their sectarial mark is like the U of the Sri-Vaishnavas, except that their central line is black instead of red or yellow. Madhva—who after his initiation assumed the name Anandatirtha—composed numerous Sanskrit works, including commentaries on the Brahma sutras (i.e. the Vedanta aphorisms), the Gita, the Rigveda and many Upanishads. His philosophical theory was a dualistic one, postulating distinctness of nature for the divine and the human soul, and hence independent existence, instead of absorption, after the completion of mundane existence.
The Ramanandis or Ramavats (popularly Ramats) are a numerous northern sect of similar tenets to those of the Ramanujas. Indeed its founder, Ramananda, who probably flourished in the latter part of the 14th century, Ramats. according to the traditional account, was originally a Sri-Vaishnava monk, and, having come under the suspicion of laxity in observing the strict rules of food during his peregrinations, and been ordered by his superior (Mahant) to take his meals apart from his brethren, left the monastery in a huff and set up a schismatic math of his own at Benares. The sectarial mark of his sect differs but slightly from that of the parent stock. The distinctive features of their creed consist in their making Rama and Sita, either singly or conjointly, the chief objects of their adoration, instead of Vishnu and Lakshmi, and their attaching little or no importance to the observance of privacy in the cooking and eating of their food. Their mendicant members, usually known as Vairagis, are, like the general body of the sect, drawn from all castes without distinction. Thus, the founder’s twelve chief disciples include, besides Brahmans, a weaver, a currier, a Rajput, a Jat and a barber—for, they argue, seeing that Bhagavan, the Holy One (Vishnu), became incarnate even in animal form, a Bhakta (believer) may be born even in the lowest of castes. Ramananda’s teaching was thus of a distinctly levelling and popular character; and, in accordance therewith, the Bhakta-malā and other authoritative writings of the sect are composed, not in Sanskrit, but in the popular dialects. A follower of this creed was the distinguished poet Tulsidas, the composer of the beautiful Hindi version of the Ramayana and other works which “exercise more influence upon the great body of Hindu population than the whole voluminous series of Sanskrit composition” (H. H. Wilson).
The traditional list of Ramananda’s immediate disciples includes the name of Kabir, the weaver, a remarkable man who would accordingly have lived in the latter part of the 15th century, and who is claimed by both Hindus Kabir. and Moslems as having been born within their fold. The story goes that, having been deeply impressed by Ramananda’s teaching, he sought to attach himself to him; and, one day at Benares, in stepping down the ghat at daybreak to bathe in the Ganges, and putting himself in the way of the teacher, the latter, having inadvertently struck him with his foot, uttered his customary exclamation “Ram Ram,” which, being also the initiatory formula of the sect, was claimed by Kabir as such, making him Ramananda’s disciple. Be this as it may, Kabir’s own reformatory activity lay in the direction of a compromise between the Hindu and the Mahommedan creeds, the religious practices of both of which he criticized with equal severity. His followers, the Kabir Panthis (“those following Kabir’s path”), though neither worshipping the gods of the pantheon, nor observing the rites and ceremonial of the Hindus, are nevertheless in close touch with the Vaishnava sects, especially the Ramavats, and generally worship Rama as the supreme deity, when they do not rather address their homage, in hymns and otherwise, to the founder of their creed himself. Whilst very numerous, particularly amongst the low-caste population, in western, central and northern India, resident adherents of Kabir’s doctrine are rare in Bengal and the south; although 510 “there is hardly a town in India where strolling beggars may not be found singing songs of Kabir in the original or as translated into the local dialects.” The mendicants of this creed, however, never actually solicit alms; and, indeed, “the quaker-like spirit of the sect, their abhorrence of all violence, their regard for truth and the inobtrusiveness of their opinions render them very inoffensive members of the state” (H. H. Wilson). The doctrines of Kabir are taught, mostly in the form of dialogues, in numerous Hindi works, composed by his disciples and adherents, who, however, usually profess to give the teacher’s own words.
The peculiar conciliatory tendencies of Kabir were carried on with even greater zeal from the latter part of the 15th century by one of his followers, Nanak Shah, the promulgator of the creed of the Nanak Shahis or Sikhs—i.e. (Sanskr.) sishya, disciples, whose guru, or teacher, he called himself—a peaceful sect at first until, in consequence of Mahommedan persecution, a martial spirit was infused into it by the tenth, and last, guru, Govind Shah, changing it into a political organization. Whilst originally more akin in its principles to the Moslem faith, the sect seems latterly to have shown tendencies towards drifting back to the Hindu pale.
Of Ramananda’s disciples and successors several others, besides Kabir, have established schismatic divisions of their own, which do not, however, offer any very marked differences of creed. The most important of these, the Dadu Panthi sect, founded by Dadu about the year 1600, has a numerous following in Ajmir and Marwar, one section of whom, the Nagas, engage largely in military service, whilst the others are either householders or mendicants. The followers of this creed wear no distinctive sectarial mark or badge, except a skull-cap; nor do they worship any visible image of any deity, the repetition (japa) of the name of Rama being the only kind of adoration practised by them.
Although the Vaishnava sects hitherto noticed, in their adoration of Vishnu and his incarnations, Krishna and Ramachandra, usually associate with these gods their wives, as their saktis, or female energies, the sexual Eroticism and Krishna worship. element is, as a rule, only just allowed sufficient scope to enhance the emotional character of the rites of worship. In some of the later Vaishnava creeds, on the other hand, this element is far from being kept within the bounds of moderation and decency. The favourite object of adoration with adherents of these sects is Krishna with his mate—but not the devoted friend and counsellor of the Pandavas and deified hero of epic song, nor the ruler of Dvaraka and wedded lord of Rukmini, but the juvenile Krishna, Govinda or Bala Gopala, “the cowherd lad,” the foster son of the cowherd Nanda of Gokula, taken up with his amorous sports with the Gopis, or wives of the cowherds of Vrindavana (Brindaban, near Mathura on the Yamuna), especially his favourite mistress Radha or Radhika. This episode in the legendary life of Krishna has every appearance of being a later accretion. After barely a few allusions to it in the epics, it bursts forth full-blown in the Harivansa, the Vishnu-purana, the Narada-Pancharatra and the Bhagavata-purana, the tenth canto of which, dealing with the life of Krishna, has become, through vernacular versions, especially the Hindi Prem-sagar, or “ocean of love,” a favourite romance all over India, and has doubtless helped largely to popularize the cult of Krishna. Strange to say, however, no mention is as yet made by any of these works of Krishna’s favourite Radha; it is only in another Purana—though scarcely deserving that designation—that she makes her appearance, viz. in the Brahma-vaivarta, in which Krishna’s amours in Nanda’s cow-station are dwelt upon in fulsome and wearisome detail; whilst the poet Jayadeva, in the 12th century, made her love for the gay and inconstant boy the theme of his beautiful, if highly voluptuous, lyrical drama, Gita-govinda.
The earliest of the sects which associate Radha with Krishna in their worship is that of the Nimavats, founded by Nimbaditya or Nimbarka (i.e. “the sun of the Nimba tree”), a teacher of uncertain date, said to have been a Telugu Brahman who subsequently established himself at Mathura (Muttra) on the Yamuna, where the headquarters of his sect have remained ever since. The Mahant of their monastery at Dhruva Kshetra near Mathura, who claims direct descent from Nimbarka, is said to place the foundation of that establishment as far back as the 5th century—doubtless an exaggerated claim; but if Jayadeva, as is alleged, and seems by no means improbable, was really a follower of Nimbarka, this teacher must have flourished, at latest, in the early part of the 12th century. He is indeed taken by some authorities to be identical with the mathematician Bhaskara Acharya, who is known to have completed his chief work in A.D. 1150. It is worthy of remark, in this respect, that—in accordance with Ramanuja’s and Nimbarka’s philosophical theories—Jayadeva’s presentation of Krishna’s fickle love for Radha is usually interpreted in a mystical sense, as allegorically depicting the human soul’s striving, through love, for reunion with God, and its ultimate attainment, after many backslidings, of the longed-for goal. As the chief authority of their tenets, the Nimavats recognize the Bhagavata-purana; though several works, ascribed to Nimbarka—partly of a devotional character and partly expository of Vedanta topics—are still extant. Adherents of this sect are fairly numerous in northern India, their frontal mark consisting of the usual two perpendicular white lines, with, however, a circular black spot between them.
Of greater importance than the sect just noticed, because of their far larger following, are the two sects founded early in the 16th century by Vallabha (Ballabha) Acharya and Chaitanya. In the forms of worship favoured by votaries of these creeds the emotional and erotic elements are allowed yet freer scope than in those that preceded them; and, as an effective auxiliary to these tendencies, the use of the vernacular dialects in prayers and hymns of praise takes an important part in the religious service. The Vallabhacharis, or, as they are usually called, from the title of their spiritual heads, the Gokulastha Gosains, i.e. “the cow-lords (gosvamin) residing in Gokula,” are very numerous in western and central India. Vallabha, the son of a Telinga Brahman, after extensive journeyings all over India, settled at Gokula near Mathura, and set up a shrine with an image of Krishna Gopala. About the year 1673, in consequence of the fanatical persecutions of the Mogul emperor, this image was transferred to Nathdvara in Udaipur (Mewar), where the shrine of Srinatha (“the lord of Sri,” i.e. Vishnu) continues to be the chief centre of worship for adherents of this creed; whilst seven other images, transferred from Mathura at the same time, are located at different places in Rajputana. Vallabha himself went subsequently to reside at Benares, where he died. In the doctrine of this Vaishnava prophet, the adualistic theory of Sankara is resorted to as justifying a joyful and voluptuous cult of the deity. For, if the human soul is identical with God, the practice of austerities must be discarded as directed against God, and it is rather by a free indulgence of the natural appetites and the pleasures of life that man’s love for God will best be shown. The followers of his creed, amongst whom there are many wealthy merchants and bankers, direct their worship chiefly to Gopal Lal, the boyish Krishna of Vrindavana, whose image is sedulously attended like a revered living person eight times a day—from its early rising from its couch up to its retiring to repose at night. The sectarial mark of the adherents consists of two red perpendicular lines, meeting in a semicircle at the root of the nose, and having a round red spot painted between them. Their principal doctrinal authority is the Bhagavata-purana, as commented upon by Vallabha himself, who was also the author of several other Sanskrit works highly esteemed by his followers. In this sect, children are solemnly admitted to full membership at the early age of four, and even two, years of age, when a rosary, or necklace, of 108 beads of basil (tulsi) wood is passed round their necks, and they are taught the use of the octo-syllabic formula Sri-Krishnah saranam mama, “Holy Krishna is my refuge.” Another special feature of this sect is that their spiritual heads, the Gosains, also called Maharajas, so far from submitting themselves to self-discipline and austere practices, adorn themselves in splendid garments, and allow themselves to be habitually regaled by their adherents with choice kinds of food; and being regarded as the living representatives of the “lord of the Gopis” himself, they claim and receive in their own persons all acts of attachment and worship due to the deity, even, it is alleged, to the extent of complete self-surrender. In the final judgment of the famous libel case of the Bombay Maharajas, before the Supreme Court of Bombay, in January 1862, these improprieties were severely commented upon; and though so unsparing a critic of Indian sects as Jogendra Nath seems not to believe in actual immoral practices on the part of the Maharajas, still he admits that “the corrupting influence of a religion, that can make its female votaries address amorous songs to their spiritual guides, must be very great.”
A modern offshoot of Vallabha’s creed, formed with the avowed object of purging it of its objectionable features, was started, in the early years of the 19th century, by Sahajananda, a Brahman of the Oudh country, who subsequently assumed the name of Svami Narayana. Having entered on his missionary labours at Ahmadabad, and afterwards removed to Jetalpur, where he had a meeting with Bishop Heber, he subsequently settled at the village of Wartal, to the north-west of Baroda, and erected a temple to Lakshmi-Narayana, which, with another at Ahmadabad, forms the two chief centres of the sect, each being presided over by a Maharaja. Their worship is addressed to Narayana, i.e. Vishnu, as the Supreme Being, together with Lakshmi, as well as to Krishna and Radha. The sect is said to be gaining ground in Gujarat. Chaitanya, the 511 founder of the great Vaishnava sect of Bengal, was the son of a high-caste Brahman of Nadiya, the famous Bengal seat of Sanskrit learning, where he was born in 1485, two years after the birth of Martin Luther, the German reformer. Having married in due time, and a second time after the death of his first wife, he lived as a “householder” (grihastha) till the age of 24, when he renounced his family ties and set out as a religious mendicant (vairagin), visiting during the next six years the principal places of pilgrimage in northern India, and preaching with remarkable success his doctrine of Bhakti, or passionate devotion to Krishna, as the Supreme Deity. He subsequently made over to his principal disciples the task of consolidating his community, and passed the last twelve years of his life at Puri in Orissa, the great centre of the worship of Vishnu as Jagannatha, or “lord of the world,” which he remodelled in accordance with his doctrine, causing the mystic songs of Jayadeva to be recited before the images in the morning and evening as part of the daily service; and, in fact, as in the other Vaishnava creeds, seeking to humanize divine adoration by bringing it into accord with the experience of human love. To this end, music, dancing, singing-parties (sankirtan), theatricals—in short anything calculated to produce the desired impression—would prove welcome to him. His doctrine of Bhakti distinguishes five grades of devotional feeling in the Bhaktas, or faithful adherents: viz. (santi) calm contemplation of the deity; (dasya) active servitude; (sakhya) friendship or personal regard; (vatsalya) tender affection as between parents and children; (madhurya) love or passionate attachment, like that which the Gopis felt for Krishna. Chaitanya also seems to have done much to promote the celebration on an imposing scale of the great Puri festival of the Ratha-yatra, or “car-procession,” in the month of Ashadha, when, amidst multitudes of pilgrims, the image of Krishna, together with those of his brother Balarama and his sister Subhadra, is drawn along, in a huge car, by the devotees. Just as this festival was, and continues to be, attended by people from all parts of India, without distinction of caste or sex, so also were all classes, even Mahommedans, admitted by Chaitanya as members of his sect. Whilst numerous observances are recommended as more or less meritorious, the ordinary form of worship is a very simple one, consisting as it does mainly of the constant repetition of names of Krishna, or Krishna and Radha, which of itself is considered sufficient to ensure future bliss. The partaking of flesh food and spirituous liquor is strictly prohibited. By the followers of this sect, also, an extravagant degree of reverence is habitually paid to their gurus or spiritual heads. Indeed, Chaitanya himself, as well as his immediate disciples, have come to be regarded as complete or partial incarnations of the deity to whom adoration is due, as to Krishna himself; and their modern successors, the Gosains, share to the fullest extent in the devout attentions of the worshippers. Chaitanya’s movement, being chiefly directed against the vile practices of the Saktas, then very prevalent in Bengal, was doubtless prompted by the best and purest of intentions; but his own doctrine of divine, though all too human, love was, like that of Vallabha, by no means free from corruptive tendencies,—yet, how far these tendencies have worked their way, who would say? On this point, Dr W. W. Hunter—who is of opinion that “the death of the reformer marks the beginning of the spiritual decline of Vishnu-worship,” observes (Orissa, i. 111), “The most deplorable corruption of Vishnu-worship at the present day is that which has covered the temple walls with indecent sculptures, and filled its innermost sanctuaries with licentious rites” ... yet ... “it is difficult for a person not a Hindu to pronounce upon the real extent of the evil. None but a Hindu can enter any of the larger temples, and none but a Hindu priest really knows the truth about their inner mysteries”; whilst the well-known native scholar Babu Rajendralal Mitra points out (Antiquities of Orissa, i. 111) that “such as they are, these sculptures date from centuries before the birth of Chaitanya, and cannot, therefore, be attributed to his doctrines or to his followers. As a Hindu by birth, and a Vaishnava by family religion, I have had the freest access to the innermost sanctuaries and to the most secret of scriptures. I have studied the subject most extensively, and have had opportunities of judging which no European can have, and I have no hesitation in saying that, ‘the mystic songs’ of Jayadeva and the ‘ocean of love’ notwithstanding, there is nothing in the rituals of Jagannatha which can be called licentious.” Whilst in Chaitanya’s creed, Krishna, in his relations to Radha, remains at least theoretically the chief partner, an almost inevitable step was taken by some minor sects in attaching the greater importance to the female element, and making Krishna’s love for his mistress the guiding sentiment of their faith. Of these sects, it will suffice to mention that of the Radha-Vallabhis, started in the latter part of the 16th century, who worship Krishna as Radha-vallabha, “the darling of Radha.” The doctrines and practices of these sects clearly verge upon those obtaining in the third principal division of Indian sectarians which will now be considered.
The Saktas, as we have seen, are worshippers of the sakti, or the female principle as a primary factor in the creation and reproduction of the universe. And as each of the principal gods is supposed to have associated with him his own Saktas particular sakti, as an indispensable complement enabling him to properly perform his cosmic functions, adherents of this persuasion might be expected to be recruited from all sects. To a certain extent this is indeed the case; but though Vaishnavism, and especially the Krishna creed, with its luxuriant growth of erotic legends, might have seemed peculiarly favourable to a development in this direction, it is practically only in connexion with the Saiva system that an independent cult of the female principle has been developed; whilst in other sects—and, indeed, in the ordinary Saiva cult as well—such worship, even where it is at all prominent, is combined with, and subordinated to, that of the male principle. What has made this cult attach itself more especially to the Saiva creed is doubtless the character of Siva as the type of reproductive power, in addition to his function as destroyer which, as we shall see, is likewise reflected in some of the forms of his Sakti. The theory of the god and his Sakti as cosmic principles is perhaps already foreshadowed in the Vedic couple of Heaven and Earth, whilst in the speculative treatises of the later Vedic period, as well as in the post-Vedic Brahmanical writings, the assumption of the self-existent being dividing himself into a male and a female half usually forms the starting-point of cosmic evolution.7 In the later Saiva mythology this theory finds its artistic representation in Siva’s androgynous form of Ardha-narisa, or “half-woman-lord,” typifying the union of the male and female energies; the male half in this form of the deity occupying the right-hand, and the female the left-hand side. In accordance with this type of productive energy, the Saktas divide themselves into two distinct groups, according to whether they attach the greater importance to the male or to the female principle; viz. the Dakshinacharis, or “right-hand-observers” (also called Dak-shina-margis, or followers “of the right-hand path”), and the Vamacharis, or “left-hand-observers” (or Vama-margis, followers “of the left path”). Though some of the Puranas, the chief repositories of sectarian doctrines, enter largely into Sakta topics, it is only in the numerous Tantras that these are fully and systematically developed. In these works, almost invariably composed in the form of a colloquy, Siva, as a rule, in answer to questions asked by his consort Parvati, unfolds the mysteries of this occult creed.
The principal seat of Sakta worship is the north-eastern part of India—Bengal, Assam and Behar. The great majority of its adherents profess to follow the right-hand practice; and apart from the implied purport and the emblems of the cult, their mode of adoration does not seem to offer any very objectionable features. And even amongst the adherents of the left-hand mode of worship, many of these are said to follow it as a matter of family tradition rather than of religious conviction, and to practise it in a sober and temperate manner; whilst only an extreme section—the so-called Kaulas or Kulinas, who appeal to a spurious Upanishad, the Kaulopanishad, as the divine authority of their tenets—persist in carrying on the mystic and licentious rites taught in many of the Tantras. But strict secrecy being enjoined in the performance of these rites, it is not easy to check any statements made on this point. The Sakta cult is, however, known to be especially prevalent—though apparently not in a very extreme form—amongst members of the very respectable Kayastha or writer caste of Bengal, and as these are largely employed as clerks and accountants in Upper India, there is reason to fear that their vicious practices are gradually being disseminated through them.
The divine object of the adoration of the Saktas, then, is Siva’s wife—the Devi (goddess), Mahadevi (great goddess), or Jagan-mata (mother of the world)—in one or other of her numerous forms, benign or terrible. The forms in which she is worshipped in Bengal are of the latter category, viz. Durga, “the unapproachable,” and Kali, “the black one,” or, as some take it, the wife of Kala, “time,” or death the great dissolver, viz. Siva. In honour of the former, the Durga-puja is celebrated 512 during ten days at the time of the autumnal equinox, in commemoration of her victory over the buffalo-headed demon Mahishasura; when the image of the ten-armed goddess, holding a weapon in each hand, is worshipped for nine days, and cast into the water on the tenth day, called the Dasahara, whence the festival itself is commonly called Dasara in western India. Kali, on the other hand, the most terrible of the goddess’s forms, has a special service performed to her, at the Kali-puja, during the darkest night of the succeeding month; when she is represented as a naked black woman, four-armed, wearing a garland of heads of giants slain by her, and a string of skulls round her neck, dancing on the breast of her husband (Mahakala), with gaping mouth and protruding tongue; and when she has to be propitiated by the slaughter of goats, sheep and buffaloes. On other occasions also Vamacharis commonly offer animal sacrifices, usually one or more kids; the head of the victim, which has to be severed by a single stroke, being always placed in front of the image of the goddess as a blood-offering (bali), with an earthen lamp fed with ghee burning above it, whilst the flesh is cooked and served to the guests attending the ceremony, except that of buffaloes, which is given to the low-caste musicians who perform during the service. Even some adherents of this class have, however, discontinued animal sacrifices, and use certain kinds of fruit, such as coco-nuts or pumpkins, instead. The use of wine, which at one time was very common on these occasions, seems also to have become much more restricted; and only members of the extreme section would still seem to adhere to the practice of the so-called five m’s prescribed by some of the Tantras, viz. mamsa (flesh), matsya (fish), madya (wine), maithuna (sexual union), and mudra (mystical finger signs)—probably the most degrading cult ever practised under the pretext of religious worship.
In connexion with the principal object of this cult, Tantric theory has devised an elaborate system of female figures representing either special forms and personifications or attendants of the “Great Goddess.” They are generally arranged in groups, the most important of which are the Mahavidyas (great sciences), the 8 (or 9) Mataras (mothers) or Mahamataras (great mothers), consisting of the wives of the principal gods; the 8 Nayikas or mistresses; and different classes of sorceresses and ogresses, called Yoginis, Dakinis and Sakinis. A special feature of the Sakti cult is the use of obscure Vedic mantras, often changed so as to be quite meaningless and on that very account deemed the more efficacious for the acquisition of superhuman powers; as well as of mystic letters and syllables called bija (germ), of magic circles (chakra) and diagrams (yantra), and of amulets of various materials inscribed with formulae of fancied mysterious import.
This survey of the Indian sects will have shown how little the character of their divine objects of worship is calculated to exert that elevating and spiritualizing influence, so characteristic of true religious devotion. In all General conclusions. but a few of the minor groups religious fervour is only too apt to degenerate into that very state of sexual excitation which devotional exercises should surely tend to repress. If the worship of Siva, despite the purport of his chief symbol, seems on the whole less liable to produce these undesirable effects than that of the rival deity, it is doubtless due partly to the real nature of that emblem being little realized by the common people, and partly to the somewhat repellent character of the “great god,” more favourable to evoking feelings of awe and terror than a spirit of fervid devotion. All the more are, however, the gross stimulants, connected with the adoration of his consort, calculated to work up the carnal instincts of the devotees to an extreme degree of sensual frenzy. In the Vaishnava camp, on the other hand, the cult of Krishna, and more especially that of the youthful Krishna, can scarcely fail to exert an influence which, if of a subtler and more insinuating, is not on that account of a less demoralizing kind. Indeed, it would be hard to find anything less consonant with godliness and divine perfection than the pranks of this juvenile god; and if poets and thinkers try to explain them away by dint of allegorical interpretation, the plain man will not for all their refinements take these amusing adventures any the less au pied de la lettre. No fault, in this respect, can assuredly be found with the legendary Rama, a very paragon of knightly honour and virtue, even as his consort Sita is the very model of a noble and faithful wife; and yet this cult has perhaps retained even more of the character of mere hero-worship than that of Krishna. Since by the universally accepted doctrine of karman (deed) or karmavipaka (“the maturing of deeds”) man himself—either in his present, or some future, existence—enjoys the fruit of, or has to atone for, his former good and bad actions, there could hardly be room in Hindu pantheism for a belief in the remission of sin by divine grace or vicarious substitution. And accordingly the “descents” or incarnations of the deity have for their object, not so much the spiritual regeneration of man as the deliverance of the world from some material calamity threatening to overwhelm it. The generally recognized principal Avatars do not, however, by any means constitute the only occasions of a direct intercession of the deity in worldly affairs, but—in the same way as to this day the eclipses of the sun and moon are ascribed by the ordinary Hindu to these luminaries being temporarily swallowed by the dragon Rahu (or Graha, “the seizer”)—so any uncommon occurrence would be apt to be set down as a special manifestation of divine power; and any man credited with exceptional merit or achievement, or even remarkable for some strange incident connected with his life or death, might ultimately come to be looked upon as a veritable incarnation of the deity, capable of influencing the destinies of man, and might become an object of local adoration or superstitious awe and propitiatory rites to multitudes of people. That the transmigration theory, which makes the spirit of the departed hover about for a time in quest of a new corporeal abode, would naturally lend itself to superstitious notions of this kind can scarcely be doubted. Of peculiar importance in this respect is the worship of the Pitris (“fathers”) or deceased ancestors, as entering largely into the everyday life and family relations of the Hindus. At stated intervals to offer reverential homage and oblations of food to the forefathers up to the third degree is one of the most sacred duties the devout Hindu has to discharge. The periodical performance of the commemorative rite of obsequies called Sraddha—i.e. an oblation “made in faith” (sraddha, Lat. credo)—is the duty and privilege of the eldest son of the deceased, or, failing him, of the nearest relative who thereby establishes his right as next of kin in respect of inheritance; and those other relatives who have the right to take part in the ceremony are called sapinda, i.e. sharing in the pindas (or balls of cooked rice, constituting along with libations of water the usual offering to the Manes)—such relationship being held a bar to intermarriage. The first Sraddha takes place as soon as possible after the antyeshti (“final offering”) or funeral ceremony proper, usually spread over ten days; being afterwards repeated once a month for a year, and subsequently at every anniversary and otherwise voluntarily on special occasions. Moreover, a simple libation of water should be offered to the Fathers twice daily at the morning and evening devotion called sandhya (“twilight”). It is doubtless a sense of filial obligation coupled with sentiments of piety and reverence that gave rise to this practice of offering gifts of food and drink to the deceased ancestors. Hence also frequent allusion is made by poets to the anxious care caused to the Fathers by the possibility of the living head of the family being afflicted with failure of offspring; this dire prospect compelling them to use but sparingly their little store of provisions, in case the supply should shortly cease altogether. At the same time one also meets with frank avowals of a superstitious fear lest any irregularity in the performance of the obsequial rites should cause the Fathers to haunt their old home and trouble the peace of their undutiful descendant, or even prematurely draw him after them to the Pitri-loka or world of the Fathers, supposed to be located in the southern region. Terminating as it usually does with the feeding and feeing of a greater or less number of Brahmans and the feasting of members of the performers’ own caste, the Sraddha, especially its first performance, is often a matter of very considerable expense; and more than ordinary benefit to the deceased is supposed to accrue from it when it takes place at a spot of recognized sanctity, such as one of the great 513 places of pilgrimage like Prayaga (Allahabad, where the three sacred rivers, Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati, meet), Mathura, and especially Gaya and Kasi (Benares). But indeed the tirtha-yatra, or pilgrimage to holy bathing-places, is in itself considered an act of piety conferring religious merit in proportion to the time and trouble expended upon it. The number of such places is legion and is constantly increasing. The banks of the great rivers such as the Ganga (Ganges), the Yamuna (Jumna), the Narbada, the Krishna (Kistna), are studded with them, and the water of these rivers is supposed to be imbued with the essence of sanctity capable of cleansing the pious bather of all sin and moral taint. To follow the entire course of one of the sacred rivers from the mouth to the source on one side and back again on the other in the sun-wise (pradakshina) direction—that is, always keeping the stream on one’s right-hand side—is held to be a highly meritorious undertaking which it requires years to carry through. No wonder that water from these rivers, especially the Ganges, is sent and taken in bottles to all parts of India to be used on occasion as healing medicine or for sacramental purposes. In Vedic times, at the Rajasuya, or inauguration of a king, some water from the holy river Sarasvati was mixed with the sprinkling water used for consecrating the king. Hence also sick persons are frequently conveyed long distances to a sacred river to heal them of their maladies; and for a dying man to breathe his last at the side of the Ganges is devoutly believed to be the surest way of securing for him salvation and eternal bliss.
Such probably was the belief of the ordinary Hindu two thousand years ago, and such it remains to this day. In the light of facts such as these, who could venture to say what the future of Hinduism is likely to be? Is the regeneration of India to be brought about by the modern theistic movements, such as the Brahma-samaj and Arya-samaj, as so close and sympathetic an observer of Hindu life and thought as Sir A. Lyall seems to think? “The Hindu mind,” he remarks, “is essentially speculative and transcendental; it will never consent to be shut up in the prison of sensual experience, for it has grasped and holds firmly the central idea that all things are manifestations of some power outside phenomena. And the tendency of contemporary religious discussion in India, so far as it can be followed from a distance, is towards an ethical reform on the old foundations, towards searching for some method of reconciling their Vedic theology with the practices of religion taken as a rule of conduct and a system of moral government. One can already discern a movement in various quarters towards a recognition of impersonal theism, and towards fixing the teaching of the philosophical schools upon some definitely authorized system of faith and morals, which may satisfy a rising ethical standard, and may thus permanently embody that tendency to substitute spiritual devotion for external forms and caste rules which is the characteristic of the sects that have from time to time dissented from orthodox Brahminism.”
Authorities.—Census of India (1901), vol. i. part i.; India, by H. H. Risley and E. A. Gait; vol. i. Ethnographical Appendices, by H. H. Risley; The Indian Empire, vol. i. (new ed., Oxford, 1907); J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts (2nd ed., 5 vols., London, 1873); Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India (London, 1883); Modern India and the Indians (London, 1878, 3rd ed. 1879); Hinduism (London, 1877); Sir Alfred C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies (2 series, London, 1899); “Hinduism” in Religious Systems of the World (London, 1904); “Brahminism” in Great Religions of the World (New York and London, 1902); W. J. Wilkins, Modern Hinduism (London, 1887); J. C. Oman, Indian Life, Religious and Social (London, 1879); The Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India (London, 1903); The Brahmans, Theists and Muslims of India (London, 1907); S. C. Bose, The Hindus as they are (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1883); J. Robson, Hinduism and Christianity (Edinburgh and London, 3rd ed., 1905); J. Murray Mitchell, Hinduism Past and Present (2nd ed., London, 1897); Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, Hindu Castes and Sects (Calcutta, 1896); A. Barth, The Religions of India (London, 1882); E. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India (London, 1896).
1 “It is, perhaps, by surveying India that we at this day can best represent to ourselves and appreciate the vast external reform worked upon the heathen world by Christianity, as it was organized and executed throughout Europe by the combined authority of the Holy Roman Empire and the Church Apostolic.” Sir Alfred C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies, i. 2.
2 Henry Whitehead, D. D., bishop of Madras, The Village Deities of Southern India (Madras, 1907).
3 “The effect of caste is to give all Hindu society a religious basis.” Sir A. C. Lyall, Brahmanism.
4 Thus, in Berar, “there is a strong non-Aryan leaven in the dregs of the agricultural class, derived from the primitive races which have gradually melted down into settled life, and thus become fused with the general community, while these same races are still distinct tribes in the wild tracts of hill and jungle.” Sir Alfred C. Lyall, As. St., i. 6.
5 Siva is said to have first appeared in the beginning of the present age as Sveta, the White, for the purpose of benefiting the Brahmans, and he is invariably painted white; whilst Vishnu, when pictured, is always of a dark-blue colour.
6 As in the case of Siva’s traditional white complexion, it may not be without significance, from a racial point of view, that Vishnu, Rama and Krishna have various darker shades of colour attributed to them, viz. blue, hyacinthine, and dark azure or dark brown respectively. The names of the two heroes meaning simply “black” or “dark,” the blue tint may originally have belonged to Vishnu, who is also called pītavasas, dressed in yellow garment, i.e. the colours of sky and sun combined.
7 This notion not improbably took its origin in the mystic cosmogonic hymn, Rigv. x. 129, where it is said that—“that one (existent, neutr.) breathed breathless by (or with) its svadha (? inherent power, or nature), beyond that there was nothing whatever ... that one live (germ) which was enclosed in the void was generated by the power of heat (or fervour); desire then first came upon it, which was the first seed of the mind ... fertilizing forces there were, svadha below, prayati (? will) above.”
HINDU KUSH, a range of mountains in Central Asia. Throughout 500 m. of its length, from its roots in the Pamir regions till it fades into the Koh-i-Baba to the west of Kabul, this great range forms the water-divide between the Kabul and the Oxus basins, and, for the first 200 m. reckoning westwards, the southern boundary of Afghanistan. It may be said to spring from the head of the Taghdumbash Pamir, where it unites with the great meridional system of Sarikol stretching northwards, and the yet more impressive mountain barrier of Muztagh, the northern base of which separates China from the semi-independent territory of Kanjut. The Wakhjir pass, crossing the head of the Taghdumbash Pamir into the sources of the river Hunza, almost marks the tri-junction of the three great chains of mountains. As the Hindu Kush strikes westwards, after first rounding the head of an Oxus tributary (the Ab-i-Panja, which Curzon considers to be the true source of the Oxus), it closely overlooks the trough of that glacier-fed stream under its northern spurs, its crest at the nearest point being separated from the river by a distance which cannot much exceed 10 m. As the river is here the northern boundary of Afghanistan, and the crest of the Hindu Kush the southern boundary, this distance represents the width of the Afghan kingdom at that point.
Physiography.—For the first 100 m. of its length the Hindu Kush is a comparatively flat-backed range of considerable width, permitting the formation of small lakes on the crest, and possessing no considerable peaks. It is crossed by many passes, varying in height from 12,500 ft. to 17,500 ft., the lowest and the easiest being the well-known group about Baroghil, which has from time immemorial offered a line of approach from High Asia to Chitral and Jalalabad. As the Hindu Kush gradually recedes from the Ab-i-Panja and turns south-westwards it gains in altitude, and we find prominent peaks on the crest which measure more than 24,000 ft. above sea-level. Even here, however, the main central water-divide, or axis of the chain, is apparently not the line of highest peaks, which must be looked for to the south, where the great square-headed giant called Tirach Mir dominates Chitral from a southern spur. For some 40 or 50 m. of this south-westerly bend, bearing away from the Oxus, where the Hindu Kush overlooks the mountain wilderness of Badakshan to the west, the crest is intersected by many passes, of which the most important is the Dorah group (including the Minjan and the Mandal), which rise to about 15,000 ft., and which are, under favourable conditions, practicable links between the Oxus and Chitral basins.
From the Dorah to the Khawak pass (or group of passes, for it is seldom that one line of approach only is to be found across the Hindu Kush), which is between 11,000 and 12,000 ft. in altitude, the water-divide overlooks Kafiristan and Kafiristan section. Badakshan. Here its exact position is matter of conjecture. It lies amidst a wild, inaccessible region of snowbound crests, and is certainly nowhere less than 15,000 ft. above sea-level. There is a tradition that Timur attempted the passage of the Hindu Kush by one of the unmapped passes hereabouts, and that, having failed, he left a record of his failure engraved on a rock in the pass.
The Khawak, at the head of the Panjshir tributary of the Kabul river, leading straight from Badakshan to Charikar and the city of Kabul, is now an excellent kafila route, the road having been engineered under the amir Abdur Rahman’s direction, Passes. and it is said to be available for traffic throughout the year. From the Khawak to the head of the Ghorband (a river of the Hindu Kush which, rising to the north-west of Kabul, flows north-east to meet the Panjshir near Charikar, whence they run united into the plains of Kohistan) the Hindu Kush is intersected by passes at intervals, all of which were surveyed, and several utilized, during the return of the Russo-Afghan boundary commission from the Oxus to Kabul in 1886. Those utilized were the Kaoshan (the “Hindu Kush” pass par excellence), 14,340 ft.; the Chahardar (13,900 ft.), which is a link in one of the amir of Afghanistan’s high roads to Turkestan; and the Shibar (9800 ft.), which is merely a diversion into the upper Ghorband of that group of passes between Bamian and the Kabul plains which are represented by the Irak, Hajigak, Unai, &c. About this point it is geographically correct to place the southern extremity of the Hindu Kush, for here commences the Koh-i-Baba system into which the Hindu Kush is merged.
The general conformation of the Hindu Kush system south of the Khawak, no less than such fragmentary evidence of its rock composition as at present exists to the north, points to its construction under the same conditions of upheaval General conformation. and subsequent denudation as are common to the western Himalaya and the whole of the trans-Indus borderland. Its upheaval above the great sea which submerged all the north-west of the Indian peninsula long after the Himalaya had massed itself as a formidable mountain chain, belongs to a comparatively recent geologic period, and the same thrust upwards of vast masses of cretaceous limestone has disturbed the overlying recent beds of shale and clays with very similar results to those which have left so marked an impress on the Baluch frontier. Successive flexures or ridges are ranged in more or less parallel lines, and from between the bands of hard, unyielding rock of older formation the soft beds of recent shale have been washed out, to be carried through the enclosing ridges by rifts which break across their axes. The Hindu Kush is, in fact, but the face of a great upheaved mass of plateau-land lying beyond it northwards, just as the Himalaya forms the southern face of the great central tableland of Tibet, and its general physiography, exhibiting long, narrow, lateral valleys and transverse lines of “antecedent” drainage, is 514 similar. There are few passes across the southern section of the Hindu Kush (and this section is, from the politico-geographical point of view, more important to India than the whole Himalayan system) which have not to surmount a succession of crests or ridges as they cross from Afghan Turkestan to Afghanistan. The exceptions are, of course, notable, and have played an important part in the military history of Asia from time immemorial. From a little ice-bound lake called Gaz Kul, or Karambar, which lies on the crest of the Hindu Kush near its northern origin at the head of the Taghdumbash Pamir, two very important river systems (those of Chitral and Hunza) are believed to originate. The lake really lies on the watershed between the two, and is probably a glacial relic. Its contribution to either infant stream appears to depend on conditions of overflow determined by the blocking of ice masses towards one end. It marks the commencement of the water-divide which primarily separates the Gilgit basin from that of the Yashkun, or Chitral, river, and subsequently divides the drainage of Swat and Bajour from that of the Chitral (or Kunar). The Yashkun-Chitral-Kunar river (it is called by all three names) is the longest affluent of the Kabul, and it is in many respects a more important river than the Kabul. Throughout its length it is closely flanked on its left bank by this main water-divide, which is called Moshabar or Shandur in its northern sections, and owns a great variety of names where it divides Bajour from the Kunar valley. It is this range, crowned by peaks of 22,000 ft. altitude and maintaining an average elevation of some 10,000 ft. throughout its length of 250 m., that is the real barrier of the north—not the Hindu Kush itself. Across it, at its head, are the glacial passes which lead to the foot of the Baroghil. Of these Darkot, with a glacial staircase on each side, is typical. (See Gilgit.) Those passes (the Kilik and Mintaka) from the Pamir regions, which lead into the rocky gorges and defiles of the upper affluents of the Hunza to the east of the Darkot, belong rather to the Muztagh system than to the Hindu Kush. Other passes across this important water-divide are the Shandur (12,250 ft.), between Gilgit and Mastuj; the Lowarai (10,450 ft.), between the Panjkora and Chitral valleys; and farther south certain lower crossings which once formed part of the great highway between Kabul and India.
Deep down in the trough of the Chitral river, about midway between its source and its junction with the Kabul at Jalalabad, is the village and fort of Chitral (q.v.). Facing Chitral, on the right bank of the river, and extending for some 70 m. Chitral. from the Hindu Kush, is the lofty snow-clad spur of the Hindu Kush known as Shawal, across which one or two difficult passes lead into the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan. This spur carries the boundary of Afghanistan southwards to Arnawai (some 50 m. below Chitral), where it crosses the river to the long Shandur watershed. South of Arnawai the Kunar valley becomes a part of Afghanistan (see Kunar). The value of Chitral as an outpost of British India may be best gauged by its geographical position. It is about 100 m. (direct map measurement) from the outpost of Russia at Langar Kisht on the river Panja, with the Dorah pass across the Hindu Kush intervening. The Dorah may be said to be about half-way between the two outposts, and the mountain tracks leading to it on either side are rough and difficult. The Dorah, however, is not the only pass which leads into the Chitral valley from the Oxus. The Mandal pass, a few miles south of the Dorah, is the connecting link between the Oxus and the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan; and the Bashgol valley leads directly to the Chitral valley at Arnawai, about 50 m. below Chitral. Nor must we overlook the connexion between north and south of the Hindu Kush which is afforded by the long narrow valley of the Chitral (or Yashkun) itself, leading up to the Baroghil pass. This route was once made use of by the Chinese for purposes of pilgrimage, if not for invasion. Access to Chitral from the north is therefore but a matter of practicable tracks, or passes, in two or three directions, and the measure of practicability under any given conditions can best be reckoned from Chitral itself. By most authorities the possibility of an advance in force from the north, even under the most favourable conditions, is considered to be exceedingly small; but the tracks and passes of the Hindu Kush are only impracticable so long as they are left as nature has made them.
Historical Notices.—Hindu Kush is the Caucasus of Alexander’s historians. It is also included in the Paropamisus, though the latter term embraces more, Caucasus being apparently used only when the alpine barrier is in question. Whether the name was given in mere vanity to the barrier which Alexander passed (as Arrian and others repeatedly allege), or was founded also on some verbal confusion, cannot be stated. It was no doubt regarded (and perhaps not altogether untruly) as a part of a great alpine zone believed to traverse Asia from west to east, whether called Taurus, Caucasus or Imaus. Arrian himself applies Caucasus distinctly to the Himalaya also. The application of the name Tanais to the Syr seems to indicate a real confusion with Colchian Caucasus. Alexander, after building an Alexandria at its foot (probably at Hupian near Charikar), crossed into Bactria, first reaching Drapsaca, or Adrapsa. This has been interpreted as Anderab, in which case he probably crossed the Khawak Pass, but the identity is uncertain. The ancient Zend name is, according to Rawlinson, Paresina, the essential part of Paropamisus; this accounts for the great Asiastic Parnassus of Aristotle, and the Pho-lo-sin-a of Hsüan Tsang.
The name Hindu Kush is used by Ibn Batuta, who crossed (c. 1332) from Anderab, and he gives the explanation of the name which, however doubtful, is still popular, as (Pers.) Hindu-Killer, “because of the number of Indian slaves who perished in passing” its snows. Baber always calls the range Hindu Kush, and the way in which he speaks of it shows clearly that it was a range that was meant, not a solitary pass or peak (according to modern local use, as alleged by Elphinstone and Burnes). Probably, however, the title was confined to the section from Khawak to Koh-i-Baba. The name has by some later Oriental writers been modified into Hindu Koh (mountain), but this is factitious, and throws no more light on the origin of the title. The name seems to have become known to European geographers by the Oriental translations of the two Petis de la Croix, and was taken up by Delisle and D’Anville. Rennell and Elphinstone familiarized it. Burnes first crossed the range (1832). A British force was stationed at Bamian beyond it in 1840, with an outpost at Saighan.
The Hindu Kush, formidable as it seems, and often as it has been the limit between petty states, has hardly ever been the boundary of a considerable power. Greeks, White Huns, Samanidae of Bokhara, Ghaznevides, Mongols, Timur and Timuridae, down to Saddozais and Barakzais, have ruled both sides of this great alpine chain.
Authorities.—Information about the Hindu Kush and Chitral is now comparatively exact. The Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884 and the Chitral expedition of 1895 opened up a vast area for geographical investigation, and the information collected is to be found in the reports and gazetteers of the Indian government. The following are the chief recent authorities:—Report of the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission (1886); Report of Lockhart’s Mission (1886); Report of Asmar Boundary Commission (1895); Report of Pamir Boundary Commission (1896); J. Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindu Kush (Calcutta, 1880); W. M’Nair, “Visit to Kafiristan,” vol. vi. R.G.S. Proc., 1884; F. Younghusband, “Journeys on the Pamirs, &c.,” vol. xiv. R.G.S. Proc., 1892; Colonel Durand, Making a Frontier (London, 1899); Sir G. Robertson, Chitral (London, 1899).
HINDUR, or Nalagarh, one of the Simla hill states, under the government of the Punjab, India. Pop. (1901) 52,551; area, 256 sq. m.; estimated revenue, £8600. The country was overrun by the Gurkhas for some years before 1815, when they were driven out by the British, and the raja was confirmed in possession of the territory. The principal products are grain and opium.
HINGANGHAT, a town of British India in Wardha district, Central Provinces, 21 m. S.W. of Wardha town. Pop (1901) 12,662. It is a main seat of the cotton trade, the cotton here produced in the rich Wardha valley having given its name to one of the best indigenous staples of India. The principal native traders are Marwaris, many of whom have large transactions and export on their own account; but the greater number act as middle-men. There are two cotton-mills and several ginning and pressing factories.
HINGE (in Mid. Eng. henge or heeng, from hengen, to hang), a movable joint, particularly that by which a door or window “hangs” from its side-post, or by which a lid or cover is attached to that which it closes; also any device which allows two parts to be joined together and move upon each other (see Joinery). Figuratively the word is used of that on which something depends, a cardinal or turning point, a crisis.
HINGHAM, a township of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on Massachusetts Bay. Pop (1890) 4564; (1900) 5059 (969 being foreign-born); (1905, state census) 4819; (1910) 4965. Area, about 30 sq. m. The township is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and contains the villages of Hingham, West Hingham, Hingham Center, and South Hingham. Derby Academy, a co-educational school 515 founded and endowed with about £12,000 in 1784 by Sarah Derby (1714-1790), was opened in 1791. Hingham has a public library (1868), with 12,000 volumes in 1908. The Old Meeting House, erected in 1681, is one of the oldest church buildings in the country used continuously. Manufactures were relatively much more important in the 17th and 18th centuries than since. There were settlers here as early as 1633, some of them—notably Edmund Hobart, ancestor of Bishop John Henry Hobart,—being natives of Hingham, Norfolk, England, whence the name; and in 1635 common land called Barecove became the township of Hingham.
See History of the Town of Hingham (4 vols., Hingham, 1893).
HINRICHS, HERMANN FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1794-1861), German philosopher, studied theology at Strassburg, and philosophy at Heidelberg under Hegel (q.v.), who wrote a preface to his Religion im innern Verhältniss zur Wissenschaft (Heidelberg, 1722). He became a Privatdozent in 1819, and held professorships at Breslau (1822) and Halle (1824).
Works.—(1) Philosophical: Grundlinien der Philosophie der Logik (Halle, 1826); Genesis des Wissens (Heidelberg, 1835). (2) On aesthetics: Vorlesungen über Goethes Faust (Halle, 1825); Schillers Dichtungen nach ihrem historischen Zusammenhang (Leipzig, 1837-1839). By these works he became a recognized exponent of orthodox Hegelianism. (3) Historical: Geschichte der Rechts- und Staatsprinzipien seit der Reformation bis auf die Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1848-1852); Die Könige (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1853).
HINSCHIUS, PAUL (1835-1898), German jurist, was the son of Franz Sales August Hinschius (1807-1877), and was born in Berlin on the 25th of December 1835. His father was not only a scientific jurist, but also a lawyer in large practice in Berlin. After working under his father, Hinschius in 1852 began to study jurisprudence at Heidelberg and Berlin, the teacher who had most influence upon him being Aemilius Ludwig Richter (1808-1864), to whom he afterwards ascribed the great revival of the study of ecclesiastical law in Germany. In 1855 Hinschius took the degree of doctor utriusque juris, and in 1859 was admitted to the juridical faculty of Berlin. In 1863 he went as professor extraordinarius to Halle, returning in the same capacity to Berlin in 1865; and in 1868 became professor ordinarius at the university of Kiel, which he represented in the Prussian Upper House (1870-1871). He also assisted his father in editing the Preussische Anwaltszeitung from 1862 to 1866 and the Zeitschrift für Gesetzgebung und Rechtspflege in Preussen from 1867 to 1871. In 1872 he was appointed professor ordinarius of ecclesiastical law at Berlin. In the same year he took part in the conferences of the ministry of ecclesiastical affairs, which issued in the famous “Falk laws.” In connexion with the developments of the Kulturkampf which resulted from the “Falk laws,” he wrote several treatises: e.g. on “The Attitude of the German State Governments towards the Decrees of the Vatican Council” (1871), on “The Prussian Church Laws of 1873” (1873), “The Prussian Church Laws of the years 1874 and 1875” (1875), and “The Prussian Church Law of 14th July 1880” (1881). He sat in the Reichstag as a National Liberal from 1872 to 1878, and again in 1881 and 1882, and from 1889 onwards he represented the university of Berlin in the Prussian Upper House. He died on the 13th of December 1898.
The two great works by which Hinschius established his fame are the Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilramni (2 parts, Leipzig, 1863) and Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und Protestanten in Deutschland, vols, i.-vi. (Berlin, 1869-1877). The first of these, for which during 1860 and 1861 he had gathered materials in Italy, Spain, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Belgium, was the first critical edition of the False Decretals. His most monumental work, however, is the Kirchenrecht, which remains incomplete. The six volumes actually published (System des katholischen Kirchenrechts) cover only book i. of the work as planned; they are devoted to an exhaustive historical and analytical study of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and its government of the church. The work is planned with special reference to Germany; but in fact its scheme embraces the whole of the Roman Catholic organization in its principles and practice. Unfortunately even this part of the work remains incomplete; two chapters of book i. and the whole of book ii., which was to have dealt with “the rights and duties of the members of the hierarchy,” remain unwritten; the most notable omission is that of the ecclesiastical law in relation to the regular orders. Incomplete as it is, however, the Kirchenrecht remains a work of the highest scientific authority. Epoch-making in its application of the modern historical method to the study of ecclesiastical law in its theory and practice, it has become the model for the younger school of canonists.
See the articles s.v. by E. Seckel in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed., 1900), and by Ulrich Steitz in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 50 (Leipzig, 1905).
HINTERLAND (German for “the land behind”), the region lying behind a coast or river line, or a country dependent for trade or commerce on any other region. In the purely physical sense “interior” or “back country” is more commonly used, but the word has gained a distinct political significance. It first came into prominence during 1883-1885, when Germany insisted that she had a right to exercise jurisdiction in the territory behind those parts of the African coast that she had occupied. The “doctrine of the hinterland” was that the possessor of the littoral was entitled to as much of the back country as geographically, economically or politically was dependent upon the coast lands, a doctrine which, in the space of ten years, led to the partition of Africa between various European powers.
HINTON, JAMES (1822-1875), English surgeon and author, son of John Howard Hinton (1791-1873), Baptist minister and author of the History and Topography of the United States and other works, was born at Reading in 1822. He was educated at his grandfather’s school near Oxford, and at the Nonconformist school at Harpenden, and in 1838, on his father’s removal to London, was apprenticed to a woollen-draper in Whitechapel. After retaining this situation about a year he became clerk in an insurance office. His evenings were spent in intense study, and this, joined to the ardour, amounting to morbidness, of his interest in moral problems, so affected his health that in his nineteenth year he resolved to seek refuge from his own thoughts by running away to sea. His intention having, however, been discovered, he was sent, on the advice of the physician who was consulted regarding his health, to St Bartholomew’s Hospital to study for the medical profession. After receiving his diploma in 1847, he was for some time assistant surgeon at Newport, Essex, but the same year he went out to Sierra Leone to take medical charge of the free labourers on their voyage thence to Jamaica, where he stayed some time. He returned to England in 1850, and entered into partnership with a surgeon in London, where he soon had his interest awakened specially in aural surgery, and gave also much of his attention to physiology. He made his first appearance as an author in 1856 by contributing papers on physiological and ethical subjects to the Christian Spectator; and in 1859 he published Man and his Dwelling-place. A series of papers entitled “Physiological Riddles,” in the Cornhill Magazine, afterwards published as Life in Nature (1862), as well as another series entitled Thoughts on Health (1871), proved his aptitude for popular scientific exposition. After being appointed aural surgeon to Guy’s Hospital in 1863, he speedily acquired a reputation as the most skilful aural surgeon of his day, which was fully borne out by his works, An Atlas of Diseases of the membrana tympani (1874), and Questions of Aural Surgery (1874). But his health broke down, and in 1874 he gave up practice; and he died at the Azores of acute inflammation of the brain on the 16th of December 1875. In addition to the works already mentioned, he was the author of The Mystery of Pain (1866) and The Place of the Physician (1874). On account of their fresh and vigorous discussion of many of the important moral and social problems of the time, his writings had a wide circulation on both sides of the Atlantic.
His Life and Letters, edited by Ellice Hopkins, with an introduction by Sir W. W. Gull, appeared in 1878.
HIOGO [Hyogo], a town of Japan in the province of Settsu, Nippon, on the western shore of the bay of Osaka, adjoining the foreign settlement of Kobe, 21 m. W. of Osaka by rail. The 516 growth of its prosperity has been very remarkable. Its population, including that of Kobe, was 135,639 in 1891, and 285,002 in 1903. From 1884 to the close of the century its trade increased nearly eightfold, and the increase was not confined to a few staples of commerce, but was spread over almost the whole trade, in which silk and cotton fabrics, floor-mats, straw-plaits, matches, and cotton yarns are specially important. Kobe owes much of its prosperity to the fact of serving largely as the shipping port of Osaka, the chief manufacturing town in Japan. The foreign community, exclusive of Chinese, exceeds 1000 persons. Kobe is considered the brightest and healthiest of all the places assigned as foreign settlements in Japan, its pure, dry air and granite subsoil constituting special advantages. It is in railway communication with all parts of the country, and wharves admit of steamers of large size loading and discharging cargo without the aid of lighters. The area originally appropriated for a foreign settlement soon proved too restricted, and foreigners received permission to lease lands and houses direct from Japanese owners beyond the treaty limits, a privilege which, together with that of building villas on the hills behind the town, ultimately involved some diplomatic complications. Kobe has a shipbuilding yard, and docks in its immediate neighbourhood.
Hiogo has several temples of interest, one of which has near it a huge bronze statue of Buddha, while by the Minatogawa, which flows into the sea between Hiogo and Kobe, a temple commemorates the spot where Kusunoki Masashige, the mirror of Japanese loyalty, met his death in battle in 1336. The temple of Ikuta was erected on the site of the ancient fane built by Jingo on her return from Korea in the 3rd century.
Hiogo’s original name was Bako. Its position near the entrance of the Inland Sea gave it some maritime importance from a very early period, but it did not become really prominent until the 12th century, when Kiyomori, chief of the Taira clan, transferred the capital from Kioto to Fukuhara, in Hiogo’s immediate neighbourhood, and undertook various public works for improving the place. The change of capital was very brief, but Hiogo benefited permanently from the distinction.
HIP. (1) (From O. Eng. hype, a word common in various forms to many Teutonic languages; cf. Dutch heup, and Ger. Hüfte), the projecting part of the body formed by the top of the thighbone and the side of the pelvis, in quadrupeds generally known as the haunch (see Joints). (2)(O. Eng. héope, from same root as M. H. Ger. hiefe, a thorn-bush), the fruit of the dog-rose (Rosa canina); “hips” are usually joined with “haws,” the fruit of the hawthorn.
HIP-KNOB, in architecture, the finial on the hip of a roof, between the barge-boards of a gable.
HIPPARCHUS (fl. 146-126 B.C.), Greek astronomer, was born at Nicaea in Bithynia early in the 2nd century B.C. He observed in the island of Rhodes probably from 161, certainly from 146 until about 126 B.C., and made the capital discovery of the precession of the equinoxes in 130 (see Astronomy: History). The outburst of a new star in 134 B.C. is stated by Pliny (Hist. nat. ii. 26) to have prompted the preparation of his catalogue of 1080 stars, substantially embodied in Ptolemy’s Almagest. Hipparchus founded trigonometry, and compiled the first table of chords. Scientific geography originated with his invention of the method of fixing terrestrial positions by circles of latitude and longitude. There can be little doubt that the fundamental part of his astronomical knowledge was derived from Chaldaea. None of his many works has survived except a Commentary on the Phaenomena of Aratus and Eudoxus, published by P. Victorius at Florence in 1567, and included by D. Petavius in his Uranologium (Paris, 1630). A new edition was published by Carolus Manitius (Leipzig, 1894).
See J. B. J. Delambre, Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne, i. 173; P. Tannery, Recherches sur l’histoire de l’astr. ancienne, p. 130; A. Berry, Hist. of Astronomy, pp. 40-61; M. Marie, Hist. des sciences, i. 207; G. Cornewall Lewis, Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 207; R. Grant, Hist. of Phys. Astronomy, pp. 318, 437; F. Boll, Sphaera, p. 61 (Leipzig, 1903); R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 45; J. F. Montucla, Hist. des mathématiques, t. i. p. 257; J. A. Schmidt, Variorum philosophicorum decas, cap. i. (Jenae, 1691).
HIPPASUS OF METAPONTUM, Pythagorean philosopher, was one of the earliest of the disciples of Pythagoras. He is mentioned both by Diogenes Laërtius and by Iamblichus, but nothing is known of his life. Diogenes says that he left no writings, but other authorities make him the author of a μυστικὸς λόγος directed against the Pythagoreans. According to Aristotle (Metaphysica, i. 3), he was an adherent of the Heraclitean fire-doctrine, whereas the Pythagoreans maintained the theory that number is the principle of everything. He seems to have regarded the soul as composed of igneous matter, and so approximates the orthodox Pythagorean doctrine of the central fire, or Hestia, to the more detailed theories of Heraclitus. In spite of this divergence, Hippasus is always regarded as a Pythagorean.
See Diogenes viii. 84; Brandis, History of Greek and Roman Philosophy; also Pythagoras.
HIPPEASTRUM, in botany, a genus of the natural order Amaryllidaceae, containing about 50 species of bulbous plants, natives of tropical and sub-tropical South America. In cultivation they are generally known as Amaryllis. The handsome funnel-shaped flowers are borne in a cluster of two to many, at the end of a short hollow scape. The species and the numerous hybrids which have been obtained artificially, show a great variety in size and colour of the flower, including the richest deep crimson and blood-red, white, or with striped, mottled or blended colours. They are of easy culture, and free-blooming habit. Like other bulbs they are increased by offsets, which should be carefully removed when the plants are at rest, and should be allowed to attain a fair size before removal. These young bulbs should be potted singly in February or March, in mellow loamy soil with a moderate quantity of sand, about two-thirds of the bulb being kept above the level of the soil, which should be made quite solid. They should be removed to a temperature of 60° by night and 70° by day, very carefully watered until the roots have begun to grow freely, after which the soil should be kept moderately moist. As they advance the temperature should be raised to 70° at night, and to 80° or higher with sun heat by day. They do not need shading, but should have plenty of air, and be syringed daily in the afternoon. When growing they require a good supply of water. After the decay of the flowers they should be returned to a brisk moist temperature of from 70° to 80° by day during summer to perfect their leaves, and then be ripened off in autumn. Through the winter they should have less water, but must not be kept entirely dry. The minimum temperature should now be about 55°, to be increased 10° or 15° in spring. As the bulbs get large they will occasionally need shifting into larger pots. Propagation is also readily effected by seeds for raising new varieties. Seeds are sown when ripe in well drained pans of sandy loam at a temperature of about 65°. The seedlings when large enough to handle are placed either singly in very small pots or several in a pot or shallow pan, and put in a bottom heat, in a moist atmosphere with a temperature from 60° to 70°. H. Ackermanni, with large, handsome, crimson flowers—itself a hybrid—is the parent of many of the large-flowered forms; H. equestre (Barbados lily), with yellowish-green flowers tipped with scarlet, has also given rise to several handsome forms; H. aulicum (flowers crimson and green), H. pardinum (flowers creamy-white spotted with crimson), and H. vittatum (flowers white with red stripes, a beautiful species and the parent of many varieties), are stove or warm greenhouse plants. These kinds, however, are now only regarded as botanical curiosities, and are rarely grown in private or commercial establishments. They have been ousted by the more gorgeous looking hybrids, which have been evolved during the past 100 years. H. Johnsoni is named after a Lancashire watchmaker who raised it in 1799 by crossing H. Reginae with H. vittatum. Since that time other species have been used for hybridizing, notably H. reticulatum, H. aulicum, H. solandriflorum, and sometimes H. equestre and H. psittacinum. The finest forms since 1880 have been evolved from H. Leopoldi and H. pardinum.
HIPPED ROOF, the name given in architecture to a roof which slopes down on all four sides instead of terminating on 517 two sides against a vertical gable. Sometimes a compromise is made between the two, half the roof being hipped and half resting on the vertical wall; this gives much more room inside the roof, and externally a most picturesque effect, which is one of the great attractions of domestic architecture in the south of England, and is rarely found in other countries.
HIPPEL, THEODOR GOTTLIEB VON (1741-1796), German satirical and humorous writer, was born on the 31st of January 1741, at Gerdauen in East Prussia, where his father was rector of a school. He enjoyed an excellent education at home, and in his sixteenth year he entered Königsberg university as a student of theology. Interrupting his studies, he went, on the invitation of a friend, to St Petersburg, where he was introduced at the brilliant court of the empress Catherine II. Returning to Königsberg he became a tutor in a private family; but, falling in love with a young lady of high position, his ambition was aroused, and giving up his tutorship he devoted himself with enthusiasm to legal studies. He was successful in his profession, and in 1780 was appointed chief burgomaster in Königsberg, and in 1786 privy councillor of war and president of the town. As he rose in the world, however, his inclination for matrimony vanished, and the lady who had stimulated his ambition was forgotten. He died at Königsberg on the 23rd of April 1796, leaving a considerable fortune. Hippel had extraordinary talents, rich in wit and fancy; but his was a character full of contrasts and contradictions. Cautiousness and ardent passion, dry pedantry and piety, morality and sensuality; simplicity and ostentation composed his nature; and, hence, his literary productions never attained artistic finish. In his Lebensläufe nach aufsteigender Linie (1778-1781) he intended to describe the lives of his father and grandfather, but he eventually confined himself to his own. It is an autobiography, in which persons well known to him are introduced, together with a mass of heterogeneous reflections on life and philosophy. Kreuz- und Querzüge des Ritters A bis Z (1793-1794) is a satire levelled against the follies of the age—ancestral pride and the thirst for orders, decoration and the like. Among others of his better known works are Über die Ehe (1774) and Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber (1792). Hippel has been called the fore-runner of Jean Paul Richter, and has some resemblance to this author, in his constant digressions and in the interweaving of scientific matter in his narrative. Like Richter he was strongly influenced by Laurence Sterne.
In 1827-1838 a collected edition of Hippel’s works in 14 vols., was issued at Berlin. Über die Ehe has been edited by E. Brenning (Leipzig, 1872), and the Lebensläufe nach aufsteigender Linie has in a modernized edition by A. von Öttingen (1878), gone through several editions. See J. Czerny, Sterne, Hippel und Jean Paul (Berlin, 1904).
HIPPIAS OF ELIS, Greek sophist, was born about the middle of the 5th century B.C. and was thus a younger contemporary of Protagoras and Socrates. He was a man of great versatility and won the respect of his fellow-citizens to such an extent that he was sent to various towns on important embassies. At Athens he made the acquaintance of Socrates and other leading thinkers. With an assurance characteristic of the later sophists, he claimed to be regarded as an authority on all subjects, and lectured, at all events with financial success, on poetry, grammar, history, politics, archaeology, mathematics and astronomy. He boasted that he was more popular than Protagoras, and was prepared at any moment to deliver an extempore address on any subject to the assembly at Olympia. Of his ability there is no question, but it is equally certain that he was superficial. His aim was not to give knowledge, but to provide his pupils with the weapons of argument, to make them fertile in discussion on all subjects alike. It is said that he boasted of wearing nothing which he had not made with his own hands. Plato’s two dialogues, the Hippias major and minor, contain an exposé of his methods, exaggerated no doubt for purposes of argument but written with full knowledge of the man and the class which he represented. Ast denies their authenticity, but they must have been written by a contemporary writer (as they are mentioned in the literature of the 4th century), and undoubtedly represent the attitude of serious thinkers to the growing influence of the professional Sophists. There is, however, no question that Hippias did a real service to Greek literature by insisting on the meaning of words, the value of rhythm and literary style. He is credited with an excellent work on Homer, collections of Greek and foreign literature, and archaeological treatises, but nothing remains except the barest notes. He forms the connecting link between the first great sophists, Protagoras and Prodicus, and the innumerable eristics who brought their name into disrepute.
For the general atmosphere in which Hippias moved see Sophists; also histories of Philosophy (e.g. Windelband, Eng. trans. by Tufts, pt. 1, c. 2, §§ 7 and 8).
HIPPO, a Greek philosopher and natural scientist, classed with the Ionian or physical school. He was probably a contemporary of Archelaus and lived chiefly in Athens. Aristotle declared that he was unworthy of the name of philosopher, and, while comparing him with Thales in his main doctrine, adds that his intellect was too shallow for serious consideration. He held that the principle of all things is moisture (τὸ ὑγρόν); that fire develops from water, and from fire the material universe. Further he denied all existence save that of material things as known through the senses, and was, therefore, classed among the “Atheists.” The gods are merely great men canonized by popular tradition. It is said that he composed his own epitaph, wherein he claims for himself a place in this company.
HIPPOCRAS, an old medicinal drink or cordial, made of wine mixed with spices—such as cinnamon, ginger and sugar—and strained through woollen cloths. The early spelling usual in English was ipocras, or ypocras. The word is an adaptation of the Med. Lat. Vinum Hippocraticum, or wine of Hippocrates, so called, not because it was supposed to be a receipt of the physician, but from an apothecary’s name for a strainer or sieve, “Hippocrates’ sleeve” (see W. W. Skeat, Chaucer, note to the Merchant’s Tale).
HIPPOCRATES, Greek philosopher and writer, termed the “Father of Medicine,” was born, according to Soranus, in Cos, in the first year of the 80th Olympiad, i.e. in 460 B.C. He was a member of the family of the Asclepiadae, and was believed to be either the nineteenth or seventeenth in direct descent from Aesculapius. It is also claimed for him that he was descended from Hercules through his mother, Phaenarete. He studied medicine under Heraclides, his father, and Herodicus of Selymbria; in philosophy Gorgias of Leontini and Democritus of Abdera were his masters. His earlier studies were prosecuted in the famous Asclepion of Cos, and probably also at Cnidos. He travelled extensively, and taught and practised his profession at Athens, probably also in Thrace, Thessaly, Delos and his native island. He died at Larissa in Thessaly, his age being variously stated as 85, 90, 104 and 109. The incidents of his life are shrouded by uncertain traditions, which naturally sprang up in the absence of any authentic record; the earliest biography was by one of the Sorani, probably Soranus the younger of Ephesus, in the 2nd century; Suidas, the lexicographer, wrote of him in the 11th, and Tzetzes in the 12th century. In all these biographies there is internal evidence of confusion; many of the incidents related are elsewhere told of other persons, and certain of them are quite irreconcilable with his character, so far as it can be judged of from his writings and from the opinions expressed of him by his contemporaries; we may safely reject, for instance, the legends that he set fire to the library of the Temple of Health at Cnidos, in order to destroy the evidence of plagiarism, and that he refused to visit Persia at the request of Artaxerxes Longimanus, during a pestilential epidemic, on the ground that he would in so doing be assisting an enemy. He is referred to by Plato (Protag. p. 283; Phaedr. p. 211) as an eminent medical authority, and his opinion is also quoted by Aristotle. The veneration in which he was held by the Athenians serves to dissipate the calumnies which have been thrown on his character by Andreas, and the whole tone of his writings bespeaks a man of the highest integrity and purest morality.
Born of a family of priest-physicians, and inheriting all its traditions and prejudices, Hippocrates was the first to cast 518 superstition aside, and to base the practice of medicine on the principles of inductive philosophy. It is impossible to trace directly the influence exercised upon him by the great men of his time, but one cannot fail to connect his emancipation of medicine from superstition with the widespread power exercised over Greek life and thought by the living work of Socrates, Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus and Thucydides. It was a period of great intellectual development, and it only needed a powerful mind such as his to bring to bear upon medicine the same influences which were at work in other sciences. It must be remembered that his training was not altogether bad, although superstition entered so largely into it. He had a great master in Democritus, the originator of the doctrine of atoms, and there is every reason to believe that the various “asclepia” were very carefully conducted hospitals for the sick, possessing a curious system of case-books, in the form of votive tablets, left by the patients, on which were recorded the symptoms, treatment and result of each case. He had these records at his command; and he had the opportunity of observing the system of training and the treatment of injuries in the gymnasia. One of his great merits is that he was the first to dissociate medicine from priest-craft, and to direct exclusive attention to the natural history of disease. How strongly his mind revolted against the use of charms, amulets, incantations and such devices appears from his writings; and he has expressly recorded, as underlying all his practice, the conviction that, however diseases may be regarded from the religious point of view, they must all be scientifically treated as subject to natural laws (De aëre, 29). Nor was he anxious to maintain the connexion between philosophy and medicine which had for long existed in a confused and confusing fashion.1 His knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathology was necessarily defective, the respect in which the dead body was held by the Greeks precluding him from practising dissection; thus we find him writing of the tissues without distinguishing between the various textures of the body, confusing arteries, veins and nerves, and speaking vaguely of the muscles as “flesh.” But when we come to study his observations on the natural history of disease as presented in the living subject, we recognize at once the presence of a great clinical physician. Hippocrates based his principles and practice on the theory of the existence of a spiritual restoring essence or principle, φύσις, the vis medicatrix naturae, in the management of which the art of the physician consisted. This art could, he held, be only obtained by the application of experience, not only to disease at large, but to disease in the individual. He strongly deprecated blind empiricism; the aphorism “ἡ πεῖρα σφαλερή, ἡ κρίσις χαλεπή” (whether it be his or not), tersely illustrates his position. Holding firmly to the principle, νούσων φύσιες ἰητροί, he did not allow himself to remain inactive in the presence of disease; he was not a merely “expectant” physician; as Sydenham puts it, his practice was “the support of enfeebled and the coercion of outrageous nature.” He largely employed powerful medicines and blood-letting both ordinary and by cupping. He advises, however, great caution in their application. He placed great dependence on diet and regimen, and here, quaint as many of his directions may now sound, not only in themselves, but in the reasons given, there is much which is still adhered to at the present day. His treatise Περὶ ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, καὶ τόπων (Airs, Waters, and Places) contains the first enunciation of the principles of public health. Although the treatises Περὶ κρισίμων cannot be accepted as authentic, we find in the Προγνωστικόν evidence of the acuteness of observation in the manner in which the occurrence of critical days in disease is enunciated. His method of reporting cases is most interesting and instructive; in them we can read how thoroughly he had separated himself from the priest-physician. Laennec, to whom we are indebted for the practice of auscultation, freely admits that the idea was suggested to him by study of Hippocrates, who, treating of the presence of morbid fluids in the thorax, gives very particular directions, by means of succussion, for arriving at an opinion regarding their nature. Laennec says, “Hippocrate avait tenté l’auscultation immédiate.” Although the treatise Περὶ νούσων is doubtfully from the pen of Hippocrates, it contains strong evidence of having been the work of his grandson, representing the views of the Father of Medicine. Although not accurate in the conclusions reached at the time, the value of the method of diagnosis is shown by the retention in modern medicine of the name and the practice of “Hippocratic succussion.” The power of graphic description of phenomena in the Hippocratic writings is illustrated by the retention of the term “facies Hippocratica,” applied to the appearance of a moribund person, pictured in the Prognostics. In surgery his writings are important and interesting, but they do not bear the same character of caution as the treatises on medicine; for instance, in the essay On Injuries of the Head, he advocates the operation “of trephining” more strongly and in wider classes of cases than would be warranted by the experience of later times.
The Hippocratic Collection consists of eighty-seven treatises, of which a part only can be accepted as genuine. The collection has been submitted to the closest criticism in ancient and modern times by a large number of commentators (for full list of the early commentators, see Adams’s Genuine Works of Hippocrates, Sydenham Society, i. 27, 28). The treatises have been classified according to (1) the direct evidence of ancient writers, (2) peculiarities of style and method, and (3) the presence of anachronisms and of opinions opposed to the general Hippocratic teaching—greatest weight being attached to the opinions of Erotian and Galen. The general estimate of commentators is thus stated by Adams: “The peculiar style and method of Hippocrates are held to be conciseness of expression, great condensation of matter, and disposition to regard all professional subjects in a practical point of view, to eschew subtle hypotheses and modes of treatment based on vague abstractions.” The treatises have been grouped in the four following sections: (1) genuine; (2) those consisting of notes taken by students and collected after the death of Hippocrates; (3) essays by disciples; (4) those utterly spurious. Littré accepts the following thirteen as absolutely genuine: (1) On Ancient Medicine (Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς); (2) The Prognostics (Προγνωστικόν); (3) The Aphorisms (Ἀφορισμοί); (4) The Epidemics, i. and iii. (Ἐπιδημιῶν α′ καὶ γ′); (5) On Regimen in Acute Diseases (Περὶ διαίτης ὀξέων); (6) On Airs, Waters, and Places (Περὶ ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, καὶ τόπων); (7) On the Articulations (Περὶ ἄρθρων); (8) On Fractures (Περὶ ἀγμῶν); (9) The Instruments of Reduction (Μοχλικός); (10) The Physician’s Establishment, or Surgery (Κατ᾽ ἰητρεῖον); (11) On Injuries of the Head (Περὶ τῶν ἐν κεφαλῇ τρωμάτων); (12) The Oath (Ὅρκος); (13) The Law (Νόμος). Of these Adams accepts as certainly genuine the 2nd, 6th, 5th, 3rd (7 books), 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th, and as “pretty confidently acknowledged as genuine, although the evidence in their favour is not so strong,” the 1st, 10th and 13th, and, in addition, (14) On Ulcers (Περὶ ἑλκῶν); (15) On Fistulae (Περὶ συρίγγων); (16) On Hemorrhoids (Περὶ αἱμοῤῥοΐδων); (17) On the Sacred Disease (Περὶ ἱερῆς νούσου). According to the sceptical and somewhat subjective criticism of Ermerins, the whole collection is to be regarded as spurious except Epidemics, books i. and iii. (with a few interpolations), On Airs, Waters, and Places, On Injuries of the Head (“insigne fragmentum libri Hippocratei”), the former portion of the treatise On Regimen in Acute Diseases, and the “obviously Hippocratic” fragments of the Coan Prognostics. Perhaps also the Oath may be accepted as genuine; its comparative antiquity is not denied. The Aphorisms are certainly later and inferior. In the other non-Hippocratic writings Ermerins thinks he can distinguish the hands of no fewer than nineteen different authors, most of them anonymous, and some of them very late.
The earliest Greek edition of the Hippocratic writings is that which was published by Aldus and Asulanus at Venice in 1526 (folio); it was speedily followed by that of Frobenius, which is much more accurate and complete (fol., Basel, 1538). Of the numerous subsequent editions, probably the best was that of Foesius (Frankfort, 1595, 1621, Geneva, 1657), until the publication of the great works of Littré, Œuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, traduction nouvelle avec le texte grec en regard, collationnée sur les manuscrits et toutes les éditions, accompagnée d’une introduction, de commentaires médicaux, de variantes, et de notes philologiques (10 vols., Paris, 1839-1861), and of F. Z. Ermerins, Hippocratis et aliorum medicorum veterum reliquiae (3 vols., Utrecht, 1859-1864). See also Adams (as cited above), and Reinhold’s Hippocrates (2 vols., Athens, 1864-1867). Daremberg’s edition of the Œuvres choisies (2nd ed., Paris, 1855) includes the Oath, the Law, the Prorrhetics, book i., the Prognostics, On Airs, Waters, and Places, Epidemics, books i. and iii., Regimen, and Aphorisms. Of the separate works attributed to Hippocrates the editions and translations are almost innumerable; of the Prognostics, for example, seventy editions are known, while of the Aphorisms there are said to exist as many as three hundred. For some notice of the Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew translations of works 519 professedly by Hippocrates (Ibukrat or Bukrat), the number of which greatly exceeds that of the extant Greek originals, reference may be made to Flügel’s contribution to the article “Hippokrates” in the Encyklopädie of Ersch and Gruber. They have been partially catalogued by Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Graeca.
1 “Hippocrates Cous, primus quidem ex omnibus memoria dignus, ab studio sapientiae disciplinam hanc separavit, vir et arte et facundia insignis” (Celsus, De medicina).
HIPPOCRENE (the “fountain of the horse,” ἡ ἵππου κρήνη), the spring on Mt Helicon, in Boeotia, which, like the other spring there, Aganippe, was sacred to the Muses and Apollo, and hence taken as the source of poetic inspiration. The spring, surrounded by an ancient wall, is now known as Kryopegadi or the cold spring. According to the legend, it was produced by the stamping of the hoof of Bellerophon’s horse Pegasus. The same story accounts for the Hippocrene in Troezen and the spring Peirene at Corinth.
HIPPODAMUS, of Miletus, a Greek architect of the 5th century B.C. It was he who introduced order and regularity into the planning of cities, in place of the previous intricacy and confusion. For Pericles he planned the arrangement of the harbour-town Peiraeus at Athens. When the Athenians founded Thurii in Italy he accompanied the colony as architect, and afterwards, in 408 B.C., he superintended the building of the new city of Rhodes. His schemes consisted of series of broad, straight streets, cutting one another at right angles.
HIPPODROME (Gr. ἱππόδρομος, from ἵππος, horse, and δρόμος, racecourse), the course provided by the Greeks for horse and chariot racing; it corresponded to the Roman circus, except that in the latter only four chariots ran at a time, whereas ten or more contended in the Greek games, so that the width was far greater, being about 400 ft., the course being 600 to 700 ft. long. The Greek hippodrome was usually set out on the slope of a hill, and the ground taken from one side served to form the embankment on the other side. One end of the hippodrome was semicircular, and the other end square with an extensive portico, in front of which, at a lower level, were the stalls for the horses and chariots. The modern hippodrome is more for equestrian and other displays than for horse racing. The Hippodrome in Paris somewhat resembles the Roman amphitheatre, being open in the centre to the sky, with seats round on rising levels.
HIPPOLYTUS, in Greek legend, son of Theseus and Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons (or of her sister Antiope), a famous hunter and charioteer and favourite of Artemis. His stepmother Phaedra became enamoured of him, but, finding her advances rejected, she hanged herself, leaving a letter in which she accused Hippolytus of an attempt upon her virtue. Theseus thereupon drove his son from his presence with curses and called upon his father Poseidon to destroy him. While Hippolytus was driving along the shore at Troezen (the scene of the Hippolytus of Euripides), a sea-monster (a bull or phoca) sent by Poseidon emerged from the waves; the horses were scared, Hippolytus was thrown out of the chariot, and was dragged along, entangled in the reins, until he died. According to a tradition of Epidaurus, Asclepius restored him to life at the request of Artemis, who removed him to Italy (see Virbius). At Troezen, where he had a special sanctuary and priest, and was worshipped with divine honours, the story of his death was denied. He was said to have been rescued by the gods at the critical moment, and to have been placed amongst the stars as the Charioteer (Auriga). It was also the custom of the Troezenian maidens to cut off a lock of their hair and to dedicate it to Hippolytus before marriage (see Frazer on Pausanias ii. 32. 1). Well-known classical parallels to the main theme are Bellerophon and Antea (or Stheneboea) and Peleus and Astydamia. The story was the subject of two plays by Euripides (the later of which is extant), of a tragedy by Seneca and of Racine’s Phèdre. A trace of it has survived in the legendary death of the apocryphal martyr Hippolytus, a Roman officer who was torn to pieces by wild horses as a convert to Christianity (see J. J. Döllinger, Hippolytus and Callistus, Eng. tr. by A. Plummer, 1876, pp. 28-39, 51-60).
According to the older explanations, Hippolytus represented the sun, which sets in the sea (cf. the scene of his death and the story of Phaëthon), and Phaedra the moon, which travels behind the sun, but is unable to overtake it. It is more probable, however, that he was a local hero famous for his chastity, perhaps originally a priest of Artemis, worshipped as a god at Troezen, where he was closely connected and sometimes confounded with Asclepius. It is noteworthy that, in a speech put into the mouth of Theseus by Euripides, the father, who of course believes his wife’s story and regards Hippolytus as a hypocrite, throws his son’s pretended misogyny and asceticism (Orphism) in his teeth. This seems to point to a struggle between a new ritual and that of Poseidon, the chief deity of Troezen, in which the representative of the intruding religion meets his death through the agency of the offended god, as Orpheus (q.v.) was torn to pieces by the votaries of the jealous Dionysus. According to S. Reinach (Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, x., 1907, p. 47), the Troezenian Hippolytus was a horse, the hypostasis of an equestrian divinity periodically torn to pieces by the faithful, who called themselves, and believed themselves to be, horses. Death was followed by resuscitation, as in the similar myths of Adonis (the sacred boar), Orpheus (the fox), Pentheus (the fawn), Phaëthon (the white sun-horse).
See Wilamowitz-Möllendorff’s Introduction to his German translation of Euripides’ Hippolytus (1891); A. Kalkmann, De Hippolytis Euripideis (Bonn, 1882); and (for representations in art) “Über Darstellung der Hippolytussage” in Archäologische Zeitung (xli. 1883); J. E. Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens (1890), cl.
HIPPOLYTUS, a writer of the early Church. The mystery which enveloped the person and writings of Hippolytus,1 one of the most prolific ecclesiastical writers of early times, had some light thrown upon it for the first time about the middle of the 19th century by the discovery of the so-called Philosophumena (see below). Assuming this writing to be the work of Hippolytus, the information given in it as to the author and his times can be combined with other traditional dates to form a tolerably clear picture. Hippolytus must have been born in the second half of the 2nd century, probably in Rome. Photius describes him in his Bibliotheca (cod. 121) as a disciple of Irenaeus, and from the context of this passage it is supposed that we may conclude that Hippolytus himself so styled himself. But this is not certain, and even if it were, it does not necessarily imply that Hippolytus enjoyed the personal teaching of the celebrated Gallic bishop; it may perhaps merely refer to that relation of his theological system to that of Irenaeus which can easily be traced in his writings. As a presbyter of the church at Rome under Bishop Zephyrinus (199-217), Hippolytus was distinguished for his learning and eloquence. It was at this time that Origen, then a young man, heard him preach (Hieron. Vir. ill. 61; cp. Euseb. H.E. vi. 14, 10). It was probably not long before questions of theology and church discipline brought him into direct conflict with Zephyrinus, or at any rate with his successor Calixtus I. (q.v.). He accused the bishop of favouring the Christological heresies of the Monarchians, and, further, of subverting the discipline of the Church by his lax action in receiving back into the Church those guilty of gross offences. The result was a schism, and for perhaps over ten years Hippolytus stood as bishop at the head of a separate church. Then came the persecution under Maximinus the Thracian. Hippolytus and Pontius, who was then bishop, were transported in 235 to Sardinia, where it would seem that both of them died. From the so-called chronograph of the year 354 (Catalogus Liberianus) we learn that on the 13th of August, probably in 236, the bodies of the exiles were interred in Rome and that of Hippolytus in the cemetery on the Via Tiburtina. So we must suppose that before his death the schismatic was received again into the bosom of the Church, and this is confirmed by the fact that his memory was henceforth celebrated in the Church as that of a holy martyr. Pope Damasus I. dedicated to him one of his famous epigrams, and Prudentius (Peristephanon, 11) drew a highly coloured picture of his gruesome death, the details of which are certainly purely legendary: the myth of Hippolytus the son of Theseus was transferred to the Christian martyr. Of the historical Hippolytus little remained in the memory of after 520 ages. Neither Eusebius (H.E. vi. 20, 2) nor Jerome (Vir. ill. 61) knew that the author so much read in the East and the Roman saint were one and the same person. The notice in the Chronicon Paschale preserves one slight reminiscence of the historical facts, namely, that Hippolytus’s episcopal see was situated at Portus near Rome. In 1551 a marble statue of a seated man was found in the cemetery of the Via Tiburtina: on the sides of the seat were carved a paschal cycle, and on the back the titles of numerous writings. It was the statue of Hippolytus, a work at any rate of the 3rd century; at the time of Pius IX. it was placed in the Lateran Museum, a record in stone of a lost tradition.
Hippolytus’s voluminous writings, which for variety of subject can be compared with those of Origen, embrace the spheres of exegesis, homiletics, apologetics and polemic, chronography and ecclesiastical law. His works have unfortunately come down to us in such a fragmentary condition that it is difficult to obtain from them any very exact notion of his intellectual and literary importance. Of his exegetical works the best preserved are the Commentary on the Prophet Daniel and the Commentary on the Song of Songs. In spite of many instances of a want of taste in his typology, they are distinguished by a certain sobriety and sense of proportion in his exegesis. We are unable to form an opinion of Hippolytus as a preacher, for the Homilies on the Feast of Epiphany which go under his name are wrongly attributed to him. He wrote polemical words directed against the pagans, the Jews and heretics. The most important of these polemical treatises is the Refutation of all Heresies, which has come to be known by the inappropriate title of the Philosophumena. Of its ten books, the second and third are lost; Book i. was for a long time printed (with the title Philosophumena) among the works of Origen; Books iv.-x. were found in 1842 by the Greek Minoides Mynas, without the name of the author, in a MS. at Mount Athos. It is nowadays universally admitted that Hippolytus was the author, and that Books i. and iv.-x. belong to the same work. The importance of the work has, however, been much overrated; a close examination of the sources for the exposition of the Gnostic system which is contained in it has proved that the information it gives is not always trustworthy. Of the dogmatic works, that on Christ and Antichrist survives in a complete state. Among other things it includes a vivid account of the events preceding the end of the world, and it was probably written at the time of the persecution under Septimius Severus, i.e. about 202. The influence of Hippolytus was felt chiefly through his works on chronographic and ecclesiastical law. His chronicle of the world, a compilation embracing the whole period from the creation of the world up to the year 234, formed a basis for many chronographical works both in the East and West. In the great compilations of ecclesiastical law which arose in the East since the 4th century (see below: also Apostolic Constitutions) much of the material was taken from the writings of Hippolytus; how much of this is genuinely his, how much of it worked over, and how much of it wrongly attributed to him, can no longer be determined beyond dispute even by the most learned investigation.
Bibliography.—The edition of J. A. Fabricius, Hippolyti opera graece et latine (2 vols., Hamburg, 1716-1718, reprinted in Gallandi, Bibliotheca veterum patrum (vol. ii., 1766), and Migne, Cursus patrol. ser. Graeca, vol. x.) is out of date. The preparation of a complete critical edition has been undertaken by the Prussian Academy of Sciences. The task is one of extraordinary difficulty, for the textual problems of the various writings are complex and confused: the Greek original is extant in a few cases only (the Commentary on Daniel, the Refutation, on Antichrist, parts of the Chronicle, and some fragments); for the rest we are dependent on fragments of translations, chiefly Slavonic, all of which are not even published. Of the Academy’s edition one volume was published at Berlin in 1897, containing the Commentaries on Daniel and on the Song of Songs, the treatise on Antichrist, and the Lesser Exegetical and Homiletic Works, edited by Nathanael Bonwetsch and Hans Achelis. The Commentary on the Song of Songs has also been published by Bonwetsch (Leipzig, 1902) in a German translation based on a Russian translation by N. Marr of the Grusian (Georgian) text, and he added to it (Leipzig, 1904) a translation of various small exegetical pieces, which are preserved in a Georgian version only (The Blessing of Jacob, The Blessing of Moses, The Narrative of David and Goliath). A great part of the original of the Chronicle has been published by Adolf Bauer (Leipzig, 1905) from the Codex Matritensis Graecus, 221. For the Refutation we are still dependent on the editions of Miller (Oxford, 1851), Duncker and Schneidewin (Göttingen, 1859), and Cruice (Paris, 1860). An English translation is to be found in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1868-1869).
See Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age (1852, 2nd ed., 1854; Ger. ed., 1853); Döllinger, Hippolytus und Kallistus (Regensb. 1853; Eng. transl., Edinb., 1876); Gerhard Ficker, Studien zur Hippolytfrage (Leipzig, 1893); Hans Achelis, Hippolytstudien (Leipzig, 1897); Karl Johannes Neumann, Hippolytus von Rom in seiner Stellung zu Staat und Welt, part i. (Leipzig, 1902); Adhémar d’Alès, La Théologie de Saint Hippolyte (Paris, 1906).
1 According to the legend St Hippolytus was a Roman soldier who was converted by St Lawrence.
HIPPOLYTUS, THE CANONS OF. This book stands at the head of a series of Church Orders, which contain instructions in regard to the choice and ordination of Christian ministers, regulations as to widows and virgins, conditions of reception of converts from heathenism, preparation for and administration of baptism, rules for the celebration of the eucharist, for fasting, daily prayers, charity suppers, memorial meals, first-fruits, &c. We shall give (1) a description of the book as we have it at present; (2) a brief statement of its relation to allied documents; (3) some remarks on the evidence for its date and authorship.
1. We possess the Canons of Hippolytus only in an Arabic version, itself made from a Coptic version of the original Greek. Attention was called to the book by Wansleben and Ludolf towards the end of the 17th century, but it was only in 1870 that it was edited by Haneberg, who added a Latin translation, and so made it generally accessible. In 1891 H. Achelis reproduced this translation in a revised form, embodying it in a synopsis of allied documents. He suspected much interpolation and derangement of order, and consequently rearranged its contents with a free hand. In 1900 a German translation was made by H. Riedel, based on fresh MSS. These showed that the book, as hitherto edited, had been thrown into disorder by the displacement of two pages near the end; they also removed other difficulties upon which the theory of interpolation had been based. Further discoveries, to be spoken of presently, have added to our materials for the study of the book.
The book is attributed to “Hippolytus, the chief of the bishops of Rome,” and is divided into thirty-eight canons, to which short headings are prefixed. This division is certainly not original, but it is convenient for purposes of reference. Canon 1 is prefatory; it contains a brief confession of faith in the Trinity, and especially in the Word, the Son of God; and it speaks of the expulsion of heretics from the Church. Canons 2-5 give regulations for the selection and ordination of bishops, presbyters and deacons. The bishop is chosen by the whole congregation: “one of the bishops and presbyters” is to lay hands upon him and say a prayer which follows (3): he is at once to proceed with “the offering,” taking up the eucharistic service at the point where the sursum corda comes in. A presbyter (4) is to be ordained with the same prayer as a bishop, “with the exception of the word bishop”; but he is given no power of ordination (this appears to be inconsistent with c. 2). The duties of a deacon are described, and the prayer of his ordination follows (5). Canons 6-9 deal with various classes in the Church. One who has suffered punishment for the faith (6) is to be counted a presbyter without ordination: “his confession is his ordination.” Readers and sub-deacons (7) are given the Gospel, but are not ordained by laying-on of hands. A claim to ordination on the ground of gifts of healing (8) is to be admitted, if the facts are clear and the healing is from God. Widows are not ordained (9): “ordination is for men only.” Canons 10-15 describe conditions for the admission of converts. Certain occupations are incompatible with Christian life: only under compulsion may a Christian be a soldier. Canons 16-18 deal chiefly with regulations concerning women. Canon 19 is a long one dealing with catechumens, preparation for baptism, administration of that sacrament, and of the eucharist for the newly baptized. The candidate is twice anointed: first, with the oil of exorcism, after he has said, with his face westward, “I renounce thee, O devil, and all thy following”; and, again, immediately after the baptism. As he stands in the water, he declares his faith in response to an interrogatory creed; and after each of the three clauses he is immersed. After the second anointing the bishop gives thanks “for that Thou hast made them worthy that they should be born again, and hast poured out Thy Holy Ghost upon them, so that they may belong, each one of them, to the body of the Church”: he signs them with the cross on their foreheads, and kisses them. The eucharist then proceeds: “the bishop gives them of the body of Christ and says, This is the body of Christ, and they answer Amen”; and similarly for the cup. 521 Milk and honey are then given to them as being “born a second time as little children.” A warning is added against eating anything before communicating. Canons 20-22 deal with fast-days, daily services in church, and the fast of the passover-week. Canon 23 seems as if it closed the series, speaking, as it does, of “our brethren the bishops” who in their cities have made regulations “according to the commands of our fathers the apostles”: “let none of our successors alter them; because it saith that the teaching is greater than the sea, and hath no end.” We pass on, however, to regulations about the sick (24) who are to be visited by the bishop, “because it is a great thing for the sick that the high-priest should visit them (for the shadow of Peter healed the sick).” Canons 25-27 deal again with prayers and church-services. The “seven hours” are specified, with reasons for their observance (25): attendance at sermons is urged (26), “for the Lord is in the place where his lordship is proclaimed” (comp. Didachè 4, part of the Two Ways). When there are no prayers in church, reading at home is enjoined (27): “let the sun each morning see the book upon thy knees” (comp. Ath. Ad virg., § 12, “Let the sun when he ariseth see the book in thy hands”). Prayer must be preceded by the washing of the hands. “No believer must take food before communicating, especially on fast-days”: only believers may communicate (28). The sacred elements must be guarded, “lest anything fall into the cup, and it be a sin unto death for the presbyters.” No crumb must be dropped, “lest an evil spirit get possession of it.” Canons 30-35 contain various rules, and specially deal with suppers for the poor (i.e. agapae) and memorial feasts. Then we have a prayer for the offering of first-fruits (36); a direction that ministers shall wear fair garments at “the mysteries” (37); and a command to watch during the night of the resurrection (38). The last canon hereupon passes into a general exhortation to right living, which forms a sixth part of the whole book. In Riedel’s translation we read this for the first time as a connected whole. It falls into two parts, and describes, first, the true life of ordinary Christians, warning them against an empty profession, and laying down many precepts of morality; and then it addresses itself to the “ascete” who “wishes to belong to the rank of the angels,” and who lives a life of solitude and poverty. He is encouraged by an exposition, on somewhat strange lines, of the temptations of our Lord, and is specially warned against spiritual pride and contempt of other men. The book closes with an appeal for love and mutual service, based on the parables in St Matthew xxv.
2. It is impossible to estimate the position of the Canons of Hippolytus without some reference to allied documents (see Apostolical Constitutions). (a) The most important of these is what is now commonly called the Egyptian Church Order. This is preserved to us in Coptic and Aethiopic versions, of which Achelis, in his synopsis, gives German translations. The subject-matter and arrangement of these canons correspond generally to those of Hippolytus; but many of the details are modified to bring them into accord with a later practice. A new light was thrown on the criticism of this work by Hauler’s discovery (1900) of a Latin version (of which, unfortunately, about half is missing) in the Verona palimpsest, from which he has also given us large Latin fragments of the Didascalia (which underlies books i.-vi. of the Apostolic Constitutions, and which hitherto we have only known from the Syriac). The Latin of the Egyptian Church Order is somewhat more primitive than the Coptic, and approaches more nearly, at some points, to the Canons of Hippolytus. It has a preface which refers to a treatise Concerning Spiritual Gifts, as having immediately preceded it; but neither this nor the Coptic-Aethiopic form has either the introduction or concluding exhortation which is found in the Canons of Hippolytus. (b) The Testament of the Lord is a document in Syriac, of which the opening part had been published by Lagarde, and of which Rahmani (1899) has given us the whole. It professes to contain instructions given by our Lord to the apostles after the resurrection. After an introduction containing apocalyptical matter, it passes on to give elaborate directions for the ordering of the Church, embodying, in a much-expanded form, the Egyptian Church Order, and showing a knowledge of the preface to that document which appears in the Latin version. It cannot be placed with probability earlier than the latter part of the 4th century. (c) The Apostolic Constitutions is a composite document, which probably belongs to the end of the 4th century. Its first six books are an expanded edition of a Didascalia which we have already mentioned: its seventh book similarly expands and modifies the Didachè its eighth book begins by treating of “spiritual gifts,” and then in c. 3 passes on to expand in like manner the Egyptian Church Order. The hand which has wrought up all these documents has been shown to be that of the interpolator of the Ignatian Epistles in the longer Greek recension. (d) The Canons of Basil is the title of an Arabic work, of which a German translation has been given us by Riedel, who thinks that they have come through Coptic from an original Greek book. They embody, in a modified form, considerable portions of the Canons of Hippolytus.
3. We now approach the difficult questions of date and authorship. Much of the material has been quite recently brought to light, and criticism has not had time to investigate and pronounce upon it. Some provisional remarks, therefore, are all that can prudently be made. It seems plain that we have two lines of tradition: (1) The Canons of Hippolytus, followed by the Canons of Basil; (2) the Egyptian Church Order, itself represented (a) by the Latin version, the Testament of the Lord, and the Apostolic Constitutions, which are linked together by the same preface (or portions of it); (b) by the Coptic and Aethiopic versions. Now, the preface of the Latin version points to a time when the canons were embodied in a corpus of similar materials, or, at the least, were preceded by a work on “Spiritual Gifts.” The Canons of Hippolytus have a wholly different preface, and also a long exhortation at the close. The question which criticism must endeavour to answer is, whether the Canons of Hippolytus are the original from which the Egyptian Church Order is derived, or whether an earlier body of canons lies behind them both. At present it is probably wise to assume that the latter is the true explanation. For the Canons of Hippolytus appear to contain contradictory regulations (e.g. cc. 2 and 4 of the presbyters), and also suggest that they have received a considerable supplement (after c. 23). There is, however, no doubt that they present us with a more primitive stage of Church life than we find in the Egyptian Church Order. The mention of sub-deacons (which, after Riedel’s fresh manuscript evidence, cannot now be dismissed as due to interpolation) makes it difficult to assign a date much earlier than the middle of the 3rd century.
The Puritan severity of the canons well accords with the temper of the writer to whom the Arabic title attributes them; and it is to be noted that the exhortation at the close contains a quotation from 2 Peter actually attributed to the apostle, and Hippolytus is perhaps the earliest author who can with certainty be said to have used this epistle. But the general style of Hippolytus, which is simple, straight-forward and strong, is in marked contrast with that of the closing passage of the canons; moreover, his mind, as presented to us in his extant writings, appears to be a much larger one than that of the writer of these canons; it is as difficult to think of Hippolytus as it would be to think of Origen in such a connexion. How, then, are we to account for the attribution? There is evidence to show that Hippolytus was highly reverenced throughout the East: his writings, which were in Greek, were known, but his history was entirely unknown. He was supposed to be “a pupil (γνώριμος) of apostles” (Palladius, 4th century), and the Arabic title calls him “chief of the bishops of Rome,” i.e. archbishop of Rome. It is hard to trust this attribution more than the attribution of a Coptic discourse on the Dormitio Mariae to “Evodius, archbishop of the great city Rome, who was the second after Peter the apostle” (Texts and Studies, iv. 2-44)—Evodius being by tradition first bishop of Antioch. A whole group of books on Church Order bears the name of Clement of Rome; and the attribution of our canons to Hippolytus may be only an example of the same tendency. The fact that Hippolytus wrote a treatise Concerning Spiritual Gifts, and that some such treatise is not only referred to in the Latin preface to the Egyptian Church Order, but is actually found at the beginning of book viii. of the Apostolic Constitutions, introduces an interesting complication; but we cannot here pursue the matter further. Dom Morin’s ingenious attribution of the canons to Dionysius of Alexandria (on the ground of Eusebius, H.E. vi. 46., 5) cannot be accepted in view of the broader church policy which that writer represents. If the Hippolytean authorship be given up, it is probable that Egypt will make 522 the strongest claim to be the locality in which the canons were compiled in their present form.
The authorities of chief practical importance are H. Achelis, Texte u. Unters. vi. 4 (1891); Rahmani, Testamentum Domini (1899); Hauler, Didascaliae Apostolorum (1900); Riedel, Kirchenrechtsquellen des Patriarchats Alexandrien (1900).
HIPPONAX, of Ephesus, Greek iambic poet. Expelled from Ephesus in 540 B.C. by the tyrant Athenagoras, he took refuge in Clazomenae, where he spent the rest of his life in poverty. His deformed figure and malicious disposition exposed him to the caricature of the Chian sculptors Bupalus and Athenis, upon whom he revenged himself by issuing against them a series of satires. They are said to have hanged themselves like Lycambes and his daughters when assailed by Archilochus, the model and predecessor of Hipponax. His coarseness of thought and feeling, his rude vocabulary, his want of grace and taste, and his numerous allusions to matters of merely local interest prevented his becoming a favourite in Attica. He was considered the inventor of parody and of a peculiar metre, the scazon or choliambus, which substitutes a spondee for the final iambus of an iambic senarius, and is an appropriate form for the burlesque character of his poems.
Fragments in Bergk, Poëtae lyrici Graeci; see also B. J. Peltzer, De parodica Graecorum poèsi (1855), containing an account of Hipponax and the fragments.
HIPPOPOTAMUS (“river-horse,” Gr. ἵππος, horse and ποταμός, river), the name of the largest representative of the non-ruminating artiodactyle ungulate mammals, and its living and extinct relatives. The common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), which formerly inhabited all the great rivers of Africa but whose range has now been much restricted, is most likely the behemoth of Scripture, and may very probably in Biblical times have been found in the Jordan valley, since at a still earlier (Pleistocene) epoch it ranged over a large part of Europe. It typifies not only a genus, but likewise a family, Hippopotamidae, distinguished from its relatives the pigs and peccaries, or Suidae, by the following assemblage of characters: Muzzle very broad and rounded. Feet short and broad, with four subequal toes, bearing short rounded hoofs, and all reaching the ground in walking. Incisors not rooted but continuously growing; those of the upper jaw curved and directed downwards; those of the lower straight and procumbent. Canines very large, curved, continuously growing; upper ones directed downwards. Premolars 4⁄4; molars 3⁄3. Stomach complex. No caecum.
The Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius). |
In form the hippopotamus is a huge, unwieldy creature, measuring in the largest specimens fully 14 ft. from the extremity of the upper lip to the tip of the tail, while it ordinarily attains a length of 12 ft., with a height of 5 ft. at the shoulders, and a girth round the thickest part of the body almost equal to its length. The small ears are exceedingly flexible, and kept in constant motion when the animal is seeking to catch a distant sound; the eyes are placed high up on the head, but little below the level of the ears; while the gape is wide, and the upper lip thick and bulging so as to cover over even its large tusks when the mouth is closed. The molars, which show trefoil-shaped grinding-surfaces are well adapted for masticating vegetable substances, while the formidable array of long spear-like incisors and curved chisel-edged canines or tusks root up rank grass like an agricultural implement. The legs are short, so that the body is but little elevated above the ground; and the feet, which are small in proportion to the size of the animal, terminate in four short toes each bearing a small hoof. With the exception of a few tufts of hair on the lips, on the sides of the head and neck, and at the extremity of the short robust tail, the skin of the hippopotamus, some portions of which are 2 in. in thickness, is destitute of covering. Hippopotamuses are gregarious animals, living in herds of from 20 to 40 individuals on the banks and in the beds of rivers, in the neighbourhood of which they most readily find appropriate food. This consists chiefly of grass and of aquatic plants, of which these animals consume enormous quantities, the stomach being capable of containing from 5 to 6 bushels. They feed principally by night, remaining in the water during the day, although in districts where they are little disturbed they are less exclusively aquatic. In such remote quarters, they put their heads boldly out of the water to blow, but when rendered suspicious they become exceedingly cautious in this respect, only exposing their nostrils above the water, and even this they prefer doing amid the shelter of water plants. In spite of their enormous size and uncouth form, they are expert swimmers and divers, and can remain easily under the water from five to eight minutes. They walk on the bottoms of rivers, beneath at least 1 ft. of water. At nightfall they come on land to feed; and when, as often happens on the banks of the Nile, they reach cultivated ground, they do immense damage to growing crops, destroying by their ponderous tread even more than they devour. To scare away these unwelcome visitors the natives in such districts are in the habit of kindling fires at night. Although hippopotamuses do not willingly go far from the water on which their existence depends, they occasionally travel long distances by night in search of food, and in spite of their clumsy appearance are able to climb steep banks and precipitous ravines with ease. Of a wounded hippopotamus which Sir S. Baker saw leaving the water and galloping inland, he writes: “I never could have imagined that so unwieldy an animal could have exhibited such speed. No man could have had a chance of escape.” The hippopotamus does not confine itself to rivers and lakes, but has been known to prefer the waters of the ocean as its home during the day. Of a mild and inoffensive disposition, it seeks to avoid collision with man; when wounded, however, or in defence of its young, it exhibits great ferocity, and native canoes are capsized and occasionally demolished by its infuriated attacks; the bellowing grunt then becoming loud enough to be heard a mile away. As among elephants, so also among hippopotamuses there are “rogues”—old bulls which have become soured in solitude, and are at all times dangerous. Assuming the offensive on every occasion, they attack all and sundry without shadow of provocation; and the natives avoid their haunts, which are usually well known.
The only other living species is the pygmy hippopotamus, H. (Choeropsis) liberiensis, of West Africa, an animal not larger than a clumsily made pig of full dimensions, and characterized by having generally one (in place of two) pair of incisors. It is much less aquatic than its giant relative, having, in fact, the habits of a pig.
A small extinct species (H. lemerlei) inhabited Madagascar at a comparatively recent date; while other dwarf kinds were natives of Crete (H. minutus) and Malta and Sicily (H. pentlandi) during the Pleistocene. A large form of the ordinary species (H. amphibius major) was distributed over Europe as far north as Yorkshire at the same epoch; while an allied species (H. palaeindicus) inhabited Pleistocene India. Contemporary with the latter was, however, a species (H. namadicus) with three pairs of incisors; and “hexaprotodont” hippopotamuses are 523 also characteristic of the Pliocene of India and Burma (H. sivalensis and H. iravadicus), and of Algeria, Egypt and southern Europe (H. hipponensis).
For the ancestral genera of the hippopotamus line, see Artiodactyla.
HIPPURIC ACID (Gr. ἵππος, horse, οὖρον, urine), benzoyl glycocoll or benzoyl amidoacetic acid, C9H9NO3 or C6H5CO·NH·CH2·CO2H, an organic acid found in the urine of horses and other herbivorae. It is excreted when many aromatic compounds, such as benzoic acid and toluene, are taken internally. J. v. Liebig in 1829 showed that it differed from benzoic acid, and in 1839 determined its constitution, while in 1853 V. Dessaignes (Ann. 87, p. 325) synthesized it by acting with benzoyl chloride on zinc glycocollide. It is also formed by heating benzoic anhydride with glycocoll (Th. Curtius, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 1662), and by heating benzamide with monochloracetic acid. It crystallizes in rhombic prisms which are readily soluble in hot water, melt at 187° C. and decompose at about 240° C. It is readily hydrolysed by hot caustic alkalis to benzoic acid and glycocoll. Nitrous acid converts it into benzoyl glycollic acid, C6H5CO·O·CH2·CO2H. Its ethyl ester reacts with hydrazine to form hippuryl hydrazine, C6H5CO·NH·CH2·CO·NH·NH2, which was used by Curtius for the preparation of azoimide (q.v.).
HIPURNIAS, a tribe of South American Indians, 2000 or 3000 in number, living on the river Purus, western Brazil. Their houses are long, low and narrow: the side walls and roof are one, poles being fixed in the ground and then bent together so as to meet and form a pointed arch for the cross-sections. They use small bark canoes. Their chief weapons are poisoned arrows. They have a native god called Guintiniri.
HIRA, the capital of an Arabian kingdom, founded in the 2nd century A.D., on the western edge of Irak, was situated at 32° N., 44° 20′ E., about 4 m. S.E. of modern Nejef, by the Sa’ade canal, on the shore of the Bahr Nejef or Assyrium Stagnum. Its kings governed the western shore of the lower Euphrates and of the Persian Gulf, their kingdom extending inland to the confines of the Nejd. This Lakhmid kingdom was more or less dependent, during the four centuries of its existence, on the Sassanian empire, to which it formed a sort of buffer state towards Arabia. After the battle of Kadesiya and the founding of Kufa by the Arabs, Hira lost its importance and fell into decay. The ruin mounds covering the ancient site, while extensive, are insignificant in appearance and give no indications of the existence of important buildings.
HIRADO, an island belonging to Japan, 19½ m. long and 6 m. wide, lying off the west coast of the province of Hizen, Kiushiu, in 33° 15′ N. and 129° 25′ E. It is celebrated as the site of the original Dutch factory—often erroneously written Firando—and as the place where one of the finest blue-and-white porcelains of Japan (Hiradoyaki) was produced in the 17th and 18th centuries. The kilns are still active.
HIRE-PURCHASE AGREEMENT, in the law of contract, a form of bailment of goods, on credit, which has extended very considerably of late years. Originally applied to the sale of the more expensive kinds of goods, such as pianos and articles of furniture, the hire-purchase agreement has now been extended to almost every description. The agreement is usually in writing, with a stipulation that the payments to purchase shall be by weekly, monthly or other instalments. The agreement is virtually one to purchase, but in order that the vendor may be able to recover the goods at any time on non-payment of an instalment, it is treated as an agreement to let and hire, with a provision that when the last instalment has been paid the goods shall become the property of the hirer. A clause provides that in case of default of any instalment, or breach of any part of the agreement, all previous payments shall be forfeited to the lender, who can forcibly recover the goods. Such agreements, therefore, do not pass the property in the goods, which remains in the lender until all the instalments have been paid. But the terms of the agreement may sometimes purposely obscure the nature of the transaction between the parties, where, for example, the hire-purchase is merely to create a security for money. In such a case a judge will look to the true nature of the transaction. If it is not a real letting and hiring, the agreement will require registration under the Bills of Sale Acts. If the agreement contains words to the effect that a person has “bought or agreed to buy” goods, the transaction comes under the Factors Act 1889, and the person in possession of the goods may dispose of them and give a good title. The doctrine of reputed ownership, by which a bankrupt is deemed the reputed owner of goods in his apparent possession, has been somewhat modified by trade customs, in accordance with which property is frequently let out on the hire-purchase system (see Bankruptcy).
HIRING (from O. Eng. hýrian, a word common to many Teutonic languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.), in law, a contract by which one man grants the use of a thing to another in return for a certain price. It corresponds to the locatio-conductio of Roman law. That contract was either a letting of a thing (locatio-conductio rei) or of labour (locatio operarum). The distinguishing feature of the contract was the price. Thus the contracts of mutuum, commodatum, depositum and mandatum, which are all gratuitous contracts, become, if a price is fixed, cases of locatio-conductio. In modern English law the term can scarcely be said to be used in a strictly technical sense. The contracts which the Roman law grouped together under the head of locatio-conductio—such as those of landlord and tenant, master and servant, &c.—are not in English law treated as cases of hiring but as independent varieties of contract. Neither in law books nor in ordinary discourse could a tenant farmer be said to hire his land. Hiring would generally be applied to contracts in which the services of a man or the use of a thing are engaged for a short time.
Hiring Fairs, or Statute Fairs, still held in Wales and some parts of England, were formerly an annual fixture in every important country town. These fairs served to bring together masters and servants. The men and maids seeking work stood in rows, the males together and the females together, while masters and mistresses walked down the lines and selected those who suited them. Originally these hiring-fairs were always held on Martinmas Day (11th of November). Now they are held on different dates in different towns, usually in October or November. In Cumberland the men seeking work stood with straws in their mouths. In Lincolnshire the bargain between employer and employed was closed by the giving of the “fasten-penny,” the earnest money, usually a shilling, which “fastened” the contract for a twelvemonth. Some few days after the Statute Fair it was customary to hold a second called a Mop Fair or Runaway Mop. “Mop” (from Lat. mappa, napkin, or small cloth) meant in Old English a tuft or tassel, and the fair was so called, it is suggested, in allusion to tufts or badges worn by those seeking employment. Thus the carter wore whipcord on his hat, the cowherd a tuft of cow’s hair, and so on. Another possible explanation would be to take the word “mop” in its old provincial slang sense of “a fool,” mop fair being the fools’ fair, a sort of last chance offered to those who were too dull or slovenly-looking to be hired at the statute fair. Perhaps “runaway” suggests the idea of those absent through drunkenness, or those who simply feared to face the ordeal of the larger hiring and so ran away.
HIROSAKI, a town of Japan in the province of Michmoku or Rikuchiu, north Nippon, 22 m. S.W. of Aomori by rail. Pop. about 37,000. The fine isolated cone of Iwakisan, a mountain of pilgrimage, rises to the west. Hirosaki is a very old place, formerly residence of a great daimio (or daimyo) and capital of a vast principality, and still the seat of a high court with jurisdiction over the surrounding districts of Aomori and Akita. Like most places in north Nippon, it is built with continuous verandas extending from house to house, and affording a promenade completely sheltered from the snows of winter. Apples of fine flavour grow in the district, which also enjoys some reputation for its peculiar green lacquer-ware.
HIROSHIGE (1797-1858), Japanese artist, was one of the principal members of that branch of the Ukiyo-ye or Popular School of Painting in Japan, a school which chiefly made 524 colour-prints. His family name was Andō Tokitarō; that under which he is known having been, in accordance with Japanese practice, adopted by him in recognition of the fact that he was a pupil of Toyohiro. The earliest reference to him is in the account given by an inhabitant of the Lu-chu islands of a visit to Japan; where a sketch of a procession drawn with great skill by Hiroshige at the age of ten years only is mentioned as one of the remarkable sights seen. At the age of fifteen he applied unsuccessfully to be admitted to the studio of the elder Toyokuni; but was eventually received by Toyohiro. On the death of the latter in 1828, he began to practise on his own account, but finding small encouragement at Yedo (Tōkyō) he removed to Kiōto, where he published a set of landscapes. He soon returned to Yedo, where his work soon became popular, and was imitated by other artists. He died in that city on the 6th day of the 9th month of the year, Ansei 5th, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried at Asakusa. One of his pupils, Hironobu, received from him the name of Hiroshige II. and another, Ando Tokubei, that of Hiroshige III. All three were closely associated with the work signed with the name of the master. Hiroshige II. some time after the year 1863 fell into disgrace and was compelled to leave Yedo for Nagasaki, where he died; Hiroshige III. then called himself Hiroshige II. He died in 1896. The earlier prints by these artists, whose work can hardly be separated, are of extraordinary merit. They applied the process of colour block printing to the purposes of depicting landscape, with a breadth, skill and suitability of convention that has been equalled only by Hokusai in Japan, and by no European. Most of their subjects were derived from the neighbourhood of Yedo, or were scenes on the old high road—the Tokaidō—that ran from that city to Kiōto. The two elder of the name were competent painters, and pictures and drawings by them are occasionally to be met with.
See E. F. Strange, “Japanese Colour-prints” (Victoria and Albert Museum Handbook, 1904).
HIROSHIMA, a city and seaport of Japan, capital of the government of its name in central Nippon. Pop. (1903) 113,545. It is very beautifully situated on a small plain surrounded by hills, the bay being studded with islands. In its general aspect it resembles Osaka, from which it is 190 m. W. by rail, and next to that place and Hiogo it is the most important commercial centre on the Inland Sea. The government has an area of about 3000 sq. m., with a population of about 1,500,000. Hiroshima is famous all over Japan owing to its association with the neighbouring islet of Itaku-Shima, “Island of Light,” which is dedicated to the goddess Bentin and regarded as one of the three wonders of Japan. The chief temple dates from the year 587, and the island, which is inhabited largely by priests and their attendants, is annually visited by thousands of pilgrims. But the hallowed soil is never tilled, so that all provisions have to be brought from the surrounding districts.
HIRPINI (from an Oscan or Sabine stem hirpo-, “wolf”), an inland Samnite tribe in the south of Italy, whose territory was bounded by that of the Lucani on the S., the Campani on the S.W., the Appuli (Apuli) and Frentani on the E. and N.E. On the N. we find them, politically speaking, identified with the Pentri and Caracēni, and with them constituting the Samnite alliance in the wars of the 4th century B.C. (see Samnites). The Roman policy of separation cut them off from these allies by the foundation of Beneventum in 268 B.C., and henceforward they are a separate unit; they joined Hannibal in 216 B.C., and retained their independence until, after joining in the Social war, which in their part of Italy can hardly be said to have ceased till the final defeat of the Samnites by Sulla in 83 B.C., they received the Roman franchise. Of their Oscan speech, besides the evidence of their place-names, only a few fragments survive (R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, pp. 170 ff.; and for hirpo-, ib. p. 200). In the ethnology of Italy the Hirpini appear from one point of view as the purest type of Safine stock, namely, that in which the proportion of ethnica formed with the suffix -no- is highest, thirty-three out of thirty-six tribal or municipal epithets being formed thereby (e.g. Caudini, Compsani) and only one with the suffix -ti- (Abellinates), where it is clearly secondary. On the significance of this see Sabini.
HIRSAU (formerly Hirschau), a village of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, on the Nagold and the Pforzheim-Horb railway, 2 m. N. of Calw. Pop. 800. Hirsau has some small manufactures, but it owes its origin and historical interest to its former Benedictine monastery, Monasterium Hirsaugiense, at one period one of the most famous in Europe. Its picturesque ruins, of which only the chapel with the library hall are still in good preservation, testify to the pristine grandeur of the establishment. It was founded about 830 by Count Erlafried of Calw, at the instigation of his son, Bishop Notting of Vercelli, who enriched it with, among other treasures, the body of St Aurelius. Its first occupants (838) were a colony of fifteen monks from Fulda, disciples of Hrabanus Maurus and Walafrid Strabo, headed by the abbot Liudebert. During about a century and a half, under the fostering care of the counts of Calw, it enjoyed great prosperity, and became an important seat of learning; but towards the end of the 10th century the ravages of the pestilence combined with the rapacity of its patrons, and the selfishness and immorality of its inmates, to bring it to the lowest ebb. After it had been desolate and in ruins for upwards of sixty years it was rebuilt in 1059, and under Abbot William—Wilhelm von Hirsau—abbot from 1069 to 1091, it more than regained its former splendour. By his Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, a new religious order, the Ordo Hirsaugiensis, was formed, the rule of which was afterwards adopted by many monastic establishments throughout Germany, such as those of Blaubeuren, Erfurt and Schaffhausen. The friend and correspondent of Pope Gregory VII., and of Anselm of Canterbury, Abbot William took active part in the politico-ecclesiastical controversies of his time; while a treatise from his pen, De musica et tonis, as well as the Philosophicarum et astronomicarum institutionum libri iii., bears witness to his interest in science and philosophy. About the end of the 12th century the material and moral welfare of Hirsau was again very perceptibly on the decline; and it never afterwards again rose into importance. In consequence of the Reformation it was secularized in 1558; in 1692 it was laid in ruins by the French. The Chronicon Hirsaugiense, or, as in the later edition it is called, Annales Hirsaugienses of Abbot Trithemius (Basel, 1559; St Gall, 1690), is, although containing much that is merely legendary, an important source of information, not only on the affairs of this monastery, but also on the early history of Germany. The Codex Hirsaugiensis was edited by A. F. Gfrörer and printed at Stuttgart in 1843.
See Steck, Das Kloster Hirschau (1844); Helmsdörfer, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Abts Wilhelm von Hirschau (Göttingen, 1874); Weizsäcker, Führer durch die Geschichte des Klosters Hirschau (Stuttgart, 1898); Süssmann, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Klosters Hirschau (Halle, 1903); Giseke, Die Hirschauer während des Investiturstreits (Gotha, 1883); C. H. Klaiber, Das Kloster Hirschau (Tübingen, 1886); and Baer, Die Hirsauer Bauschule (Freiburg, 1897).
HIRSCH, MAURICE DE, Baron Hirsch auf Gereuth, in the baronage of Bavaria (1831-1896), capitalist and philanthropist (German by birth, Austro-Hungarian by domicile), was born at Munich, 9th December 1831. His grandfather, the first Jewish landowner in Bavaria, was ennobled with the prädikat “auf Gereuth” in 1818; his father, who was banker to the Bavarian king, was created a baron in 1869. The family for generations has occupied a prominent position in the German Jewish community. At the age of thirteen young Hirsch was sent to Brussels to school, but when seventeen years old he went into business. In 1855 he became associated with the banking house of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt, of Brussels, London and Paris. He amassed a large fortune, which he increased by purchasing and working railway concessions in Austria, Turkey and the Balkans, and by speculations in sugar and copper. While living in great splendour in Paris and London and on his estates in Hungary, he devoted much of his time to schemes for the relief of his Hebrew co-religionists in lands where they were persecuted and oppressed. He took a deep interest in the educational work of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and on two occasions presented the society 525 with gifts of a million francs. For some years he regularly paid the deficits in the accounts of the Alliance, amounting to several thousand pounds a year. In 1889 he capitalized his donations and presented the society with securities producing an annual income of £16,000. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the emperor Francis Joseph’s accession to the Austrian throne he gave £500,000 for the establishment of primary and technical schools in Galicia and the Bukowina. The greatest charitable enterprise on which he embarked was in connexion with the persecution of the Jews in Russia (see Anti-Semitism). He gave £10,000 to the funds raised for the repatriation of the refugees in 1882, but, feeling that this was a very lame conclusion to the efforts made in western Europe for the relief of the Russian Jews, he offered the Russian Government £2,000,000 for the endowment of a system of secular education to be established in the Jewish pale of settlement. The Russian Government was willing to accept the money, but declined to allow any foreigner to be concerned in its control or administration. Thereupon Baron de Hirsch resolved to devote the money to an emigration and colonization scheme which should afford the persecuted Jews opportunities of establishing themselves in agricultural colonies outside Russia. He founded the Jewish Colonization Association as an English society, with a capital of £2,000,000, and in 1892 he presented to it a further sum of £7,000,000. On the death of his wife in 1899 the capital was increased to £11,000,000, of which £1,250,000 went to the Treasury, after some litigation, in death duties. This enormous fund, which is probably the greatest charitable trust in the world, is now managed by delegates of certain Jewish societies, chiefly the Anglo-Jewish Association of London and the Alliance Israélite Universelle of Paris, among whom the shares in the association have been divided. The association, which is prohibited from working for profit, possesses large colonies in South America, Canada and Asia Minor. In addition to its vast agricultural work it has a gigantic and complex machinery for dealing with the whole problem of Jewish persecution, including emigration and distributing agencies, technical schools, co-operative factories, savings and loan banks and model dwellings in the congested Russian jewries. It also subventions and assists a large number of societies all over the world whose work is connected with the relief and rehabilitation of Jewish refugees. Besides this great organization, Baron de Hirsch founded in 1891 a benevolent trust in the United States for the benefit of Jewish immigrants, which he endowed with £493,000. His minor charities were on a princely scale, and during his residence in London he distributed over £100,000 among the local hospitals. It was in this manner that he disposed of the whole gross proceeds derived from his successes on the English turf, of which he was a lavish patron. He raced, as he said himself, “for the London hospitals,” and in 1892, when his filly, La Flêche, won the Oaks, St Leger and One Thousand Guineas, his donations from this source amounted to about £40,000. Baron de Hirsch married on 28th June 1855 Clara, daughter of Senator Bischoffsheim of Brussels (b. 1833), by whom he had a son and daughter, both of whom predeceased him. He died at Ogyalla, near Komorn, in Hungary, 21st April 1896. The baroness, who seconded her husband’s charitable work with great munificence—their total benefactions have been estimated at £18,000,000,—died at Paris on the 1st of April 1899.
For details of Baron de Hirsch’s chief charities see the annual reports of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and of the “Administration Centrale” of the Jewish Colonization Association.
HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL (1808-1888), Jewish theologian, was born in Hamburg in 1808 and died at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1888. He opposed the reform tendency of Geiger (q.v.), and presented Jewish orthodoxy in a new and attractive light. His philosophical conception of tradition, associated as it was with conservatism in ritual practice, created what is often known as the Frankfort “Neo-Orthodoxy.” Hirsch exercised a profound influence on the Synagogue and undoubtedly stemmed the tide of liberalism. His famous Nineteen Letters (1836), with which the Neo-Orthodoxy began, were translated into English by Drachmann (New York, 1899). Other works by Hirsch were Horeb, and commentaries on the Pentateuch and Psalms. These are marked by much originality, but their exegesis is fanciful. Three volumes of his essays have been published (1902-1908); these were collected as Gesammelte Schriften from his periodical Jeschurun.
For Hirsch’s religious philosophy see S. A. Hirsch, A Book of Essays (London, 1905).
HIRSCHBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, beautifully situated at the confluence of the Bober and Zacken, 1120 ft. above the sea-level, 48 m. S.E. of Görlitz, on the railway to Glatz, with branches to Grünthal and Schmiedeberg. Pop. (1905) 19,317. It is surrounded by pleasant promenades occupying the site of its former fortifications. It possesses an Evangelical church, the church of the Holy Cross, one of the six Gnaden Kirchen for the Silesian Protestants stipulated for in the agreement at Altranstädt between Charles XII. of Sweden and the emperor Joseph I. in 1707, four Roman Catholic churches, one of which dates from the 14th century, a synagogue, several schools, an orphanage and an asylum. The town is the principal emporium of commerce in the Silesian mountains, and its industries include the carding and spinning of wool, and the manufacture of linen and cotton fabrics, yarn, artificial flowers, paper, cement, porcelain, sealing-wax, blacking, chemicals and cider. There is also a lively trade in corn, wine and agricultural produce. The town is celebrated for its romantic surroundings, including the Cavalierberg, from which there is a splendid view, the Hausberg, the Helicon, crowned by a small Doric temple, the Kreuzberg, with walks commanding beautiful views, and the Sattler ravine, over which there is a railway viaduct. Hirschberg was in existence in the 11th century, and obtained town rights in 1108 from Duke Boleslaus of Poland. It withstood a siege by the Hussites in 1427, and an attack of the imperial troops in 1640. The foundation of its prosperity was laid in the 16th century by the introduction of the manufacture of linen and veils.
Hirschberg is also the name of a town of Thuringia on the Saale with manufactures of leather and knives. Pop. 2000.
HIRSON, a town of northern France in the department of Aisne, 35 m. by rail N.E. of Laon, on the Oise. Pop. (1906) 8335. It occupies an important strategic position close to the point of intersection of several railway lines, and not far from the Belgian frontier. For its defence there are a permanent fort and two batteries, near the railway junction. The town carries on the manufacture of glass bottles, tiles, iron and tin goods, wool-spinning and brewing.
HIRTIUS, AULUS (c. 90-43 B.C.), Roman historian and statesman. He was with Julius Caesar as legate in Gaul, but after the civil war broke out in 49 he seems to have remained in Rome to protect Caesar’s interests. He was also a personal friend of Cicero. He was nominated with C. Vibius Pansa by Caesar for the consulship of 43; and after the dictator’s assassination in March 44, he and his colleague supported the senatorial party against M. Antonius, with whom Hirtius had at first sided. The consuls set out for Mutina, where Antonius was besieging Decimus Brutus. On the 15th of April, Pansa was attacked by Antonius at Forum Gallorum, about 8 m. from Mutina, and lost his life in the engagement. Hirtius, however, compelled Antonius to retire on Mutina, where another battle took place on the 25th (or 27th) of April, in which Hirtius was slain. Of the continuations of Caesar’s Commentaries—the eighth book of the Gallic war, the history of the Alexandrian, African and Spanish wars—the first is generally allowed to be by Hirtius; the Alexandrian war is perhaps by him (or Oppius); the last two are supposed to have been written at his request, by persons who had taken part in the events described, with a view to subsequent revision and incorporation in his proposed work on military commanders. The language of Hirtius is good, but his style is monotonous and lacks vigour.
Hirtius and the other continuators of Caesar are discussed in M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Literatur, i.; also R. Schneider, Bellum Africanum (1905). For the history of the period see under Antonius; Cicero’s Letters (ed. Tyrrell and Purser); G. Boissier, Cicero and his Friends (Eng. trans., 1897).
HISHĀM IBN AL-KALBĪ [Abū-l Mundhir Hishām ibn Maḥommed ibn us-Sā’b ul-Kalb] (d. c. 819), Arabic historian, 526 was born in Kufa, but spent much of his life in Bagdad. Like his father, on whose authority he relied largely, he collected information about the genealogies and history of the ancient Arabs. According to the Fihrist (see Nadīm) he wrote 140 works. As independent works they have almost entirely ceased to exist, but his account of the genealogies of the Arabs is continually quoted in the Kitāb ul-Aghāni.
Large extracts from another of his works, the Kitāb ul-Asnām, are contained in the Khizānat ul-Adab (iii. 242-246) and in the geography of Yāqūt (q.v.). These latter have been translated with comments by J. Wellhausen in his Reste des arabischen Heidentums (2nd ed., Berlin, 1897).
HISPELLUM (mod. Spello, q.v.), an ancient town of Umbria, Italy, 3 m. N. of Fulginiae, on the road between it and Perusia, 1030 ft. above sea-level. It does not appear to be mentioned before the time of Augustus, who founded a colony there (Colonia Iulia Hispellum) and extended its territory to the springs of the Clitumnus, which had originally belonged to the territory of Mevania. It received the name of Flavia Constans by a rescript of the emperor Constantine, a copy of which on a marble tablet is still preserved at Spello. The gate by which the town is entered is ancient and has three portrait statues above it; two other gates and a part of the city wall, built of rectangular blocks of local limestone, may still be seen, as also the ruins of what is possibly a triumphal arch (attributed to Augustus) and an amphitheatre, and perhaps of a theatre, close to the modern high-road, outside the town.
HISSAR, a district in Central Asia, lying between 66° 30′ and 70° E. and 39° 15′ and 37° N. and dependent on the amir of Bokhara. It forms that part of the basin of the Amu-darya or Oxus which lies on the north side of the river, opposite the Afghan province of Balkh. The western prolongation of the Tian-shan, which divides the basin of the Zarafshan from that of the upper Amu, after rising to a height of 12,300 ft., bifurcates in 67° 45′ E. The main chain, the southern arm of this bifurcation, designated the Hissar range, but sometimes called also Koh-i-tau, forms the N. and N.W. boundaries of Hissar. On the W. it is wholly bounded by the desert; the Amu limits it on the S. and S.E.; and Karateghin and Darvaz complete the boundary on the E. Until 1875 it was one of the least known tracts of Central Asia. Hissar is traversed from north to south by four tributaries of the Amu, viz. the Surkhab or Vakhsh, Kafirnihan, Surkhan and Shirabad-darya, which descend from the snowy mountains to the north and form a series of fertile valleys, disposed in a fan-shape, within which lie the principal towns. In the N.W. boundary range between Khuzar and Derbent is situated the defile formerly called the Iron Gate (Caspian Gates, Bāb-al-Hadīd, Dar Ahanīn and in Chinese T’ie-mēn-kuan) but now styled Buzghol-khana or the Goat-house. It was also called Kohluga, said to be a Mongol word meaning barrier. This pass is described as a deep but narrow chasm in a transverse range, whose rocks overhang and threaten to choke the tortuous and gloomy corridor (in places but five paces wide) which affords the only exit from the valley. In ancient times it was a vantage point of much importance and commanded one of the chief routes between Turkestan and India. Hsüan Tsang, the Chinese traveller, who passed through it in the 7th century, states that there were then two folding doors or gates, cased with iron and hung with bells, placed across the pass. Clavijo, the Spanish ambassador to the court of Timur, heard of this when he passed through the defile nearly 800 years later, but the gates had then disappeared.
The Surkhan valley is highly cultivated, especially in its upper portion. It supplies Bokhara with corn and sheep, but its chief products are rice and flax. The town of Hissar (pop. 15,000) commands the entrance into the fertile valleys of the Surkhan and Kafirnihan, just as Kabadian at the southern end of the latter defends them from the south. Hissar was long famous for its damascened swords and its silk goods. Kulab produces wheat in abundance, and gold is brought thither from the surrounding districts. Kabadian is a large, silk-producing town, and is surrounded with rice-fields.
The population consists principally of Uzbegs and Tajiks, the former predominating and gradually pushing the Tajiks into the hills. On the banks of the Amu there are Turkomans who work the ferries, drive sheep and accompany caravans. Lyuli (gipsies), Jews, Hindus and Afghans are other elements of the population. The climate of the valleys of Hissar and Kulab is pleasant, as they are protected by mountains to the north and open towards the south. They produce all the cereals and garden plants indigenous to Central Asia. Cotton is grown in the district of Shirabad; and cotton, wheat, flax, sheep and rock-salt are all exported.
History.—This country was anciently part of the Persian empire of the Achaemenidae, and probably afterwards of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, and then subject to the invading Asiatic tribes who broke up that kingdom, e.g. the Yue-chi. It was afterwards conquered by the Ephthalites or White Huns, who were subdued by the Turks in the early part of the 7th century. It then became subject successively to the Mahommedan invaders from Persia, and after to the Mongol dynasty of Jenghiz Khan, and to Timur and his successors. It subsequently became a cluster of Uzbeg states and was annexed by the amir of Bokhara (q.v.) in 1869-1870, soon after the Russian occupation of Samarkand.
HISSAR, a town and district of British India, in the Delhi division of the Punjab. The town is situated on the Rajputana railway and the Western Jumna canal, 102 m. W.N.W. of Delhi. Pop. (1901) 17,647. It was founded in 1356 by the emperor Feroz Shah, who constructed the canal to supply it with water; but this fell into decay during the 18th century, owing to the constant inroads of marauders. Hissar was almost completely depopulated during the famine of 1783, but was afterwards occupied by the famous Irish adventurer George Thomas, who built a fort and collected inhabitants. It is now chiefly known for its cattle and horse fairs, and has a cotton factory.
The District comprises an area of 5217 sq. m. It forms the western border district of the great Bikanir desert, and consists for the most part of sandy plains dotted with shrub and brushwood, and broken by undulations towards the south, which rise into hills of rock like islands out of a sea of sand. The Ghaggar is its only river, whose supply is uncertain, depending much on the fall of rain in the lower Himalayas; its overflow in times of heavy rain is caught by jhils, which dry up in the hot season. The Western Jumna canal crosses the district from east to west, irrigating many villages. The soil is in places hard and clayey, and difficult to till; but when sufficiently irrigated it is highly productive. Old mosques and other buildings exist in parts of the district. Hissar produces a breed of large milk-white oxen, which are in great request for the carriages of natives. The district has always been subject to famine. The first calamity of this kind of which there is authentic record was in 1783; and Hissar has suffered severely in more recent famines. Its population in 1901 was 781,717, showing practically no increase in the decade, whereas in the previous decade there had been an increase of 15%. The climate is very dry, hot westerly winds blowing from the middle of March till July. Cotton weaving, ginning and pressing are carried on. The district is served by the Rajputana-Malwa, the Southern Punjab and the Jodhpur-Bikanir railways. The chief trading centres are Bhiwani, Hansi, Hissar and Sirsa.
Before the Mahommedan conquest, the semi-desert tract of which Hissar district now forms part was the retreat of Chauhan Rajputs. Towards the end of the 18th century the Bhattis of Bhattiana gained ascendancy after bloody struggles. To complete the ruin brought on by these conflicts, nature lent her aid in the great famine of 1783. Hissar passed nominally to the British in 1803, but they could not enforce order till 1810. Early in the mutiny of 1857 Hissar was wholly lost for a time to British rule, and all Europeans were either murdered or compelled to fly. The Bhattis rose under their hereditary chiefs, and the majority of the Mahommedan population followed their example. Before Delhi had been recovered, the rebels were utterly routed.
HISTIAEUS (d. 494 B.C.), tyrant of Miletus under the Persian king Darius Hystaspis. According to Herodotus he rendered great service to Darius while he was campaigning in Scythia by persuading his fellow-despots not to destroy the bridge over the Danube by which the Persians must return. Choosing his own reward for this service, he became possessor of territory near Myrcinus (afterwards Amphipolis), rich in timber and minerals. The success of his enterprise led to his being invited to Susa, where in the midst of every kind of honour he was virtually a prisoner of Darius, who had reason to dread his growing power in Ionia. During this period the Greek cities were left under native despots supported by Persia, Aristagoras, son-in-law of Histiaeus, being ruler of Miletus in his stead. This prince, having failed against Naxos in a joint expedition with the satrap Artaphernes, began to stir up the Ionians to revolt, and this result was brought to pass, according to Herodotus, by a secret message from Histiaeus. The revolt assumed a formidable character and Histiaeus persuaded Darius that he alone could quell it. He was allowed to leave Susa, but on his arrival at the coast found himself suspected by the satrap, and was ultimately driven to establish himself (Herodotus says as a pirate; more probably in charge of the Bosporus route) at Byzantium. After the total failure of the revolt at the battle of Lade, he made various attempts to re-establish himself, but was captured by the Persian Harpagus and crucified by Artaphernes at Sardis. His head was embalmed and sent to Darius, who gave it honourable burial. The theory of Herodotus that the Ionian revolt was caused by the single message of Histiaeus is incredible; there is evidence to show that the Ionians had been meditating since about 512 a patriotic revolt against the Persian domination and the “tyrants” on whom it rested (see Grote, Hist. of Greece, ed. 1907, especially p. 122 note; art. Ionia, and authorities; also S. Heinlein in Klio, 1909, pp. 341-351).
HISTOLOGY (Gr. ἱστός, web, tissue, properly the web-beam of the loom, from ἱστάναι, to make to stand), the science which deals with the structure of the tissues of plants and animals (see Cytology).
HISTORY. The word “history” is used in two senses. It may mean either the record of events, or events themselves. Originally (see below) limited to inquiry and statement, it was only in comparatively modern times that the meaning of the word was extended to include the phenomena which form or might form their subject. It was perhaps by a somewhat careless transference of ideas that this extension was brought about. Now indeed it is the commoner meaning. We speak of the “history of England” without reference to any literary narrative. We term kings and statesmen the “makers of history,” and sometimes say that the historian only records the history which they make. History in this connexion is obviously not the record, but the thing to be recorded. It is unfortunate that such a double meaning of the word should have grown up, for it is productive of not a little confusion of thought.
History in the wider sense is all that has happened, not merely all the phenomena of human life, but those of the natural world as well. It includes everything that undergoes change; and as modern science has shown that there is nothing absolutely static, therefore the whole universe, and every part of it, has its history. The discovery of ether brought with it a reconstruction of our ideas of the physical universe, transferring the emphasis from the mathematical expression of static relationships to a dynamic conception of a universe in constant transformation; matter in equipoise became energy in gradual readjustment. Solids are solids no longer. The universe is in motion in every particle of every part; rock and metal merely a transition stage between crystallization and dissolution. This idea of universal activity has in a sense made physics itself a branch of history. It is the same with the other sciences—especially the biological division, where the doctrine of evolution has induced an attitude of mind which is distinctly historical.
But the tendency to look at things historically is not merely the attitude of men of science. Our outlook upon life differs in just this particular from that of preceding ages. We recognize the unstable nature of our whole social fabric, and are therefore more and more capable of transforming it. Our institutions are no longer held to be inevitable and immutable creations. We do not attempt to fit them to absolute formulae, but continually adapt them to a changing environment. Even modern architecture, notably in America, reflects the consciousness of change. The permanent character of ancient or medieval buildings was fitted only to a society dominated by static ideals. Now the architect builds, not for all time, but for a set of conditions which will inevitably cease in the not distant future. Thus our whole society not only bears the marks of its evolution, but shows its growing consciousness of the fact in the most evident of its arts. In literature, philosophy and political science, there is the same historical trend. Criticism no longer judges by absolute standards; it applies the standards of the author’s own environment. We no longer condemn Shakespeare for having violated the ancient dramatic laws, nor Voltaire for having objected to the violations. Each age has its own expression, and in judging each we enter the field of history. In ethics, again, the revolt against absolute standards limits us to the relative, and morals are investigated on the basis of history, as largely conditioned by economic environment and the growth of intellectual freedom. Revelation no longer appeals to scientific minds as a source of knowledge. Experience on the other hand is history. As for political science, we do not regard the national state as that ultimate and final product which men once saw in the Roman Empire. It has hardly come into being before forces are evident which aim at its destruction. Internationalism has gained ground in Europe in recent years; and Socialism itself, which is based upon a distinct interpretation of history, is regarded by its followers as merely a stage in human progress, like those which have gone before it. It is evident that Freeman’s definition of history as “past politics” is miserably inadequate. Political events are mere externals. History enters into every phase of activity, and the economic forces which urge society along are as much its subject as the political result.
In short the historical spirit of the age has invaded every field. The world-picture presented in this encyclopaedia is that of a dynamic universe, of phenomena in process of ceaseless change. Owing to this insistent change all things which happen, or seem to happen, are history in the broader sense of the word. The encyclopaedia itself is a history of them in the stricter sense,—the description and record of this universal process. This narrower meaning is the subject of the rest of this article.
The word “history” comes from the Gr. ἱστορία, which was used by the Ionians in the 6th century B.C. for the search for knowledge in the widest sense. It meant inquiry, investigation, not narrative. It was not until two centuries later that the historikos, the reciter of stories, superseded the historeōn (ἱστορέων), the seeker after knowledge. Thus history began as a branch of scientific research,—much the same as what the Athenians later termed philosophy. Herodotus himself was as much a scientific explorer as a reciter of narrative, and his life-long investigation was historiē in his Ionian speech. Yet it was Herodotus himself who first hinted at the new use of the word, applied merely to the details accumulated during a long search for knowledge. It is not until Aristotle, however, that we have it definitely applied to the literary product instead of the inquiry which precedes it. From Aristotle to modern times, history (Lat. historia) has been a form of literature. It is only in the scientific environment of to-day that we recognize once more, with those earliest of the forerunners of Herodotus, that history involves two distinct operations, one of which, investigation, is in the field of science, while the other, the literary presentation, is in the field of art.
The history of history itself is therefore two-fold. History as art flourishes with the arts. It calls upon the imagination and the literary gifts of expression. Its history does not run parallel with the scientific side, but rather varies in inverse ratio with scientific activity. Those periods which have been dominated by the great masters of style have been less interested in the criticism of the historian’s methods of investigation than in the beauty of his rhetoric. The scientific historian, deeply interested 528 in the search for truth, is generally but a poor artist, and his uncoloured picture of the past will never rank in literature beside the splendid distortions which glow in the pages of a Michelet or Macaulay. History the art, in so far as it is conditioned upon genius, has no single traceable line of development. Here the product of the age of Pericles remains unsurpassed still; the works of Herodotus and Thucydides standing along with those of Pheidias as models for all time. On the other hand, history the science has developed so that it has not only gained recognition among historians as a distinct subject, but it has raised with it a group of auxiliary sciences which serve either as tools for investigation or as a basis for testing the results. The advance in this branch of history in the 19th century was one of its greatest achievements. The vast gulf which lies between the history of Egypt by Herodotus and that by Flinders Petrie is the measure of its achievement. By the mechanism now at his disposal the scientific explorer can read more history from the dust-heaps of Ābydos than the greatest traveller of antiquity could gather from the priests of Saïs. In tracing the history of history we must therefore keep in mind the double aspect.
History itself, this double subject, the science and the art combined, begins with the dawn of memory and the invention of speech. It is wrong to term those ages pre-historic whose history has not come down to us, including in one category the pre-literary age and the literary whose traces have been lost. Even the pre-literary had its history, first in myth and then in saga. The saga, or epos, was a great advance upon the myth, for in it the deeds of men replace or tend to replace the deeds of the gods. But we are still largely in the realm of imagination. Poetry, as Thucydides complained, is a most imperfect medium for fact. The bard will exaggerate or distort his story. True history, as a record of what really has happened, first reached maturity in prose. Therefore, although much of the past has been handed down to us in epic, in ballad and in the legends of folk-lore, we must turn from them to what became history in the narrower sense.
The earliest prose origins of history are the inscriptions. Their inadequacy is evident from two standpoints. Their permanence depends not upon their importance, but upon the durability of the substance on which they are inscribed. A note for a wedding ring baked into the clay of Babylon has been preserved, while the history of the greatest events has perished. In the second place they are sealed to all but those who know how to read them, and so they lie forgotten for centuries while oral tradition flourishes,—being within the reach of every man. It is only recently that archaeology, turning from the field of art, has undertaken to interpret for us this first written history. The process by which the modern fits together all the obtainable remains of an antiquity, and reconstructs even that past which left no written record, lies outside the field of this article. But such enlargement of the field of history is a modern scientific product, and is to be distinguished from the imperfect beginnings of history-writing which the archaeologist is able to decipher.
Next to the inscriptions,—sometimes identical with them,—are the early chronicles. These are of various kinds. Family chronicles preserved the memory of heroic ancestors whose deeds in the earliest age would have passed into the keeping of the bards. Such family archives were perhaps the main source for Roman historians. But they are not confined to Rome or Greece. Genealogies also pass from the bald verse, which was the vehicle for oral transmission, to such elaborate tables as those in which Manetho has preserved the dynasties of Egyptian Pharaohs.
In this field the priest succeeds the poet. The temple itself became the chief repository of records. There were simple religious annals, votive tablets recording miracles accomplished at a shrine, lists of priests and priestesses, accounts of benefactions, of prodigies and portents. In some cases, as in Rome, the pontiffs kept a kind of register, not merely of religious history, but of important political events as well. Down to the time of the Gracchi (131 B.C.) the Pontifex Maximus inscribed the year’s events upon annual tablets of wood which were preserved in the Regia, the official residence of the pontiff in the Forum. These pontifical “annals” thus came to be a sort of civic history. Chronicles of the Greek cities were commonly ascribed to mythical authors, as for instance that of Miletus, the oldest, to Cadmus the inventor of letters. But they were continued and edited by men in whom the critical spirit was awakening, as when the chroniclers of Ionian towns began the criticism of Homer.
The first historians were the logographi of these Ionian cities; men who carried their inquiry (historiē) beyond both written record and oral tradition to a study of the world around them. Their “saying” (logos) was gathered mostly from contemporaries; and upon the basis of a widened experience they became critics of their traditions. The opening lines of Hecataeus of Miletus begin the history of the true historic spirit in words which read like a sentence from Voltaire. “Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write as I deem true, for the traditions of the Greeks seem to me manifold and laughable.” Those words mark an epoch in the history of thought. They are the introduction to historical criticism and scientific investigation. Whatever the actual achievement of Hecataeus may have been, from his time onward the scientific movement was set going. Herodotus of Heraclea struggled to rationalize mythology, and established chronology on a solid basis. And finally Herodotus, a professional story-teller, rose to the height of genuine scientific investigation. Herodotus’ inquiry was not simply that of an idle tourist. He was a critical observer, who tested his evidence. It is easy for the student now to show the inadequacy of his sources, and his failure here or there to discriminate between fact and fable. But given the imperfect medium for investigation and the absence of an archaeological basis for criticism, the work of Herodotus remains a scientific achievement, as remarkable for its approximation to truth as for the vastness of its scope. Yet it was Herodotus’ chief glory to have joined to this scientific spirit an artistic sense which enabled him to cast the material into the truest literary form. He gathered all his knowledge of the ancient world, not simply for itself, but to mass it around the story of the war between the east and west, the Greeks and the Persians. He is first and foremost a story-teller; his theme is like that of the bards, a heroic event. His story is a vast prose epos, in which science is to this extent subordinated to art. “This is the showing forth of the Inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, to the end that neither the deeds of men may be forgotten by lapse of time, nor the works, great and marvellous, which have been produced, some by Hellenes, some by Barbarians, may lose their renown, and especially that the causes may be remembered for which these waged war with one another” (i.e. the Persian war).
In Thucydides a higher art than that of Herodotus was combined with a higher science. He scorned the story-teller “who seeks to please the ear rather than to speak the truth,” and yet his rhetoric is the culmination of Greek historical prose. He withdrew from vulgar applause, conscious that his narrative would be considered “disappointing to the ear,” yet he recast the materials out of which he constructed it in order to lift that narrative into the realm of pure literature. Speeches, letters and documents are reworded to be in tone with the rest of the story. It was his art, in fact, which really created the Peloponnesian war out of its separate parts. And yet this art was merely the language of a scientist. The “laborious task” of which he speaks is that of consulting all possible evidence, and weighing conflicting accounts. It is this which makes his rhetoric worth while, “an everlasting possession, not a prize competition which is heard and forgotten.”
From the sublimity of Thucydides, and Xenophon’s straight-forward story, history passed with Theopompus and Ephorus into the field of rhetoric. A revival of the scientific instinct of investigation is discernable in Timaeus the Sicilian, at the end of the 4th century, but his attack upon his predecessors was the text of a more crushing attack upon himself by Polybius, who declares him lacking in critical insight and biased by passion. Polybius’ comments upon Timaeus reach the dignity of a treatise upon history. He protests against its use for controversial pamphlets which distort the truth. “Directly a man assumes the moral attitude of an historian he ought to forget all 529 considerations, such as love of one’s friends, hatred of one’s enemies.... He must sometimes praise enemies and blame friends. For as a living creature is rendered useless if deprived of its eyes, so if you take truth from History, what is left but an improfitable tale” (bk. xii. 14). These are the words of a Ranke. Unfortunately Polybius, like most modern scientific historians, was no artist. His style is the very opposite of that of Isocrates and the rhetoricians. It is often only clear in the light of inscriptions, so closely does it keep to the sources. The style found no imitator; history passed from Greece to Rome in the guise of rhetoric. In Dionysius of Halicarnassus the rhetoric was combined with an extensive study of the sources; but the influence of the Greek rhetoricians upon Roman prose was deplorable from the standpoint of science. Cicero, although he said that the duty of the historian is to conceal nothing true, to say nothing false, would in practice have written the kind of history that Polybius denounced. He finds fault with those who are non exornatores rerum sed tantum narratores. History for him is the mine from which to draw argument in oratory and example in education. It is not the subject of a scientific curiosity.
It should be noted before we pass to Rome that with the expansion of Hellenism the subject of historians expanded as well. Universal history was begun by Ephorus, the rhetorician, and formed the theme of Polybius and Deodorus. Exiled Greeks were the first to write histories of Rome worthy of the name. The Alexandrian Eratosthenes placed chronology upon the scientific basis of astronomy, and Apollodorus drew up the most important chronica of antiquity.
History-writing in Rome,—except for the Greek writers resident there,—was until the first half of the 1st century B.C. in the form of annals. Then came rhetorical ornamentation,—and the Ciceronian era. The first Roman historian who rose to the conception of a science and art combined was Sallust, the student of Thucydides. The Augustan age produced in Livy a great popular historian and natural artist and a trained rhetorician (in the speeches),—but as uncritical and inaccurate as he was brilliant. From Livy to Tacitus the gulf is greater than from Herodotus to Thucydides. Tacitus is at least a consummate artist. His style ranges from the brilliancy of his youth to the sternness and sombre gravity of age, passing almost to poetic expression in its epigrammatic terseness. Yet in spite of his searching study of authorities, his keen judgment of men, and his perception of underlying principles of moral law, his view was warped by the heat of faction, which glows beneath his external objectivity. After him Roman history-writing speedily degenerated. Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars is but a superior kind of journalism. But his gossip of the court became the model for historians, whose works, now lost, furnish the main source for the Historia Augusta. The importance to us of this uncritical collection of biographies is sufficient comment on the decline of history-writing in the latter empire. Finally, from the 4th century the epitomes of Eutropius and Festus served to satisfy the lessening curiosity in the past and became the handbooks for the middle ages. The single figure of Ammianus Marcellinus stands out of this age like a belated disciple of Tacitus. But the world was changing from antique to Christian ideals just as he was writing, and with him we leave this outline of ancient history.
The 4th and 5th centuries saw a great revolution in the history of history. The story of the pagan past slipped out of mind, and in its place was set, by the genius of Eusebius, the story of the world force which had superseded it, Christianity, and of that small fraction of antiquity from which it sprang,—the Jews. Christianity from the first had forced thinking men to reconstruct their philosophy of history, but it was only after the Church’s triumph that its point of view became dominant in historiography. Three centuries more passed before the pagan models were quite lost to sight. But from the 7th century to the 17th—from Isidore of Seville and the English Bede for a thousand years,—mankind was to look back along the line of Jewish priests and kings to the Creation. Egypt was of interest only as it came into Israelite history, Babylon and Nineveh were to illustrate the judgments of Yahweh, Tyre and Sidon to reflect the glory of Solomon. The process by which the “gentiles” have been robbed of their legitimate history was the inevitable result of a religion whose sacred books make them lay figures for the history of the Jews. Rejected by the Yahweh who became the Christian God, they have remained to the present day, in Sunday schools and in common opinion, not nations of living men, with the culture of arts and sciences, but outcasts who do not enter into the divine scheme of the world’s history. When a line was drawn between pagan and Christian back to the creation of the world, it left outside the pale of inquiry nearly all antiquity. But it must be remembered that that antiquity was one in which the German nations had no personal interest. Scipio and the Gracchi were essentially unreal to them. The one living organization with which they came into touch was the Church. So Cicero and Pompey paled before Joshua and Paul. Diocletian, the organizing genius, became a bloodthirsty monster, and Constantine, the murderer, a saint.
Christian history begins with the triumph of the Church. With Eusebius of Caesarea the apologetic pamphlets of the age of persecutions gave way to a calm review of three centuries of Christian progress. Eusebius’ biography of Constantine shows what distortion of fact the father of Church history permitted himself, but the Ecclesiastical History was fortunately written for those who wanted to know what really happened, and remains to-day an invaluable repository of Christian antiquities. With the continuations of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, and the Latin manual which Cassiodorus had woven from them (the Historia tripartita), it formed the body of Church history during all the middle ages. An even greater influence, however, was exercised by Eusebius’ Chronica. Through Jerome’s translation and additions, this scheme of this world’s chronology became the basis for all medieval world chronicles. It settled until our own day the succession of years from the Creation to the birth of Christ,—fitting the Old Testament story into that of ancient history. Henceforth the Jewish past,—that one path back to the beginning of the world,—was marked out by the absolute laws of mathematics and revelation. Jerome had marked it out; Sulpicius Severus, the biographer of St Martin, in his Historia sacra, adorned it with the attractions of romance. Sulpicius was admirably fitted to interpret the miraculous Bible story to the middle ages. But there were few who could write like him, and Jerome’s Chronicle itself, or rather portions of it, became, in the age which followed, a sort of universal preface for the monastic chronicler. For a time there were even attempts to continue “imperial chronicles,” but they were insignificant compared with the influence of Eusebius and Jerome.
From the first, Christianity had a philosophy of history. Its earliest apologists sought to show how the world had followed a divine plan in its long preparation for the life of Christ. From this central fact of all history, mankind should continue through war and suffering until the divine plan was completed at the judgment day. The fate of nations is in God’s hands; history is the revelation of His wisdom and power. Whether He intervenes directly by miracle, or merely sets His laws in operation, He is master of men’s fate. This idea, which has underlain all Christian philosophy of history, from the first apologists who prophesied the fall of the Empire and the coming of the millennium, down to our own day, received its classic statement in St Augustine’s City of God. The terrestrial city, whose eternity had been the theme of pagan history, had just fallen before Alaric’s Goths. Augustine’s explanation of its fall passes in review not only the calamities of Roman history—combined with a pathetic perception of its greatness,—but carries the survey back to the origin of evil at the creation. Then over against this civitas terrena he sets the divine city which is to be realized in Christendom. The Roman Empire,—the last general form of the earthly city,—gives way slowly to the heavenly. This is the main thread of Augustine’s philosophy of history. The mathematical demonstration of its truth was left by Augustine for his disciple, Paulus Orosius.
Orosius’ Seven Books of Histories against the Pagans, written 530 as a supplement to the City of God, is the first attempt at a Christian “World History.” This manual for the middle ages arranged the rise and fall of empires with convincing exactness. The history of antiquity, according to it, begins with Ninus. His realm was overthrown by the Medes in the same year in which the history of Rome began. From the first year of Ninus’ reign until the rebuilding of Babylon by Semiramis there were sixty-four years; the same between the first of Procas and the building of Rome. Eleven hundred and sixty-four years after each city was built, it was taken,—Babylon by Cyrus, Rome by Alaric, and Cyrus’ conquest took place just when Rome began the Republic. But before Rome becomes a world empire, Macedon and Carthage intervene, guardians of Rome’s youth (tutor curatorque). This scheme of the four world-monarchies, which was to prevail through all the middle ages, was developed through seven books filled with the story of war and suffering. As it was Orosius’ aim to show that the world had improved since the coming of Christ, he used Trogus Pompeius’ war history, written to exalt Roman triumphs, to show the reverse of victory,—disaster and ruin. Livy, Caesar, Tacitus and Suetonius were plundered for the story of horrors; until finally even the Goths in Spain shine by contrast with the pagan heroes; and through the confusion of the German invasions one may look forward to Christendom,—and its peace.
The commonest form of medieval historical writing was the chronicle, which reaches all the way from monastic annals, mere notes on Easter tables, to the dignity of national monuments. Utterly lacking in perspective, and dominated by the idea of the miraculous, they are for the most part a record of the trivial or the marvellous. Individual historians sometimes recount the story of their own times with sober judgment, but seldom know how to test their sources when dealing with the past. Contradictions are often copied down without the writer noticing them; and since the middle ages forged and falsified so many documents,—monasteries, towns and corporations gaining privileges or titles of possession by the bold use of them,—the narrative of medieval writers cannot be relied upon unless we can verify it by collateral evidence. Some historians, like Otto of Freising, Guibert of Nogent or Bernard Gui, would have been scientific if they had had our appliances for comparison. But even men like Roger Bacon, who deplored the inaccuracy of texts, had worked out no general method to apply in their restoration. Toward the close of the middle ages the vernacular literatures were adorned with Villani’s and Froissart’s chronicles. But the merit of both lies in their journalistic qualities of contemporary narrative. Neither was a history in the truest sense.
The Renaissance marked the first great gain in the historic sense, in the efforts of the humanists to realize the spirit of the antique world. They did not altogether succeed; antiquity to them meant largely Plato and Cicero. Their interests were literary, and the un-Ciceronian centuries were generally ignored. Those in which the foundations of modern Europe were laid, which produced parliaments, cathedrals, cities, Dante and Chaucer, were grouped alike on one dismal level and christened the middle ages. The perspective of the humanists was only one degree better than that of the middle ages. History became the servant to literature, an adjunct to the classics. Thus it passed into the schools, where text-books still in use devote 200 pages to the Peloponnesian war and two to the Athens of Pericles.
But if the literary side of humanism has been a barrier to the progress of scientific history, the discovery and elucidation of texts first made that progress possible. Historical criticism soon awoke. Laurentius Valla’s brilliant attack on the “Donation of Constantine” (1440), and Ulrich von Hutten’s rehabilitation of Henry IV. from monkish tales mark the rise of the new science. One sees at a glance what an engine of controversy it was to be; yet for a while it remained but a phase of humanism. It was north of the Alps that it parted company with the grammarians. Classical antiquity was an Italian past, the German scholars turned back to the sources of their national history. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II.) had discovered Otto of Freising and Jordanes. Maximilian I. encouraged the search for manuscripts, and Vienna became a great humanistic centre. Conrad Celtes left his Germania illustrata unfinished, but he had found the works of Hroswitha. Conrad Peutinger gathered all sorts of Chronicles in his room in Vienna, and published several,—among them Gregory of Tours. This national movement of the 15th century was not paralleled in France or England, where the classical humanities reigned. The Reformation meanwhile gave another turn to the work of German scholars.
The Reformation, with its heated controversies, seems a strange starting-point for science, yet it, even more than the Renaissance, brought out scientific methods of historical investigation. It not only sobered the humanist tendency to sacrifice truth for aesthetic effect, it called for the documents of the Church and subjected them to the most hostile criticism. Luther himself challenged them. Then in the Magdeburg Centuries (1559-1574) Protestantism tried to make good its attack on the medieval Church by a great collection of sources accompanied with much destructive criticism. This gigantic work is the first monument of modern historical research. The reply of Cardinal Baronius (Annales ecclesiastici, 1588-1697) was a still greater collection, drawn from archives which till then had not been used for scientific history. Baronius’ criticism and texts are faulty, though far surpassing anything before his day, and his collection is the basis for most subsequent ones,—in spite of J. J. Scaliger’s refutation, which was to contain an equal number of volumes of the errors in Baronius.
The movement back to the sources in Germany until the Thirty Years’ War was a notable one. Collections were made by Simon Schard (1535-1573), Johannes Pistorius (1576-1608), Marquard Freher (1565-1614), Melchior Goldast (1576-1635) and others. After the war Leibnitz began a new epoch, both by his philosophy with its law of continuity in phenomena, and by his systematic attempt to collect sources through an association (1670). His plan to have documents printed as they were, instead of “correcting” them, was a notable advance. But from Leibnitz until the 19th century German national historiography made little progress,—although church historians like Mosheim and Neander stand out among the greatest historians of all time.
France had not paralleled the activity of Maximilian’s Renaissance historians. The father of modern French history, or at least of historical research, was André Duchesne (1584-1640), whose splendid collections of sources are still in use. Jean Bodin wrote the first treatise on scientific history (Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, 1566), but he did not apply his own principles of criticism; and it was left for the Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St Maur to establish definitely the new science. The place of this school in the history of history is absolutely without a parallel. Few of those in the audiences of Molière, returning home under the grey walls of St Germain-des-Près, knew that within that monastery the men whose midnight they disturbed were laying the basis for all scientific history; and few of the later historians of that age have been any wiser. But when Luc d’Achery turned from exegetics to patristics and the lives of the saints, as a sort of Christian humanist, he led the way to that vast work of collection and comparison of texts which developed through Mabillon, Montfaucon, Ruinart, Martène, Bouquet and their associates, into the indispensable implements of modern historians. Here, as in the Reformation, controversy called out the richest product. Jean Mabillon’s treatise, De re diplomatica (1681), was due to the criticisms of that group of Belgian Jesuits whose Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur (1643, &c., see Bollandists) was destined to grow into the greatest repository of legend and biography the world has seen. In reply to D. Papebroch’s criticisms of the chronicle of St Denis, Mabillon prepared this manual for the testing of medieval documents. Its canons are the basis, indeed, almost the whole, of the science of diplomatic (q.v.), the touchstone of truth for medieval research. Henceforth even the mediocre scholar had a body of technical rules by which to sort out the vast mass of apocrypha in medieval 531 documentary sources. Scientific history depends upon implements. Without manuals, dictionaries, and easy access to texts, we should go as far astray as any medieval chronicler. The France of the Maurists supplied the most essential of these instruments. The great “glossary” of Ducange is still in enlarged editions the indispensable encyclopaedia of the middle ages. Chronology and palaeography were placed on a new footing by Dom Bernard de Montfaucon’s Palaeographia graeca (1708), the monumental Art de vérifier les dates (3rd ed., 1818-1831, in 38 vols.), and the Nouveau Traité de diplomatique (1750-1765) of Dom Tassin and Dom Toustain. The collections of texts which the Maurists published are too many and too vast to be enumerated here (see C. Langlois, Manuel de bibliographie historique, pp. 293 ff.). Dom Bouquet’s Historiens de la Gaule et de la France—the national repertory for French historians—is but one of a dozen tasks of similar magnitude. During the 18th century this deep under-work of scientific history continued to advance, though for the most part unseen by the brilliant writers whose untrustworthy generalities passed for history in the salons of the old régime. Interrupted by the Revolution, it revived in the 19th century, and the roll of honour of the French École des Chartes has almost rivalled that of St Germain-des-Prés.
The father of critical history in Italy was L. A. Muratori (1672-1750), the Italian counterpart of Leibnitz. His vast collection of sources (Rerum Italicarum scriptores), prepared amid every discouragement, remains to-day the national monument of Italian history; and it is but one of his collections. His output is perhaps the greatest of any isolated worker in the whole history of historiography. The same haste, but much less care, marked the work of J. D. Mansi (d. 1769), the compiler of the fullest collection of the Councils. Spain, stifled by the Inquisition, produced no national collection of sources during the 17th and 18th centuries, although Nicolas Antonio (d. 1684) produced a national literary history of the first rank.
England in the 16th century kept pace with Continental historiography. Henry VIII.’s chaplain, John Leland, is the father of English antiquaries. Three of the most precious collections of medieval manuscripts still in existence were then begun by Thomas Bodley (the Bodleian at Oxford), Archbishop Matthew Parker (Corpus Christi at Cambridge), and Robert Cotton (the Cottonian collection of the British Museum). In Elizabeth’s reign a serious effort was made to arrange the national records, but until the end of the 18th century they were scattered in not less than fifteen repositories. In the 17th and 18th centuries English scholarship was enriched by such monuments of research as William Dugdale’s Monasticon, Thomas Madox’s History of the Exchequer, Wilkins’s Concilia, and Thomas Rymer’s Foedera. But these works, important as they were, gave but little idea of the wealth of historical sources which the 19th century was to reveal in England.
In the 19th century the science of history underwent a sort of industrial revolution. The machinery of research, invented by the genius of men like Mabillon, was perfected and set going in all the archives of Europe. Isolated workers or groups of workers grew into national or international associations, producing from archives vast collections of material to be worked up into the artistic form of history. The result of this movement has been to revolutionize the whole subject. These men of the factory—devoting their lives to the cataloguing of archives and libraries, to the publication of material, and then to the gigantic task of indexing what they have produced—have made it possible for the student in an American or Australian college to master in a few hours in his library sources of history which baffled the long years of research of a Martène or Rymer. The texts themselves have mostly become as correct as they can ever be, and manuals and bibliographies guide one to and through them, so that no one need go astray who takes the trouble to make use of the mechanism which is at his hand. For example, since the papal archives were opened, so many regesta have appeared that soon it will be possible to follow the letter-writing of the medieval popes day by day for century after century.
The apparatus for this research is too vast to be described here. Archives have been reformed, their contents catalogued or calendared; government commissions have rescued numberless documents from oblivion or destruction, and learned societies have supplemented and criticized this work and co-ordinated the results. Every state in Europe now has published the main sources for its history. The “Rolls” series, the Monumenta Germaniae historica, and the Documents inédits are but the more notable of such national products. A series of periodicals keeps watch over this enormous output. The files and indices of the English Historical Review, Historische Zeitschrift, Revue historique, or American Historical Review will alone reveal the strength and character of historical research in the later 19th century.
Every science which deals with human phenomena is in a way an implement in this great factory system, in which the past is welded together again. Psychology has been drawn upon to interpret the movements of revolutions or religions, anthropology and ethnology furnish a clue to problems to which the key of documents has been lost. Genealogy, heraldry and chronology run parallel with the wider subject. But the real auxiliary sciences to history are those which deal with those traces of the past that still exist, the science of language (philology), of writing (palaeography), of documents (diplomatic), of seals (sphragistics), of coins (numismatics), of weights and measures, and archaeology in the widest sense of the word. These sciences underlie the whole development of scientific history. Dictionaries and manuals are the instruments of this industrial revolution. Without them the literary remains of the race would still be as useless as Egyptian inscriptions to the fellaheen. Archaeology itself remained but a minor branch of art until the machinery was perfected which enabled it to classify and interpret the remains of the “pre-historic” age.
This is the most remarkable chapter in the whole history of history—the recovery of that past which had already been lost when our literary history began. The perspective stretches out as far the other side of Homer as we are this. The old “providential” scheme of history disintegrates before a new interest in the “gentile” nations to whose high culture Hebrew sources bore unwilling testimony. Biblical criticism is a part of the historic process. The Jewish texts, once the infallible basis of history, are now tested by the libraries of Babylon, from which they were partly drawn, and Hebrew history sinks into its proper place in the wide horizon of antiquity. The finding of the Rosetta stone left us no longer dependent upon Greek, Latin or Hebrew sources, and now fifty centuries of Egyptian history lie before us. The scientific historian of antiquity works on the hills of Crete, rather than in the quiet of a library with the classics spread out before him. There he can reconstruct the splendour of that Minoan age to which Homeric poems look back, as the Germanic epics looked back to Rome or Verona. His discoveries, co-ordinated and arranged in vast corpora inscriptionum, stand now alongside Herodotus or Livy, furnishing a basis for their criticism. Medieval archaeology has, since Quicherat, revealed how men were living while the monks wrote chronicles, and now cathedrals and castles are studied as genuine historic documents.
The immense increase in available sources, archaeological and literary, has remade historical criticism. Ranke’s application of the principles of “higher criticism” to works written since the invention of printing (Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber) was an epoch-making challenge of narrative sources. Now they are everywhere checked by contemporary evidence, and a clearer sense of what constitutes a primary source has discredited much of what had been currently accepted as true. This is true not only of ancient history, where last year’s book may be a thousand years out of date, but of the whole field. Hardly an “old master” remains an authoritative book of reference. Gibbon, Grote, Giesebrecht, Guizot stand to-day by reason of other virtues than their truth. Old landmarks drop out of sight—e.g. the fall of the Western Empire in 476, the coming of the Greeks to Italy in 1450, dates which once enclosed the middle ages. The perspective changes—the Renaissance grows less and the middle 532 ages more; the Protestant Revolution becomes a complex of economics and politics and religion; the French Revolution a vast social reform in which the Terror was an incident, &c., &c. The result has been a complete transformation of history since the middle of the 19th century.
In the 17th century the Augustinian scheme of world history received its last classic statement in Bossuet’s Histoire universelle. Voltaire’s reply to it in the 18th (Essai sur les mœurs) attacked its limitations on the basis of deism, and its miraculous procedure on that of science. But while there are foreshadowings of the evolutionary theory in this work, neither the philosophe historians nor Hume nor Gibbon arrived at a constructive principle in history which could take the place of the Providence they rejected. Religion, though false, might be a real historic force. History became the tragic spectacle of a game of dupes—the real movers being priests, kings or warriors. The pawns slowly acquired reason, and then would be able to regulate the moves themselves. But all this failed to give a satisfactory explanation of the laws which determine the direction of this evolution. Giovanni Battista Vico (1668-1744) was the first to ask why there is no science of human history. But his lonely life and unrecognized labours leave him apart from the main movement, until his works were discovered again in the 19th century. It was A. L. H. Heeren who, at the opening of the 19th century, first laid that emphasis upon the economic factors in history which is to-day slowly replacing the Augustinian explanation of its evolution. Heeren’s own influence, however, was slight. The first half of the century (apart from the scientific activity of Pertz, Guizot, &c.) was largely dominated by the romanticists, with their exaggeration of the individual. Carlyle’s “great man theory of history” is logically connected with the age of Scott. It was a philosophy of history which lent itself to magnificent dramatic creations; but it explained nothing. It substituted the work of the genius for the miraculous intervention of Providence, but, apart from certain abstract formulae such as Truth and Right, knew nothing of why or how. It is but dealing in words to say that the meaning of it all is God’s revelation of Himself. Granting that, what is the process? Why does it so slowly reveal the Right of the middle ages (as in slavery for instance) to be the Wrong to-day? Carlyle stands to Bossuet as the sage to the myth. Hegel got no closer to realities. His idealistic scheme of history, which makes religion the keynote of progress, and describes the function of each—Judaism to typify duty, Confucianism order, Mahommedanism justice, Buddhism patience, and Christianity love—does not account for the facts of the history enacted by the devotees. It characterizes, not the real process of evolution, but an ideal which history has not realized. Besides, it does not face the question how far religion itself is a product or a cause, or both combined.
In the middle of the century two men sought to incorporate in their philosophy the physical basis which Hegel had ignored in his spiritism—recognizing that life is conditioned by an environment and not an abstraction for metaphysics. H. T. Buckle, in his History of Civilization in England (1857), was the first to work out the influences of the material world upon history, developing through a wealth of illustration the importance of food, soil and the general aspect of nature upon the formation of society. Buckle did not, as is generally believed, make these three factors dominate all history. He distinctly stated that “the advance of European civilization is characterized by a diminishing influence of physical laws and an increasing influence of mental laws,” and “the measure of civilization is the triumph of mind over external agents.” Yet his challenge, not only to the theologian, but also to those “historians whose indolence of thought” or “natural incapacity” prevented them from attempting more than the annalistic record of events, called out a storm of protest from almost every side. Now that the controversy has cleared away, we see that in spite of Buckle’s too confident formulation of his laws, his pioneer work in a great field marks him out as the Augustine of the scientific age. Among historians, however, Buckle’s theory received but little favour for another generation. Meanwhile the economists had themselves taken up the problem, and it was from them that the historians of to-day have learned it. Ten years before Buckle published his history, Karl Marx had already formulated the “economic theory of history.” Accepting with reservation Feuerbach’s attack on the Hegelian “absolute idea,” based on materialistic grounds (Der Mensch ist, was er isst), Marx was led to the conclusion that the causes of that process of growth which constitutes the history of society are to be found in the economic conditions of existence. From this he went on to socialism, which bases its militant philosophy upon this interpretation of history. But the truth or falseness of socialism does not affect the theory of history. In 1845 Marx wrote of the Young-Hegelians that to separate history from natural science and industry was like separating the soul from the body, and “finding the birthplace of history, not in the gross material production on earth, but in the misty cloud formation of heaven” (Die heilige Familie, p. 238). In his Misère de la philosophie (1847) he lays down the principle that social relationships largely depend upon modes of production, and therefore the principles, ideas and categories which are thus evolved are no more eternal than the relations they express, but are historical and transitory products. In the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) the theory was applied to show how the industrial revolution had replaced feudal with modern conditions. But it had little vogue, except among Socialists, until the third volume of Das Kapital was published in 1894, when its importance was borne in upon continental scholars. Since then the controversy has been almost as heated as in the days of the Reformation. It is an exaggeration of the theory which makes it an explanation of all human life, but the whole science of dynamic sociology rests upon the postulate of Marx.
The content of history always reflects the interests of the age in which it is written. It was so in Herodotus and in medieval chronicles. Modern historians began with politics. But as the complex nature of society became more evident in the age of democracy, the economic or sociological history gained ground. Histories of commerce and cities now rank beside those on war and kings, although there are readers still who prefer to follow the pennants of robber barons rather than to watch the slow evolution of modern conditions. The drum-and-trumpet history has its place like that of art, jurisprudence, science or philosophy. Only now we know that no one of these is more than a single glimpse at a vast complex of phenomena, most of which lie for ever beyond our ken.
This expansion of interest has intensified specialization. Historians no longer attempt to write world histories; they form associations of specialists for the purpose. Each historian chooses his own epoch or century and his own subject, and spends his life mastering such traces of it as he can find. His work there enables him to judge of the methods of his fellows, but his own remains restricted by the very wealth of material which has been accumulated on the single subject before him. Thus the great enterprises of to-day are co-operative—the Cambridge Modern History, Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire générale, or Lavisse’s Histoire de France, like Hunt and Poole’s Political History of England, and Oncken’s Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen. But even these vast sets cover but the merest fraction of their subjects. The Cambridge history passes for the most part along the political crust of society, and seldom glances at the social forces within. This limitation of the professed historian is made up for by the growingly historical treatment of all the sciences and arts—a tendency noted before, to which this edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is itself a notable witness. Indeed, for a definition of that limitless subject which includes all the phenomena that stand the warp and stress of change, one might adapt a famous epitaph—si historiam requiris, circumspice.
Bibliography.—See Ch. V. Langlois, Manuel de bibliographie historique (2 vols., 1904). This forms the logical bibliography of this article. It is a general survey of the whole apparatus of historical research, and is the indispensable guide to the subject. Similar bibliographies covering sections of history are noted with the articles where they properly belong, e.g. in English medieval history the manual of Chas. Gross, Sources and Literature of English History; 533 in German history the Quellenkunde of Dahlmann-Waitz (7th ed.); for France the Bibliographie de l’histoire de France of G. Monod (antiquated, 1888), or the Sources de l’histoire de France so ably begun by A. Molinier’s volumes on the medieval period. Perhaps the sanest survey of the present scientific movement in history is the clear summary of Ch. V. Langlois and Ch. Seignobos, Introduction to the Study of History (trans. with preface by F. York Powell, London, 1898). Much more ambitious is E. Bernheim’s Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie mit Nachweis der wichtigsten Quellen und Hilfsmittel zum Studium der Geschichte (3rd and 4th ed., Leipzig, 1903).
HIT, a town of Asiatic Turkey, in the vilayet of Bagdad, on the west bank of the Euphrates, 70 m. W.N.W. of Bagdad, in 33° 38′ 8″ N., 42° 52′ 15″ E. It is picturesquely situated on a line of hills, partly natural, but in large part certainly artificial, the accumulation of centuries of former habitation, from 30 to 100 ft. in height, bordering the river. The houses are built of field stones and mud. A striking feature of the town is a lofty and well-proportioned minaret, which leans quite perceptibly. Behind and around Hit is an extensive but utterly barren plain, through which flow several streams of bitter water, coming from mineral springs. Directly behind the town are two bitumen springs, one cold and one hot, within 30 ft. of one another. The gypsum cliffs on the edge of the plain, and the rocks which crop out here and there in the plain, are full of seams of bitumen, and the whole place is redolent of sulphuretted hydrogen. Across the river there are naphtha springs. Indeed, the entire region is one possessing great potential wealth in mineral oils and the like. Hit, with its fringe of palms, is like an oasis in the desert occasioned by the outcrop of these deposits. From time immemorial it has been the chief source of supply of bitumen for Babylonia, the prosperity of the town depending always upon its bitumen fountains, which are still the property of the government, but are rented out to any one who wishes to use them. There is also a shipyard at Hit, where the characteristic Babylonian boats are still made, smeared within and without with bitumen. Hit is the head of navigation on the Euphrates. It is also the point from which the camel-post starts across the desert to Damascus. About 8 m. inland from Hit, on a bitter stream, lies the small town of Kubeitha. Hit is mentioned, under the name of Ist, in the Karnak inscription as paying tribute to Tethmosis (Thothmes) III. In the Bible (Ezra viii. 15) it is called Ahava; the original Babylonian name seems to have been Ihi, which becomes in the Talmud Ihidakira, in Ptolemy Ιδικάρα, and in Zosimus and Ammianus Δακίρα and Diacira.
See Geo. Rawlinson’s Herodotus, i. 179, and note by H. C. Rawlinson; J. P. Peters, Nippur (1897); H. V. Geere, By Nile and Euphrates (1904).
HITA, GINÉS PEREZ DE (1544?-1605?), Spanish novelist and poet, was born at Mula (Murcia) about the middle of the 16th century. He served in the campaign of 1569-1571 against the Moriscos, and in 1572 wrote a rhymed history of the city of Lorca which remained unpublished till 1889. He owes his wide celebrity to the Historia de los bandos de Zegríes y Abencerrajes (1595-1604), better known as the Guerras civiles de Granada, which purports to be a chronicle based on an Arabic original ascribed to a certain Aben-Hamin. Aben-Hamin is a fictitious personage, and the Guerras de Granada is in reality a historical novel, perhaps the earliest example of its kind, and certainly the first historical novel that attained popularity. In the first part the events which led to the downfall of Granada are related with uncommon brilliancy, and Hita’s sympathetic transcription of life at the Emir’s court has clearly suggested the conventional presentation of the picturesque, chivalrous Moor in the pages of Mlle de Scudéry, Mme de Lafayette, Châteaubriand and Washington Irving. The second part is concerned with the author’s personal experiences, and the treatment is effective; yet, though Calderón’s play, Amar después de la muerte, is derived from it, the second part has never enjoyed the vogue or influence of the first. The exact date of Hita’s death is unknown. His blank verse rendering of the Crónica Troyana, written in 1596, exists in manuscript.
HITCHCOCK, EDWARD (1793-1864), American geologist, was born of poor parents at Deerfield, Massachusetts, on the 24th of May 1793. He owed his education chiefly to his own exertions, and was preparing himself to enter Harvard College when he was compelled to interrupt his studies from a weakness in his eyesight. In 1815 he became principal of the academy of his native town; but he resigned this office in 1818 in order to study for the ministry. Having been ordained in 1821 pastor of the Congregational church of Conway, Mass., he employed his leisure in making a scientific survey of the western counties of the state. From 1825 to 1845 he was professor of chemistry and natural history, from 1845 to 1864 was professor of natural theology and geology at Amherst College, and from 1845 to 1854 was president; the college owed its early success largely to his energetic efforts, especially during the period of his presidency. In 1830 he was appointed state geologist of Massachusetts, and in 1836 was made geologist of the first district of the state of New York. In 1840 he received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard, and in 1846 that of D.D. from Middlebury College, Vermont. Besides his constant labours in geology, zoology and botany, Hitchcock took an active interest in agriculture, and in 1850 he was sent by the Massachusetts legislature to examine into the methods of the agricultural schools of Europe. In geology he made a detailed examination and exposition of the fossil footprints from the Triassic sandstones of the Connecticut valley. His collection is preserved in the Hitchcock Ichnological Museum of Amherst College, and a description of it was published in 1858 in his report to the Massachusetts legislature on the ichnology of New England. The footprints were regarded as those of reptiles, amphibia and birds (?). In 1857 he undertook, with the aid of his two sons, the geological survey of Vermont, which was completed in 1861. As a writer on geological science, Hitchcock was largely concerned in determining the connexion between it and religion, and employing its results to explain and support what he regarded as the truths of revelation. He died at Amherst, on the 27th of February 1864.
His son, Charles Henry Hitchcock (1836- ), did good service in geology, in Vermont, New Hampshire (1868-1878), and other parts of America, and became professor of geology at Dartmouth in 1868.
The following are Edward Hitchcock’s principal works: Geology of the Connecticut Valley (1823); Catalogue of Plants growing without cultivation in the vicinity of Amherst (1829); Reports on the Geology of Massachusetts (1833-1841); Elementary Geology (1840; ed. 2, 1841; and later ed. with C. H. Hitchcock, 1862); Fossil Footmarks in the United States (1848); Outline of the Geology of the Globe and of the United States in particular (1853); Illustrations of Surface Geology (1856); Ichnology of New England (1858); The Religion of Geology and its Connected Sciences (1851; new ed., 1869); Reminiscences of Amherst College (1863); and various papers in the American Journal of Science, and other periodicals.
HITCHCOCK, GEORGE (1850- ), American artist, was born at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1850. He graduated from Brown University in 1872 and from the law school of Harvard University in 1874; then turned his attention to art and became a pupil of Boulanger and Lefebvre in Paris. He attracted notice in the Salon of 1885 with his “Tulip Growing,” a Dutch garden which he painted in Holland. He had for years a studio at Egmond, in the Netherlands. He became a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, France; a member of the Vienna Academy of Arts, the Munich Secession Society, and other art bodies; and is represented in the Dresden gallery; the imperial collection, Vienna; the Chicago Art Institute, and the Detroit Museum of Fine Arts.
HITCHCOCK, ROSWELL DWIGHT (1817-1887), American divine, was born at East Machias, Maine, on the 15th of August 1817, graduated at Amherst College in 1836, and later studied at Andover Theological Seminary, Mass. After a visit to Germany he was a tutor at Amherst in 1839-1842, and was minister of the First (Congregational) Church, Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1845-1852. He became professor of natural and revealed religion in Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, in 1852, and in 1855 professor of church history in the Union Theological Seminary in New York, of which he was president in 1880-1887. He died at Somerset, Mass., on the 16th of June 1887.
Among his works are: Life of Edward Robinson (1863); Socialism (1879); Carmina Sanctorum (with Z. Eddy and L. W. Mudge, 1885); and Eternal Atonement (1888).
HITCHIN, a market town in the Hitchin parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, on the small river Hiz, 32 m. N. from London by the Great Northern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 10,072. It is the junction of the main line with the Cambridge branch, and with a branch of the Midland railway to Bedford. The church of St Mary is Perpendicular, with a fine porch, a painting of the Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Rubens, a small crypt said to have been used by Cromwell as a prison for the Royalists, and many interesting monuments. Hitchin Priory is a mansion on the site of a Carmelite foundation of the early 14th century. A Gilbertine nunnery, founded later in the same century, stood adjacent to the church, and portions of the buildings appear in an existing block of almshouses. The grammar school (1632) was reconstituted in 1889 for boys and girls. Straw-plaiting, malting, brewing, and the cultivation and distillation of lavender and peppermint are carried on.
HITTITES, an ancient people, alluded to frequently in the earlier records of Israel, and also, under slightly variant names, in Egyptian records of the XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth Dynasties, and in Assyrian from about 1100 to 700 B.C. They appear also in the Vannic cuneiform texts, and are believed to be the authors of a class of monuments bearing inscriptions in a peculiar pictographic character, and widely distributed over Asia Minor and N. Syria, around which much controversy has raged during the past thirty years.
1. The Bible.—In the Old Testament the name of the race is written Heth (with initial aspirate), members of it being Hitti, Hittim, which the Septuagint renders χέτ, χετταῖος, χεττείν or χεττείμ, keeping, it will be noted, ε in the stem throughout. The race appears in two connexions, (a) In pre-Israelite Palestine, it is resident about Hebron (Gen. xxiii. 3), and in the central uplands (Num. xiii. 29). To Joshua (i. 4) is promised “from the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites.” The term “wilderness” here is of geographical ambiguity; but the promise is usually taken to mean that Palestine itself was part of the Hittite land before the coming of Israel; and an apostrophe of Ezekiel (xvi. 3) to Jerusalem, “thy mother (was) an Hittite,” is quoted in confirmation. Under the monarchy we hear frequently of Hittites within the borders of Israel, but either as a small subject people, coupled with other petty tribes, or as individuals in the Jewish service (e.g. Uriah, in the time of David). It appears, therefore, that there survived in Palestine to late times a detached Hittite population, with which Hebrews sometimes intermarried (Judges iii. 5-6; Gen. xxvi. 34) and lived in relations now amicable, now tyrannical (e.g. Hittites were made tributary bondsmen by Solomon, 1 Kings ix. 20, 21; 2 Chron. viii. 7, 8). (b) An independent and powerful Hittite people was domiciled N. of Palestine proper, organized rather as a confederacy of tribes than a single monarchy (1 Kings x. 28; 2 Kings vii. 6). Presumably it was a daughter of these Hittites that Solomon took to wife. If the emendation of 2 Sam. xxiv. 64, “Tahtim-hodshi,” based on the Septuagint version γὴν χεττεὶμ καδής be accepted, we hear of them at Kadesh on Orontes; and some minor Hittite cities are mentioned, e.g. Luz; but no one capital city of the race is clearly indicated. Carchemish, on the Euphrates, though mentioned three times (2 Chron. xxxv. 20; Isa. x. 9; Jer. xlvi. 2), is not connected explicitly with Hittites, a fact which is not surprising, since that city was no longer under a Hatti dynasty at the epoch of the Old Testament references. So far as the Old Testament goes, therefore, we gather that the Hittites were a considerable people, widely spread in Syria, in part subdued and to some extent assimilated by Israel, but in part out of reach. The latter portion was not much known to the Hebrews, but was vaguely feared as a power in the early days of the monarchy, though not in the later pre-Captivity period. The identification of the northern and southern Hittites, however, presents certain difficulties not yet fully explained; and it seems that we must assume Heth to have been the name both of a country in the north and of a tribal population not confined to that country.
2. Egyptian Records.—The decipherment of the inscriptions of the XVIIIth Theban Dynasty led, before the middle of the 19th century, to the discovery of the important part played in the Syrian campaigns of Tethmosis (Thothmes) III. by the H-t8 (vulgarly transliterated Kheta, though the vocalization is uncertain). The coincidence of this name, beginning with an aspirate, led H. K. Brugsch to identify the Kheta with Heth. That identification stands, and no earlier Egyptian mention of the race has been found. Tethmosis III. found the Kheta (“Great” and “Little”) in N. Syria, not apparently at Kadesh, but at Carchemish, though they had not been in possession of the latter place long (not in the epoch of Tethmosis I.’s Syrian campaign). They were a power strong enough to give the Pharaoh cause to vaunt his success (see also Egypt: Ancient History, § “The New Empire”). Though he says he levied tribute upon them, his successors in the dynasty nearly all record fresh wars with the Kheta who appear as the northernmost of Pharaoh’s enemies, and Amenophis or Amenhotep III. saw fit to take to wife Gilukhipa, a Syrian princess, who may or may not have been a Hittite. This queen is by some supposed to have introduced into Egypt certain exotic ideas which blossomed in the reign of Amenophis IV. The first Pharaoh of the succeeding dynasty, Rameses I., came to terms with a Kheta king called Saplel or Saparura; but Seti I. again attacked the Kheta (1366 B.C.), who had apparently pushed southwards. Forced back by Seti, the Kheta returned and were found holding Kadesh by Rameses II., who, in his fifth year, there fought against them and a large body of allies, drawn probably in part from beyond Taurus, the battle which occasioned the monumental poem of Pentaur. After long struggles, a treaty was concluded in Rameses’s twenty-first year, between Pharaoh and “Khetasar” (i.e. Kheta-king), of which we possess an Egyptian copy. The discovery of a cuneiform tablet containing a copy of this same treaty, in the Babylonian language, was reported from Boghaz Keui in Cappadocia by H. Winckler in 1907. It argues the Kheta a people of considerable civilization. The Kheta king subsequently visited Pharaoh and gave him his daughter to wife. Rameses’ successor, Mineptah, remained on terms with the Kheta folk; but in the reign of Rameses III. (Dyn. XX.) the latter seem to have joined in the great raid of northern tribes on Egypt which was checked by the battle of Pelusium. From this point (c. 1150 B.C.)—the point at which (roughly) the monarchic history of Israel in Palestine opens—Egyptian records cease to mention Kheta; and as we know from other sources that the latter continued powerful in Carchemish for some centuries to come, we must presume that the rise of the Israelite state interposed an effective political barrier.
3. Assyrian Records.—In an inscription of Tiglath Pileser I. (about 1100 B.C.), first deciphered in 1857, a people called Khatti is mentioned as powerful in Girgamish on Euphrates (i.e. Carchemish); and in other records of the same monarch, subsequently read, much mention is made of this and of other N. Syrian names. These Khatti appear again in the inscriptions of Assur-nazir-pal (early 9th century B.C.), in whose time Carchemish was very wealthy, and the Khatti power extended far over N. Syria and even into Mesopotamia. Shalmaneser II. (d. 825 B.C.) raided the Khatti and their allies year after year; and at last Sargon III., in 717 B.C., relates that he captured Carchemish and its king, Pisiris, and put an end to its independence. We hear no more of it thenceforward. These Khatti, there is no reasonable doubt, are identical with Kheta. (For the chronology see further under Babylonia and Assyria.)
4. Other Cuneiform Records.—The name of the race appears in certain of the Tel-el-Amarna letters, tablets written in Babylonian script to Amenophis (Amenhotep) IV. and found in 1892 on the site of his capital. Some of his governors in Syrian districts (e.g. one Aziru of Phoenicia) report movements of the Hittites, who were then pursuing an aggressive policy (about 1400 B.C.). There are also other letters from rulers of principalities in N. Syria (Mitanni) and E. Asia Minor (Arzawa), who write in non-Semitic tongues and are supposed to have been Hittites.
Certain Khatē or Khati are mentioned in the Vannic inscriptions (deciphered partially by A. H. Sayce and others) as attacked by 535 kings of Bianas (Van), and apparently domiciled on the middle Euphrates N. of Taurus in the 9th century B.C. This name again may safely be identified with Khatti-Kheta.
The Khatti also appear on a “prophecy-tablet,” referring ostensibly to the time of Sargon of Agadé (middle of 4th millennium B.C.); but the document is probably of very much later date. Lastly, a fragmentary chronicle of the 1st Babylonian Dynasty mentions an invasion of Akkad by them about 1800 B.C.
From all these various sources we should gather that the Hittites were among the more important racial elements in N. Syria and S.E. Asia Minor for at least a thousand years. The limits at each end, however, are very ill defined, the superior falling not later than 2000 B.C. and the inferior not earlier than 600 B.C. This people was militant, aggressive and unsettled in the earlier part of that time; commercial, wealthy and enervated in the latter. A memorial of its trading long remained in Asia in the shape of the weight-measure called in cuneiform records the maneh “of Carchemish.” These Hittites had close relations with other Asia Minor peoples, and at times headed a confederacy. During the later part of their history they were in continual contact with Assyria, and, as a Syrian power, and perhaps also as a Cappadocian one, they finally succumbed to Assyrian pressure.
The “Hittite” Monuments.—It remains to consider in the light of the foregoing evidence a class of monuments to which attention began to be called about 1870. In that year two Americans, Consul J. A. Johnson and the Rev. S. Jessup, rediscovered, at Hamah (Hamath) on Orontes, five basaltic blocks bearing pictographic inscriptions in relief, one of which had been reported by J. L. Burckhardt in 1812. In spite of their efforts and subsequent attempts made by Tyrwhitt Drake and Richard Burton, when consul at Damascus, proper copies could not be obtained; and it was not till the end of 1872 that, thanks to W. Wright of Beirut, casts were taken and the stones themselves sent to Constantinople by Subhi Pasha of Damascus. As usually happens when a new class of antiquities is announced, it was soon found that the “Hamathite” inscriptions did not stand alone. A monument in the same script had been seen in Aleppo by Tyrwhitt Drake and George Smith in 1872. It still exists, built into a mosque on the western wall of the city. Certain clay sealings, eight of which bore pictographic signs, found by A. H. Layard in the palace of Assur-bani-pal at Kuyunjik (Nineveh), as long ago as 1851 and noticed then as in a “doubtful character,” were compared by Hayes Ward and found to be of the Hamathite class. A new copy of the long known rock-sculpture at Ivriz1 in S.W. Cappadocia was published by E. J. Davis in 1876, and clearly showed Hamathite characters accompanying the figures. Davis also reported, but did not see, a similar inscription at Bulgar Maden, not far away. Sculptures seen by W. Skene and George Smith at Jerablus, on the middle Euphrates, led to excavations being undertaken there, in 1878, by the British Museum, and to the discovery of certain Hamathite inscriptions accompanying sculptures, a few of which were brought to London. The conduct of these excavations, owing to the death of George Smith, devolved on Consul Henderson of Aleppo, and was not satisfactorily carried out. Meanwhile Wright, Ward and Sayce had all suggested “Hittite” as a substitute for “Hamathite,” because no other N. Syrian people loomed so large in ancient records as did the Hittites, and the suggestion began to find acceptance. Jerablus was confidently identified with Carchemish (but without positive proof to this day), and the occurrence of Hamathite monuments there was held to confirm the Hittite theory.
In 1876 Sayce pointed out the resemblance between certain Hittite signs and characters in the lately deciphered Cypriote syllabary, and suggested that the comparison might lead to a beginning of decipherment; but the hope has proved vain. To this scholar, however, is owed the next great step ahead. In 1879 it first occurred to him to compare the rock-monuments at Boghaz Keui (see Pteria) and Euyuk in N. Cappadocia, discovered by Texier and Hamilton in 1835 and subsequently explored by G. Perrot and E. Guillaume. These, he now saw, bore Hittite pictographs. Other rock-sculptures at Giaur Kalessi, in Galatia, and in the Karabel pass near Smyrna, he suspected of belonging to the same class2; and visiting the last-named locality in the autumn, he found Hittite pictographs accompanying one of the two figures.3 He announced his discoveries in 1880, and proclaimed the fact that a great Hittite empire, extending from Kadesh to Smyrna, had risen from the dead. A month later he had the good fortune to recover copies of a silver boss, or hilt-top, offered to various museums about 1860, but rejected by them as a meaningless forgery and for a long time lost again to sight. Round the rim was a cuneiform legend, and in the field a Hittite figure with six Hittite symbols engraved twice over on either hand of it. Reading the cuneiform as Tarqu-dimme sar mat Erme (i.e. “T. king of the country E.”), Sayce distributed phonetic values, corresponding to the syllables of the two proper names, among four of the Hittite characters, reserving two as “ideograms” of “king” and “country,” and launched into the field of decipherment. But he subsequently recognized that this was a false start, and began afresh from another basis. Since then a number of other monuments have been found, some on new sites, others on sites already known to be Hittite, the distribution of which can be seen by reference to the accompanying map. It will be observed that, so far as at present known, they cluster most closely in Commagene, Cappadocia and S. Phrygia.
The following notes supplement the map:—
A. West Asia Minor.—“Niobe” (Suratlu Tash) and Karabel (two); rock-cut figures with much defaced hieroglyphs in relief. Remains of buildings, not yet explored, lie near the “Niobe” figure. Nothing purely Hittite has been found at Sardis or in any W. Asian excavation; but small Hittite objects have been sold in Smyrna and Aidin.
B. Phrygia.—Giaur-Kalessi; rock-cut figures and remains of a stronghold, but no inscriptions. Doghanlüdere and Beikeui in the Phrygian rock-monument country; at the first is a sculptured rock-panel with a few pictographs in relief; at the latter a fragment of an inscription in relief was disinterred from a mound. Kolitolu Yaila, near Ilghin; block inscribed in relief, disinterred from mounds apparently marking a camp or palace-enclosure. Eflatun Bunar (= Plato’s Spring), W. of Konia; megalithic building with rude and greatly defaced reliefs, not certainly Hittite: no inscription. Fassiler, W. of Konia; gigantic stela, or composite statue (figure on animals), not certainly Hittite; no inscription. Konia; relief of warrior, drawn by Texier in 1835 and since lost; of very doubtful Hittite character. A gold inscribed Hittite ring, now at Oxford, was bought there in 1903. Emirghazi (anc. Ardistama?); three inscriptions in relief (two on altars) and large mounds. Evidently an important Hittite site. Kara-Dagh; hill-sanctuary with incised carving of seated figure and inscriptions, found by Miss G. L. Bell and Sir W. M. Ramsay in 1907 (see their Thousand and One Churches, 1909).
C. North Cappadocia.—Boghaz Keui (see Pteria); large city with remains of palace, citadel, walls, &c. Long rock-cut inscription of ten lines in relief, two short relief inscriptions cut on blocks, and also cuneiform tablets in Babylonian and also in a native language, first found in situ in 1893, and showing the site to be the capital of Arzawa, whence came two of the Tell el-Amarna letters. Near the site are the rock reliefs of Yasili Kaya in two hypaethral galleries, showing, in the one, two processions composed of over sixty figures meeting at the head of the gallery; in the other, isolated groups of figures, fifteen in number (see for detailed description Murray’s Guide to Asia Minor, 1895, pp. 23 ff.). Pictographs accompany many of the figures. The whole makes the most extensive group of Hittite remains yet known. Boghaz Keui was never thoroughly explored until 1907, the survey of Perrot and Guillaume having been superficial only and the excavations of E. Chantre (1894) very slight. In 1906 a German expedition under Professor H. Winckler undertook the work, and great numbers of cuneiform tablets were found. These refer to the reigns of at least four kings from Subbiluliuma (= Saplel, see above) to Hattusil II. or Khartusil (= Khetasar, see above). The latter was an ally of Katashmanturgu of Babylon, 536 and powerful enough to write to the Babylonian court as a sovereign of equal standing. His letter shows that he considered the rise of Assyria a menace to himself. Winckler claims to read Hatti as the name of the possessors of Boghaz Keui, and to find in this name the proof of the Hittite character of Syro-Cappadocian power and of the imperial predominance of the city. But it remains to be proved whether these tablets were written there, and not rather, being in a foreign script, abroad, like most of the Tell el-Amarna archives. O. Puchstein has cleared and studied important architectural remains. Euyuk; large mound with remains of palace entered between sphinxes. Sculptured wall-dados, but no Hittite inscriptions. Cuneiform tablets; some Babylonian, others in a native language. Also inscriptions in early Phrygian character and language, found in 1894. The most famous of Hittite reliefs is here—a double-headed eagle “displayed” on the flank of one of the gateway sphinxes. This is supposed to have suggested to the Seljuks of Konia their heraldic device adopted in the 13th century, which, brought to Europe by the Crusaders, became the emblem of Teutonic empire in 1345. This derivation must be taken, however, cum grano, proof of its successive steps being wanting. Kara-Euyuk; a mound near Dedik, partially excavated by E. Chantre in 1894. Cuneiform tablets and small objects possibly, but not certainly, Hittite. A colossal eagle was found on a deserted site near Yamuli on the middle Halys, in 1907 by W. Attmore Robinson.
D. South Cappadocia.—Karaburna; long, incised rock-inscription. Bogja, eight hours west of Kaisariye; four-sided stela with incised inscription. Assarjik, on the side of Mt. Argaeus; incised rock-inscription. Ekrek; a fragmentary inscription in relief and an incised inscription on a stela of very late appearance. Fraktin or Farakdin (probably anc. Das-tarkon); sculptured rock-panel showing two groups of figures in act of cult, with hieroglyphs in relief. Arslan Tash, near Comana (Cappadocia), on the Soghan Dagh; two colossal lions, one with incised inscription. Tashji in the Zamanti valley; rock-relief with rudely incised inscription. Andaval and Bor; inscriptions incised on sculptured stelae of kings (?), probably from Tyana (Ekuzli Hissar). All are now in Constantinople. A silver seal with hieroglyphs, now at Oxford, came also from Bor. Nigdeh; basalt drum or altar with incised inscription. Ivriz; rock-sculpture of king adoring god, with three inscriptions in relief. A second sculpture, similar in subject but smaller and much defaced, was found hard by in 1906. Bulgar Maden; long incised rock inscription, near silver-mines. Gorun (Gurun); two rock-inscriptions in relief, much damaged. Arslan-Tepe, near Ordasu (two hours from Malatia); large mound whence two sculptured stelae or wall-blocks with inscriptions in relief have been unearthed (now in Constantinople and the Louvre). Four other reliefs, reported found near Malatia and published by J. Garstang in Annals Arch. and Anthrop., 1908, probably came also from Arslan Tepe. Palanga; lower aniconic half of draped statue with incised inscription, now in Constantinople. Also a small basalt lion. Arslan Tash, near Palanga; two rude gateway lions, uninscribed. Yapalak; defaced inscription, reported by J. S. Sterrett but never copied. Izgin; obelisk with long inscription in relief on all four faces, now in Constantinople. These last four places seem to lie on a main road leading from Cappadocia to Marash and the Syrian sites. The expedition sent out by Cornell University in 1907 found several Hittite inscriptions on rocks near Darende in the valley of the Tokhma Su.
E. North Syria.—Marash; several monuments (stelae, wall-blocks and two lions) with inscriptions, both in relief and incised (part are now at Constantinople, part in Berlin and America); evidently one of the most important of Hittite sites. Karaburshlu, Arbistan, Gerchin, Sinjerli; mounds about the head-waters of the Kara Su. The last-named mound, brought to O. Puchstein’s notice in 1882 by the chance discovery of sculptured wall-dados, now in Constantinople, was the scene of extensive German excavations in 1893-1894, directed by F. v. Luschan and K. Koldewey, and was found to cover a walled town with central fortified palace. Hittite, cuneiform and old Aramaean monuments were found with many small objects, most of which have been taken to Berlin; but no Hittite inscriptions came to light. Sakchegeuzu (Sakchegözu), a site with several mounds between Sinjerli and Aintab; series of reliefs, once wall-dados, now in Berlin and Constantinople. This site is in process of excavation by Professor J. Garstang of the University of Liverpool. A sculptured portico has come to light in the smallest of the five mounds, and much pottery, with incised and painted decoration, has been recovered. Aintab; fragment of relief inscription. Samsat (Samosata); sculptured stela with incised inscription much defaced. Jerablus; see above. Several Hittite objects sent from Birejik and Aintab to Europe probably came from Jerablus, others from Tell Bashar on the Sajur. Kellekli, near Jerablus; two stelae, one with relief inscription. Iskanderun (Alexandretta); source of a long inscription cut on both sides of a spheroidal object of unknown origin. Kirchoglu, a site on the Afrin, whence a fragmentary draped statue with incised inscription was sent to Berlin. Aleppo; inscription in relief (see above). Tell Ahmar (on left bank of Euphrates); large stela with sculpture and long relief inscription, found in 1908 with several sculptured slabs and two gateway lions, inscribed in cuneiform. Two hours south, a lion and a fragment of a relief inscription were found in 1909 by Miss G. L. Bell. Tell Halaf in Mid-Mesopotamia, near Ras el-Ain; sculptures on portico of a temple or palace; cuneiform inscriptions 537 and large mounds, explored in 1902 by Oppenheim. Hamah; five blocks inscribed in relief (see above).
F. Outlying Sites.—Erzerum; source of an incised inscription, perhaps not originally found there. Kedabeg; metal boss or hilt-top with pictographs, found in a tomb and stated by F. Hommel to be Hittite, but doubtful. Toprak Kaleh; bronze fragments with two pictographs; doubtful if Hittite. Nineveh; sealings, see above. Babylon; a bowl and a stela of storm-god, both with incised inscriptions; doubtless spoil of war or tribute brought from Syria. The bowl is inscribed round the outside, the stela on the back.
(For a detailed description of the subjects of the reliefs, &c., with the necessary illustrations, see the works indicated in the bibliography.)
Structures.—The structural remains found as yet on Hittite sites are few, scanty and far between. They consist of: (a) Ground plans of a palatial building and three temples and fortifications with sculptured gate at Boghaz Keui. The palace was built round a central court, flanked by passages and entered by a doorway of three battants hung on two columns. The whole plan bears more than a superficial resemblance to those of Cretan palaces in the later Minoan period. Only the rough core of the walls is standing to a height of about 3 ft. The fortifications of the citadel have an elaborate double gate with flanking towers, (b) Fortifications, palace, &c., at Sinjerli. The gates here are more elaborate than at Boghaz Keui, but planned with the same idea—that of entrapping in an enclosed space, barred by a second door, an enemy who may have forced the first door, while flanking towers would add to his discomfiture. The palace plan is again rectangular, with a central pillared hall, and very similar in plan to that of Boghaz Keui. The massive walls are also of similar construction. Dados of relief-sculpture run round the inner walls; this feature seems to have been common to Hittite buildings of a sumptuous kind, and accounts for most of the sculptured blocks that have been found, e.g. at Jerablus, Sakhchegeuzu, Euyuk, Arslan Tepe, &c. Columns, probably of wood, rested on bases carved as winged lions, (c) Gate with sculptured approach at Euyuk. The ground plan of the gate is practically the same in idea as that at Sinjerli. Structures were found at Jerablus, but never properly uncovered or planned, (d) Sculptured porticoes of temples or palaces uncovered at Sakchegeuzu and Tell Halaf (see above). On other sites, e.g. Arslan Tepe (Ordasu), Arbistan, Marash (above the modern town and near the springs), Beikeui, mounds, doubtless covering structures, may be seen, and sculptured slabs have been recovered. The mounds, probably Hittite, in N. Syria alone are to be counted by hundreds. No tombs certainly Hittite have been found,4 though it is possible that some of the reliefs (e.g. at Fraktin) are of funerary character.
Sculptures and other Objects of Art.—The sculptures hitherto found consist of reliefs on rocks and on stelae, either honorific or funerary; reliefs on blocks forming parts of wall-dados; and a few figures more or less in the round, though most of these (e.g. the sphinxes of Euyuk and the lions of Arslan Tash and Marash) are not completely disengaged from the block. The most considerable sculptured rock-panels are at Boghaz Keui (see Pteria); the others (Ivriz, Fraktin, Karabel, Giaur Kalessi, Doghanlüdere), it should be observed, all lie N. of Taurus—a fact of some bearing on the problem of the origin and local domicile of the art, since rock-reliefs, at any rate, cannot be otherwise than in situ. Sculptured stelae, honorific or funerary, all with pyramidal or slightly rounded upper ends, and showing a single regal or divine figure or two figures, have come to light at Bor, Marash, Sinjerli, Jerablus, Babylon, &c. These, like most of the rock-panels, are all marked as Hittite by accompanying pictographic inscriptions. The wall-blocks are seldom inscribed, the exceptions (e.g. the Arslan Tepe lion-hunt and certain blocks from Marash and Jerablus) being not more certainly wall-dados than stelae. The only fairly complete anthropoid statue known is the much-defaced “Niobe” at Suratlu Tash, engaged in the rock behind. The aniconic lower part of an inscribed statue wholly in the round was found at Palanga, and parts of others at Kirchoglu and Marash. Despite considerable differences in execution and details, all these sculptures show one general type of art, a type which recalls now Babylonian, now Assyrian, now Egyptian, now archaic Ionian, style, but is always individual and easily distinguishable from the actual products of those peoples. The figures, whether of men or beasts, are of a squat, heavy order, with internal features (e.g. bones, muscles, &c.) shown as if external, as in some Mesopotamian sculptures. The human type is always very brachycephalic, with brow receding sharply and long nose making almost one line with the sloping forehead. In the sculptures of the Commagene and the Tyana districts, the nose has a long curving tip, of very Jewish appearance, but not unlike the outline given to Kheta warriors in Egyptian scenes. The lips are full and the chin short and shaven. The whole physiognomy is fleshy and markedly distinct from that of other Syrians. At Boghaz Keui, Euyuk and Jerablus, the facial type is very markedly non-Semitic. But not much stress can be laid on these differences owing to (1) great variety of execution in different sculptures, which argues artists of very unequal capacity; (2) doubt whether individual portraits are intended in some cases and not in others. The hair of males is sometimes, but not always, worn in pigtail. The fashions of head-covering and clothes are very various, but several of them—e.g. the horned cap of the Ivriz god; the conical hat at Boghaz Keui, Fraktin, &c; the “jockey-cap” on the Tarkudimme boss; the broad-bordered over-robe, and the upturned shoes—are not found on other Asiatic monuments, except where Hittites are portrayed. Animals in profile are represented more naturalistically than human beings, e.g. at Yasili Kaya, and especially in some pictographic symbols in relief (e.g. at Hamah). This, however, is a feature common to Mesopotamian and Egyptian, and perhaps to all primitive art.
The subjects depicted are processions of figures, human and divine (Yasili Kaya, Euyuk, Giaur Kalessi); scenes of sacrifice or adoration, or other cult-practice (Yasili Kaya, Euyuk, Fraktin, Ivriz, and perhaps the figures seated beside tables at Marash Sakchegeuzu, Sinjerli, &c.); of the chase (Arslan Tepe, Sakchegeuzu); but not, as known at present, of battle. Both at Euyuk and Yasili Kaya reliefs in one and the same series are widely separated in artistic conception and execution, some showing the utmost naïveté, others expressing both outline and motion with fair success. The fact warns us against drawing hasty inductions as to relative dates from style and execution.
Besides sculptures, well assured, Hittite art-products include a few small objects in metal (e.g. heavy, inscribed gold ring bought by Sir W. M. Ramsay at Konia; base silver seal, supported on three lions’ claws, bought by D. G. Hogarth at Bor; inscribed silver boss of “Tarkudimme,” mentioned above, &c. &c.); many intaglios in various stones (chiefly in steatite), mostly either spheroidal or gable-shaped, but a few scarabaeoid, conical or cylindrical, bearing sometimes pictographic symbols, sometimes divine, human or animal figures. The best collection is at Oxford. The majority are of very rude workmanship, bodies and limbs being represented by mere skeleton lines or unfilled outlines; a few vessels (e.g. inscribed basalt bowl found at Babylon) and fragments of ware painted with dark ornament on light body-clay, or in polychrome on a cream-white slip, or black burnished, found on N. Cappadocian sites, &c. The bronzes hitherto claimed as Hittite have been bought on the Syrian coast or come from not certainly Hittite sites in Cappadocia (see E. Chantre, Mission en Cappadocie). A great many small objects were found in the excavations at Sinjerli, including carved ivories, seals, toilet-instruments, implements, &c., but these have not been published. Nor, except provisionally, has the pottery, found at Sakchegeuzu.
Inscriptions.—These, now almost sixty in number (excluding seals), are all in a pictographic character which employed symbols somewhat elaborately depicted in relief, but reduced to conventional and “shorthand” representations in the incised texts. So far, the majority of our Hittite inscriptions, like those first found at Hamah, are in relief (cameo); but the incised characters, first observed in the Tyana district, have since been shown, by discoveries at Marash, Babylon, &c., to have had a 538 wider range. It has usually been assumed that the incised inscriptions, being the more conventionalized, are all of later date than those in relief; but comparison of Egyptian inscriptions, wherein both incised and cameo characters coexisted back to very early times, suggests that this assumption is not necessarily correct. The Hittite symbols at present known show about two hundred varieties; but new inscriptions continually add to the list, and great uncertainty remains as to the distinction of many symbols (i.e. whether mere variants or not), and as to many others which are defaced or broken in our texts. The objects represented by these symbols have been certainly identified in only a few instances. A certain number are heads (human and animal) detached from bodies, in a manner not known in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, with which some of the other symbols show obvious analogies. Articles of dress, weapons, tools, &c., also appear. The longer inscriptions are disposed in horizontal zones or panels, divided by lines, and, it seems, they were to be read boustrophedon, not only as regards the lines (which begin right to left) but also the words, which are written in columnar fashion, syllable below syllable, and read downwards and upwards alternately. The direction of reading is towards any faces which may be shown among the pictographs. The words are perhaps distinguished in some texts by punctuation marks.
Long and patient efforts have been made to decipher this script, ever since it was first restored to our knowledge; and among the would-be decipherers honourable mention must be made, for persistence and courage, of Professor A. H. Sayce and of Professor P. Jensen. Other interpretations have been put forward by F. E. Peiser (based on conjectures as to the names on the Nineveh sealings), C. R. Conder (based largely on Cypriote comparisons and phonetic values transferred from these) and C. J. Ball (based on Hittite names recorded on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and applied to word-groups on the Hittite monuments). These, however, as having arbitrary and inadequate foundations, and for other reasons, have not been accepted. F. Hommel, J. Halévy and J. Menant have done useful work in distinguishing word-groups, and have essayed partial interpretations. No other decipherers call for mention. A. H. Sayce and P. Jensen alone have enlisted any large body of adherents; and the former, who has worked upon his system for thirty years and published in the Proceedings of the Society for Biblical Archaeology for 1907 a summary of his method and results, has proceeded on the more scientific plan. His system, however, like all others, is built in the main upon hypotheses incapable at present of quite satisfactory verification, such, for example, as the conjectural reading “Gargamish” for a group of symbols which recurs in inscriptions from Jerablus and elsewhere. In this case, to add to the other obvious elements of uncertainty, it must be borne in mind that the location of Carchemish at Jerablus is not proved, though it is very probable. Other conjectural identifications of groups of symbols with the place-names Hamath, Marash, Tyana are bases of Sayce’s system. Jensen’s system may be said to have been effectually demolished by L. Messerschmidt in his Bemerkungen (1898); but Sayce’s system, which has been approved by Hommel and others, is probably in its main lines correct. Its frequent explanation, however, of incompatible symbols by the doctrines of phonetic variation and interchange, or by alternative values of the same symbol used as ideograph, determinative or phonetic complement, and the occasional use of circular argument in the process of “verification,” do not inspire confidence in other than its broader results. Sayce’s phonetic values and interpretations of determinatives are his best assured achievements. But the words thus arrived at represent a language on which other known tongues throw little or no light, and their meaning is usually to be guessed only. In some significant cases, however, the Boghaz Keui tablets appear to give striking confirmation of Sayce’s conjectures.
Writing in 1903 L. Messerschmidt, editor of the best collection of Hittite texts up to date, made a tabula rasa of all systems of decipherment, asserting that only one sign out of two hundred—the bisected oval, determinative of divinity—had been interpreted with any certainty; and in view of this opinion, coupled with the steady refusal of historians to apply the results of any Hittite decipherment, and the obvious lack of satisfactory verification, without which the piling of hypothesis on hypothesis may only lead further from probability, there is no choice but to suspend judgment for some time longer as to the inscriptions and all deductions drawn from them.
Are the Monuments Hittite?—It is time to ask this question, although a perfectly satisfactory answer can only be expected when the inscriptions themselves have been deciphered. Almost all “Hittitologues” assume a connexion between the monuments and the Kheta-Khatti-Hittites, but in various degrees; e.g. while Sayce has said roundly that common sense demands the acceptance of all as the work of the Hittites, who were the dominant caste throughout a loosely-knit empire extending at one time from the Orontes to the Aegean, Messerschmidt has stated with equal dogmatism that the Hittites proper were only one people out of many5 in N. Syria and Asia Minor who shared a common civilization, and that therefore they were authors of a part of the monuments only—presumably the N. Syrian, Commagenian and Cataonian groups. O. Puchstein6 has denied to the Hittites some of the N. Syrian monuments, holding these of too late a date (judged by their Assyrian analogies) for the flourishing period of the Kheta-Khatti, as known from Egyptian and Assyrian records. He would ascribe them to the Kummukh (Commagenians), who seem to have succeeded the Khatti as the strongest opponents of Assyria in these parts. He was possibly right as regards the Sinjerli and Sakchegeuzu sculptures, which are of provincial appearance. The following considerations, however, may be stated in favour of the ascription of the monuments to the Hittites:—
(1) The monuments in question are found frequently whereever, from other records, we know the Hittites to have been domiciled at some period, i.e. throughout N. Syria and in Cataonia. (2) It was under the Khatti that Carchemish was a flourishing commercial city; and if Jerablus be really Carchemish, it is significant that apparently the most numerous and most artistic of the monuments occur there. (3) Among all the early peoples of N. Syria and Asia Minor known to us from Egyptian and Assyrian records, the Kheta-Khatti alone appear frequently as leading to war peoples from far beyond Taurus. (4) The Kheta certainly had a system of writing and a glyptic art in the time of Rameses II., or else the Egyptian account of their copy of the treaty would be baseless. (5) The physiognomy given to Kheta warriors by Egyptian artists is fairly representative of the prevailing type shown in the Hittite sculptures.
Furthermore, the Boghaz Keui tablets, though only partially deciphered as yet, go far to settle the question. They show that whether Boghaz Keui was actually the capital of the Hatti or not, it was a great city of the Hatti, and that the latter were an important element in Cappadocia from very early times. Before the middle of the 16th century B.C. the Cappadocian Hatti were already in relations, generally more or less hostile, with a rival power in Syria, that of Mitanni; and Subbiluliuma (= Saplel or Saparura), king of these Hatti, a contemporary of Amenophis IV. and Rameses I., seems to have obtained lasting dominion in Syria by subduing Dushratta of Mitanni. Carchemish thenceforward became a Hatti city and the southern capital of Cappadocian power. Since all the Syrian monuments of the Hittite class, so far known, seem comparatively late (most show such strong Assyrian, influence that they must fall after 1100 B.C. and probably even considerably later), while the North Cappadocian monuments (as Sayce, Ramsay, Perrot and others saw long ago) are the earlier in style, we are bound to ascribe the origin of the civilization which they represent to the Cappadocian Hatti.
Whether the Mitanni had shared in that civilization while independent, and whether they were racially kin to the Hatti, cannot be determined at present. Winckler has adduced evidence from names of local gods to show that there was an Indo-European racial element in Mitanni; but none for a similar element in the Hatti, whose chief god was Teshub. The majority of scholars has always regarded the Hittites proper as, at any rate, non-Semitic, and some leading authorities have called them proto-Armenian, and believed that they have modern descendants in the Caucasus. This racial question can hardly be determined till those Hatti records, whether in cuneiform or pictographic script, which are couched in a native tongue, not in Babylonian, are read. In the meantime we have proper names to argue from; and these give us at least the significant indication that the Hittite nominative ended in s and the accusative in m. In any case the connexion of the Hatti with the peculiar class of monuments which we have been describing, can hardly be further questioned; and it has become more than probable that the Hatti of Cappadocia were responsible in the beginning for the art and script of those monuments and for the civilization of which they are memorials. Other peoples of north Syria and Asia Minor (e.g. the Kummukh or Commagenians and the Muski or Phrygians) came no doubt under the influence of this civilization and imitated its monuments, while subject to or federated with the Hatti. Through Phrygia and Lydia (q.v.) influences of this same Cappadocian civilization passed towards the west; and indeed, before the Greek colonization of Asia Minor, a loosely knit Hatti empire may have stretched even to the Aegean. The Nymphi (Kara Bel) and Niobe sculptures near Smyrna are probably memorials of that extension. Certainly some inland Anatolian power seems to have kept Aegean settlers and culture away from the Ionian coast during the Bronze Age, and that power was in all likelihood the Hatti kingdom of Cappadocia. Owing perhaps to Assyrian aggression, this power seems to have begun to suffer decay about 1000 B.C. and thereafter to have shrunk inwards, leaving the coasts open. The powers of Phrygia and Lydia rose successively out of its ruins, and continued to offer westward passage to influences of Mesopotamian culture till well into historic times. The Greeks came too late to Asia to have had any contact with Hatti power obscured from their view by the intermediate and secondary state of Phrygia. Their earliest writers regarded the latter as the seat of the oldest and most godlike of mankind. Only one Greek author, Herodotus, alludes to the pre-historic Cappadocian power and only at the latest moment of its long decline. At the same time, some of the Greek legends seem to show that peoples, with whom the Greeks came into early contact, had vivid memories of the Hatti. Such are the Amazon stories, whose local range was very extensive, and the myths of Memnon and Pelops. The real reference of these stories, however, was forgotten, and it has been reserved to our own generation to rediscover the records of a power and a civilization which once dominated Asia Minor and north Syria and occupied all the continental roads of communication between the East and the West of the ancient world. The credit of having been the first to divine this importance of the Hittites should always be ascribed to Sayce.
The history of the Hatti and their civilization, then, would appear to have been, very briefly, this. They belonged to an ethnic scattered widely over Eastern Asia Minor and Syria at an early period (Khatti invaded Akkad about 1800 B.C. in the reign of Samsuditana); but they first formed a strong state in Cappadocia late in the 16th century B.C. Subbiluliuma became their first great king, though he had at least one dynastic predecessor of the name of Hattusil. The Hatti now pushed southwards in force, overcame the kingdom of Mitanni and proceeded partly to occupy and partly to make tributary both north Syria and western Mesopotamia where some of their congeners were already settled. They came early into collision with Egypt, and at the height of their power under Hattusil II. fought the battle of Kadesh with Rameses II., on at least equal terms. Both now and previously the diplomatic correspondence of the Hatti monarchs shows that they treated on terms of practical equality with both the Babylonian and the Egyptian courts; and that they waged constant wars in Syria, mainly with the Amorite tribes. At this time the Hatti empire or confederacy probably included, on the west, both Phrygia and Lydia. The Boghaz Keui correspondence ceases to be important with the generation following Hattusil II., and in the Assyrian records, which begin about a couple of centuries later, we find Carchemish the chief Hatti city and N. Syria called the Hatti-land. It is possible therefore that a change of imperial centre took place after the Hatti had ceased to fear Egypt in north Syria. If so, the continuation of Hittite history will have to be sought among the remains at Jerablus and other middle Euphratean sites, rather than in those at Boghaz Keui. The establishment of the Hatti at Carchemish not only made them a commercial people and probably sapped their highland vigour, but also brought them into closer proximity to the rising North Semitic power of Assyria, whose advent had been regarded with apprehension by Hattusil II. (see above). One of his successors, Arnaunta (late 13th century?), was already feeling the effect of Assyrian pressure, and with the accession of Tiglath Pileser I., about a century later, a long but often interrupted series of Assyrian efforts to break up the Hatti power began. A succession of Ninevite armies raided north Syria and even south-east Asia Minor, and gradually reduced the Hatti. But the resistance of the latter was sturdy and prolonged. They remained the strongest power in Syria and eastern Asia Minor till well into the first millennium B.C., and their Syrian seat was not lost finally till after the great extension of Assyrian power which took place in the latter part of the 9th century. What had been happening to their Cappadocian province meanwhile we do not yet know; but the presence of Phrygian inscriptions at Euyuk and Tyana, ancient seats of their power, suggests that the client monarchy in the Sangarius valley shook itself free during the early part of the Hittite struggle with Assyria, and in the day of Hatti weakness extended its dominion over the home territory of its former suzerain. “White Syrians,” however, were still in Cappadocia even after the Cimmerians had destroyed the Phrygian monarchy, allowing Lydia to become independent under the Mermnad dynasty. Croesus found them centred at Pteria in the 6th century and dealt them a final blow. But much of their secular or religious custom lived on to be recorded by Greek writers, and regarded by modern scholars as typically “Anatolian.”
Bibliography.—General summaries: L. Messerschmidt, The Hittites (“Ancient East” series, vi., 1903); A. H. Sayce, The Hittites (“Bypaths of Biblical Knowledge” series, xii., 2nd ed. 1892); G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, History of Art in Sardinia, Judaea, Syria and Asia Minor (Eng. trans., vol. ii., 1890); L. Lantsheere, De la race et de la langue des Hétéens (1891); P. Jensen, Hittiter und Armenier (1898); M. Jastrow, final chapter in H. V. Hilprecht, Exploration in Bible Lands (1903); W. Wright, Empire of the Hittites (1884); F. Hommel, Hettiter und Skythen (1898); D. G. Hogarth, Ionia and the East (1909); W. Max Müller, Asien und Europa, chap. xxv. (1893). See also authorities for Egyptian and Assyrian history.
Inscriptions: L. Messerschmidt, “Corpus inscr. Hettiticarum,” Zeitsch. d. d. morgenländ. Gesellschaft (1900, 1902, 1906, &c.), and “Bemerkungen zu d. Heth. Inschriften,” Mitteil. d. vorderasiat. Gesellschaft (1898); P. Jensen, “Grundlagen für eine Entzifferung der (Hat. oder) Cilicischen Inschriften,” Zeitschr. d. d. morgenländ. Gesellschaft (1894); F. E. Peiser, Die Hettitischen Inschriften (1892); A. H. Sayce, “Decipherment of the Hittite Inscriptions,” Proc. Soc. of Bibl. Archaeology (1903), and “Hittite Inscriptions, translated and annotated,” ibid. (1905, 1907); J. Menant, “Études Hétéennes,” Recueil de travaux rel. à la philologie, &c., and Mém. de l’Acad. Inscr., vol. xxxiv. (1890); J. Halévy in Revue sémitique, vol. i. Also divers articles by A. H. Sayce, F. Hommel and others in Proc. and Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch. since 1876, and in Recueil de travaux, &c., since its beginning.
Exploration: G. Perrot and E. Guillaume, Exploration arch. de la Galatie, &c. (1862-1872); E. Chantre, Mission en Cappadocie (1898); Sir W. M. Ramsay, “Syro-Cappadocian Monuments,” in Athen. Mitteilungen (1889), with D. G. Hogarth, “Pre-Hellenic Monuments of Cappadocia,” in Recueil de travaux, &c. (1892-1895); and with Miss Gertrude Bell, The Thousand and One Churches (1909); C. Humann and O. Puchstein, Reisen in Nord-Syrien, &c. (1890). J. Garstang in Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, i. (1908) and following numbers. Reports on excavations at Sinjerli in Berl. 540 Philol. Wochenschrift (1891), pp. 803, 951; and F. von Luschan, and others, “Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli” in Mitteil. Orient-Sammlungen (Berlin Museum, 1893 ff.); and on excavations at Boghaz-Keui, H. Winckler in Orient. Literaturzeitung (Berlin, 1907); Mitteil. Orient-Gesellschaft (Dec. 1907). See also s.v. Pteria.
1 First described by the Turk, Hajji Khalifa, in the 17th century; first seen by the Swedish traveller Otter in 1736, and first published in 1840 in Ritter’s Erdkunde, iii., after a drawing by Major Fischer, made in 1837.
2 The “Niobe” statue near Manisa was not definitely known for “Hittite” till 1882, when G. Dennis detected pictographs near it.
3 The “pseudo-Sesostres” of Herodotus, already demonstrated non-Egyptian by Rosellini. The second figure was unknown, till found by Dr Beddoe in 1856.
4 Five intramural graves were explored at Sinjerli, but whether of the Hittite or of the Assyrian occupation is doubtful.
5 The Assyrian records, as well as the Egyptian, distinguish many peoples in both areas from the Kheta-Khatti; and the most we can infer from these records is that there was an occasional league formed under the Hittites, not any imperial subjection or even a continuous federation.
6 Pseudo-Hethitische Kunst (Berlin, 1890).
HITTORFF, JACQUES IGNACE (1792-1867), French architect, was born at Cologne on the 20th of August 1792. After serving an apprenticeship to a mason in his native town, he went in 1810 to Paris, and studied for some years at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a favourite pupil of Bélanger, the government architect, who in 1814 appointed him his principal inspector. Succeeding Bélanger as government architect in 1818, he designed many important public and private buildings in Paris and also in the south of France. From 1819 to 1830 in collaboration with le Cointe he directed the royal fêtes and ceremonials. After making architectural tours in Germany, England, Italy and Sicily, he published the result of his observations in the latter country in the work Architecture antique de la Sicile (3 vols., 1826-1830; new edition, 1866-1867), and also in Architecture moderne de la Sicile (1826-1835). One of his important discoveries was that colour had been made use of in ancient Greek architecture, a subject which he especially discussed in Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs (1830) and in Restitution du temple d’Empédocle à Sélinunte (1851); and in accordance with the doctrines enunciated in these works he was in the habit of making colour an important feature in most of his architectural designs. His principal building is the church of St Vincent de Paul in the basilica style, which was constructed between 1830 and 1844. He also designed the two fountains in the Place de la Concorde, the Circus of the Empress, the Rotunda of the panoramas, many cafés and restaurants of the Champs Elysées, the houses forming the circle round the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, besides many embellishments of the Bois de Boulogne and other places. In 1833 he was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts. He died in Paris on the 25th of March 1867.
HITZACKER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover at the influx of the Jeetze into the Elbe, 33 m. N.E. of Lüneburg by the railway to Wittenberge. Pop. (1905) 1106. It has an Evangelical church and an old castle and numerous medieval remains. There are chalybeate springs and a hydropathic establishment in the town. The famous library now in Wolfenbüttel was originally founded here by Augustus, duke of Brunswick (d. 1666) and was removed to its present habitation in 1643.
HITZIG, FERDINAND (1807-1875), German biblical critic, was born at Hauingen, Baden, where his father was a pastor, on the 23rd of June 1807. He studied theology at Heidelberg under H. E. G. Paulus, at Halle under Wilhelm Gesenius and at Göttingen under Ewald. Returning to Heidelberg he became Privatdozent in theology in 1829, and in 1831 published his Begriff der Kritik am Alten Testamente praktisch erörtert, a study of Old Testament criticism in which he explained the critical principles of the grammatico-historical school, and his Des Propheten Jonas Orakel über Moab, an exposition of the 15th and 16th chapters of the book of Isaiah attributed by him to the prophet Jonah mentioned in 2 Kings xiv. 25. In 1833 he was called to the university of Zürich as professor ordinarius of theology. His next work was a commentary on Isaiah with a translation (Übersetzung u. Auslegung des Propheten Jesajas), which he dedicated to Heinrich Ewald, and which Hermann Hupfeld (1796-1866), well known as a commentator on the Psalms (1855-1861), pronounced to be his best exegetical work. At Zürich he laboured for a period of twenty-eight years, during which, besides commentaries on The Psalms (1835-1836; 2nd ed., 1863-1865), The Minor Prophets (1838; 3rd ed., 1863), Jeremiah (1841; 2nd ed., 1866), Ezekiel (1847), Daniel (1850), Ecclesiastes (1847), Canticles (1855), and Proverbs (1858), he published a monograph, Über Johannes Markus u. seine Schriften (1843), in which he maintained the chronological priority of the second gospel, and sought to prove that the Apocalypse was written by the same author. He also published various treatises of archaeological interest, of which the most important are Die Erfindung des Alphabets (1840), Urgeschichte u. Mythologie der Philistäer (1845), and Die Grabschrift des Eschmunezar(1855). After the death of Friedrich Umbreit (1795-1860), one of the founders of the well-known Studien und Kritiken, he was called in 1861 to succeed him as professor of theology at Heidelberg. Here he wrote his Geschichte des Volkes Israel (1869-1870), in two parts, extending respectively to the end of the Persian domination and to the fall of Masada, A.D. 72, as well as a work on the Pauline epistles, Zur Kritik Paulinischer Briefe (1870), on the Moabite Stone, Die Inschrift des Mescha (1870), and on Assyrian, Sprache u. Sprachen Assyriens (1871), besides revising the commentary on Job by Ludwig Hirzel (1801-1841), which was first published in 1839. He was also a contributor to the Monatsschrift des wissenschaftlichen Vereins in Zürich, the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, the Theologische Studien u. Kritiken, Eduard Zeller’s Theologische Jahrbücher, and Adolf Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie. Hitzig died at Heidelberg on the 22nd of January 1875. As a Hebrew philologist he holds high rank; and as a constructive critic he is remarkable for acuteness and sagacity. As a historian, however, some of his speculations have been considered fanciful. “He places the cradle of the Israelites in the south of Arabia, and, like many other critics, makes the historical times begin only with Moses” (F. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology, p. 569).
His lectures on biblical theology (Vorlesungen über biblische Theologie u. messianische Weissagungen) were published in 1880 after his death, along with a portrait and biographical sketch by his pupil, J. J. Kneucker (b. 1840), professor of theology at Heidelberg. See Heinrich Steiner, Ferdinand Hitzig (1882); and Adolf Kamphausen’s article in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie.
HIUNG-NU, Hiong-nu, Heung-nu, a people who about the end of the 3rd century B.C. formed, according to Chinese records, a powerful empire from the Great Wall of China to the Caspian. Their ethnical affinities have been much discussed; but it is most probable that they were of the Turki stock, as were the Huns, their later western representatives. They are the first Turkish people mentioned by the Chinese. A theory which seems plausible is that which assumes them to have been a heterogenous collection of Mongol, Tungus, Turki and perhaps even Finnish hordes under a Mongol military caste, though the Mongolo-Tungus element probably predominated. Towards the close of the 1st century of the Christian era the Hiung-nu empire broke up. Their subsequent history is obscure. Some of them seem to have gone westward and settled on the Ural river. These, de Guiques suggests, were the ancestors of the Huns, and many ethnologists hold that the Hiung-nu were the ancestors of the modern Turks.
See Journal Anthropological Institute for 1874; Sir H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols (1876-1880); 6th Congress of Orientalists, Leiden, 1883 (Actes, part iv. pp. 177-195); de Guiques, Histoire générale des Huns, des Turcs, des Mongoles, et des autres Tartares occidentaux (1756-1758).
HIVITES, an ancient tribe of Palestine driven out by the invading Israelites. In Josh. ix. 7, xi. 19 they are connected with Gibeon. The meaning of the name is uncertain; Wellhausen derives it from חוה “Eve,” or “serpent,” in which case the Hivites were originally the snake clan; others explain it from the Arabic hayy, “family,” as meaning “dwellers in (Bedouin) encampments.” (See Palestine; Jews.)
HJÖRRING, an ancient town of Denmark, capital of the amt (county) of its name, in the northern insular part of the peninsula of Jutland. Pop. (1901) 7901. It lies 7 m. inland from the shore of Jammer Bay, a stretch of coast notoriously dangerous to shipping. On the coast is Lönstrup, a favoured seaside resort. In this neighbourhood as well as to the south-east of Hjörring, slight elevations are seen, deserving the name of hills in this low-lying district. Hjörring is on the northern railway of Jutland, which here turns eastward to the Cattegat part of Frederikshavn (23 m.), a harbour of refuge.
HKAMTI LÔNG (called Kantigyi by the Burmese, and Bor Hkampti by the peoples on the Assam side), a collection of seven 541 Shan states subordinate to Burma, but at present beyond the administrative border. Estimated area, 900 sq. m.; estimated pop. 11,000. It lies between 27° and 28° N. and 97° and 98° E., and is bordered by the Mishmi country on the N., by the Patkai range on the W., by the Hukawng valley on the S. and E., and indeed all round by various Chingpaw or Kachin communities. The country is little known. It was visited by T. T. Cooper, the Chinese traveller and political agent at Bhamo, where he was murdered; by General Woodthorpe and Colonel Macgregor in 1884, by Mr Errol Grey in the following year, and by Prince Henry of Orleans in 1895. All of these, however, limited their explorations to the valley of the Mali-hka, the western branch of the Irrawaddy river. Hkamti has shrunk very much from its old size. It was no doubt the northernmost province of the Shan kingdom, founded at Mogaung by Sam Lōng-hpa, the brother of the ruler of Kambawsa, when that empire had reached its greatest extension. The irruption of Kachins or Chingpaw from the north has now completely hemmed the state in. Prince Henry of Orleans described it as “a splendid territory, fertile in soil and abundant in water, where tropical and temperate culture flourish side by side, and the inhabitants are protected on three fronts by mountains.” According to him the Kiutze, the people of the hills between the Irrawaddy and the Salween, call it the kingdom of Moam.
HLOTHHERE, king of Kent, succeeded his brother Ecgberht in 673, and appears for a time to have reigned jointly with his nephew Eadric, son of Ecgberht, as a code of laws still extant was issued under both names. Neither is mentioned in the account of the invasion of Æthelred in 676. In 685 Eadric, who seems to have quarrelled with Hlothhere, went into exile and led the South Saxons against him. Hlothhere was defeated and died of his wounds.
See Bede, Hist. eccl. (Plummer), iv. 5, 17, 26, v. 24; Saxon Chronicle (Earle and Plummer), s.a. 685; Schmid, Gesetze, pp. 10 sqq.; Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 26 sqq.
HOACTZIN, or Hoatzin, a bird of tropical South America, thought by Buffon to be that indicated by Hernandez or Fernandez under these names, the Opisthocomus hoazin or O. cristatus of modern ornithologists—a very curious and remarkable form, which has long exercised the ingenuity of classifiers. Placed by Buffon among his “Hoccos” (Curassows), and then by P. L. S. Müller and J. F. Gmelin in the Linnaean genus Phasianus, some of its many peculiarities were recognized by J. K. W. Illiger in 1811 as sufficient to establish it as a distinct genus, Opisthocomus; but various positions were assigned to it by subsequent systematic authors. L’Herminier was the first to give any account of its anatomy (Comptes rendus, 1837, v. 433), and from his time our knowledge of it has been successively increased by Johannes Müller (Ber. Akad. Wissensch. Berlin, 1841, p. 177), Deville (Rev. et mag. de zoologie, 1852, p. 217), Gervais (Castelnau, Expéd. Amérique du Sud, zoologie, anatomie, p. 66), Huxley (Proc. Zool. Society, 1868, p. 304), Perrin (Trans. Zool. Society, ix. p. 353), and A. H. Garrod (Proc. Zool. Society, 1879, p. 109). After a minute description of the skeleton of Opisthocomus, with the especial object of determining its affinities, Huxley declared that it “resembles the ordinary gallinaceous birds and pigeons more than it does any others, and that when it diverges from them it is either sui generis or approaches the Musophagidae.” He accordingly regarded it as the type and sole member of a group, named by him Heteromorphae, which sprang from the great Carinate stem later than the Tinamomorphae, Turnicomorphae, or Charadriomorphae, but before the Peristeromorphae, Pteroclomorphae or Alectoromorphae. This conclusion is substantially the same as that at which A. H. Garrod subsequently arrived after closely examining and dissecting specimens preserved in spirit; but the latter has gone further and endeavoured to trace more particularly the descent of this peculiar form and some others, remarking that the ancestor of Opisthocomus must have left the parent stem very shortly before the true Gallinae first appeared, and at about the same time as the independent pedigree of the Cuculidae and Musophagidae commenced—these two groups being, he believed, very closely related, and Opisthocomus serving to fill the gap between them.
The first thing that strikes the observer of its skeleton is the extraordinary structure of the sternal apparatus, which is wholly unlike that of any other bird known. The keel is only developed on the posterior part of the sternum—the fore part being, as it were, cut away, while the short furcula at its symphysis meets the manubrium, with which it is firmly consolidated by means of a prolonged and straight hypocleidium, and anteriorly ossifies with the coracoids. This unique arrangement seems to be correlated with the enormously capacious crop, which rests upon the furcula and fore part of the sternum, and is also received in a cavity formed on the surface of each of the great pectoral muscles. Furthermore this crop is extremely muscular, so as more to resemble a gizzard, and consists of two portions divided by a partial constriction, after a fashion of which no other example is known among birds. The true gizzard is greatly reduced.
Hoactzin. |
The hoactzin appears to be about the size of a small pheasant, but is really a much smaller bird. The beak is strong, curiously denticulated along the margin of the maxilla near the base, and is beset by diverging bristles. The eyes, placed in the middle of a patch of bare skin, are furnished with bristly lashes, resembling those of horn-bills and some few other birds. The head bears a long pendant crest of loose yellowish feathers. The body is olive-coloured, varied with white above, and beneath is of a dull bay. The wings are short and rounded. The tail is long and tipped with yellow. The legs are rather short, the feet stout, the tarsi reticulated, and the toes scutellated; the claws long and slightly curved. According to all who have observed the habits of this bird, it lives in bands on the lower trees and bushes bordering the streams and lagoons, feeding on leaves and various wild fruits, especially, says H. W. Bates (Naturalist on the River Amazons, i. 120), those of a species of Psidium, and it is also credited with eating those of an arum (Caladium arborescens), which grows plentifully in its haunts. “Its voice is a harsh, grating hiss,” continues the same traveller, and “it makes the noise when alarmed, all the individuals sibilating as they fly heavily away from tree to tree, when disturbed by passing canoes.” It exhales a very strong odour—wherefore it is known in British Guiana as the “stink-bird”—compared by Bates to “musk combined with wet hides,” and by Deville to that of a cow-house. The species is said to be polygamous; the nest is built on trees, of sticks placed above one another, and softer materials atop. Therein the hen lays her eggs to the number of three or four, of a dull-yellowish white, somewhat profusely marked with reddish blotches and spots, so as to resemble those of some of the Rallidae (Proc. Zool. Society, 1867, pl. xv. fig. 7. p. 164). The young are covered only with very scanty hair, like down, and have well-developed claws on the first and second fingers of the wing, which they use 542 in clambering about the twigs in a quadrupedal manner; if placed in the water they swim and dive well, although the adults seem to be not at all aquatic.
HOADLY, BENJAMIN (1676-1761), English divine, was born at Westerham, Kent, on the 14th of November 1676. In 1691 he entered Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. and was for two years tutor, after which he held from 1701 to 1711 the lectureship of St Mildred in the Poultry, and along with it from 1704 the rectory of St Peter-le-Poer, London. His first important appearance as a controversialist was against Edmund Calamy “the younger” in reference to conformity (1703-1707), and after this he came into conflict with Francis Atterbury, first on the interpretation of certain texts and then on the whole Anglican doctrine of non-resistance. His principal treatises on this subject were the Measures of Submission to the Civil Magistrate and The Origin and Institution of Civil Government discussed; and his part in the discussion was so much appreciated by the Commons that in 1709 they presented an address to the queen praying her to “bestow some dignity in the church on Mr Hoadly for his eminent services both to church and state.” The queen returned a favourable answer, but the dignity was not conferred. In 1710 he was presented by a private patron to the rectory of Streatham in Surrey. In 1715 he was appointed chaplain to the king, and the same year he obtained the bishopric of Bangor. He held the see for six years, but never visited the diocese. In 1716, in reply to George Hickes (q.v.), he published a Preservative against the Principles and Practices of Nonjurors in Church and State, and in the following year preached before the king his famous sermon on the Kingdom of Christ, which was immediately published by royal command. These works were attacks on the divine authority of kings and of the clergy, but as the sermon dealt more specifically and distinctly with the power of the church, its publication caused an ecclesiastical ferment which in certain aspects has no parallel in religious history. It was at once resolved to proceed against him in convocation, but this was prevented by the king proroguing the assembly, a step which had consequences of vital bearing on the history of the Church of England, since from that period the great Anglican council ceased to transact business of a more than formal nature. The restrained sentiments of the council in regard to Hoadly found expression in a war of pamphlets known as the Bangorian Controversy, which, partly from a want of clearness in the statements of Hoadly, partly from the disingenuousness of his opponents and the confusion resulting from exasperated feelings, developed into an intricate and bewildering maze of side discussions in which the main issues of the dispute were concealed almost beyond the possibility of discovery. But however vague and uncertain might be the meaning of Hoadly in regard to several of the important bearings of the questions around which he aroused discussion, he was explicit in denying the power of the Church over the conscience, and its right to determine the condition of men in relation to the favour of God. The most able of his opponents was William Law; others were Andrew Snape, provost of Eton, and Thomas Sherlock, dean of Chichester. So exercised was the mind of the religious world over the dispute that in July 1717 as many as seventy-four pamphlets made their appearance; and at one period the crisis became so serious that the business of London was for some days virtually at a stand-still. Hoadly, being not unskilled in the art of flattery, was translated in 1721 to the see of Hereford, in 1723 to Salisbury and in 1734 to Winchester. He died at his palace at Chelsea on the 17th of April 1761. His controversial writings are vigorous if prolix and his theological essays have little merit. He must have been a much hated man, for his latitudinarianism offended the high church party and his rationalism the other sections. He was an intimate friend of Dr Samuel Clarke, of whom he wrote a life.
Hoadly’s brother, John Hoadly (1678-1746), was archbishop of Dublin from 1730 to 1742 and archbishop of Armagh from the latter date until his death on the 19th of July 1746. In early life the archbishop was very intimate with Gilbert Burnet, then bishop of Salisbury, and in later life he was a prominent figure in Irish politics.
The works of Benjamin Hoadly were collected and published by his son John in 3 vols. (1773). To the first volume was prefixed the article “Hoadly” from the supplement to the Biographia Britannica. See also L. Stephen, English Thought in the 18th Century.
HOAR, SAMUEL (1778—1856), American lawyer, was born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on the 18th of May 1778. He was the son of Samuel Hoar, an officer in the American army during the War of Independence, for many years a member of the Massachusetts General Court, and a member in 1820-1821 of the state Constitutional Convention. The son graduated at Harvard in 1802, was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1805 and began practice at Concord. His success in his profession was immediate, and for a half-century he was one of the leading lawyers of Massachusetts. He was in early life a Federalist and was later an ardent Whig in politics. He was a member of the state senate in 1825, 1832 and 1833, and of the national house of representatives in 1835-1837, during which time he made a notable speech in favour of the constitutional right of congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. In November 1844, having retired from active legal practice some years before, he went to Charleston, S.C., at the request of Governor George Nixon Briggs (1796-1861), to test in the courts of South Carolina the constitutionality of the state law which provided that “it shall not be lawful for any free negro, or person of color, to come into this state on board any vessel, as a cook, steward or mariner, or in any other employment,” and that such free negroes should be seized and locked up until the vessels on which they had come were ready for sea, when they should be returned to such vessels. His visit aroused great excitment, he was threatened with personal injury, the state legislature passed resolutions calling for his expulsion, and he was compelled to leave early in December. In 1848 he was prominent in the Free Soil movement in Massachusetts, and subsequently assisted in the organization of the Republican Party. In 1850 he served in the Massachusetts house of representatives. He married a daughter of Roger Sherman of Connecticut. He died at Concord, Massachusetts, on the 2nd of November 1856.
See a memoir by his son G. F. Hoar in Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, vol. iii. (Boston, 1883); the estimate by R. W. Emerson in Lectures and Biographical Sketches (Boston, 1903); and “Samuel Hoar’s Expulsion from Charleston,” Old South Leaflets, vol. vi. No. 140.
His son, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (1816-1895), was born at Concord, Massachusetts, on the 21st of February 1816. He graduated at Harvard in 1835 and at the Harvard Law School in 1839, and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1840. From 1849 to 1855 he was a judge of the Massachusetts court of common pleas, from 1859 to 1869 a judge of the state supreme court, and in 1869-1870 attorney-general of the United States in the cabinet of President Grant, and in that position fought unmerited “machine” appointments to offices in the civil service until at the pressure of the “machine” Grant asked for his resignation from the cabinet. The Senate had already shown its disapproval of Hoar’s policy of civil service reform by its failure in 1870 to confirm the President’s nomination of Hoar as associate-justice of the supreme court. In 1871 he was a member of the Joint High Commission which drew up the Treaty of Washington. In 1872 he was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket, and in 1873-1875 was a representative in Congress. He was a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University from 1868 to 1880 and from 1881 to 1887, and was president of the Board in 1878-1880 and in 1881-1887. He was also prominent in the affairs of the Unitarian church. He was a man of high character and brilliant wit. He died at Concord on the 31st of January 1895.
Another son, George Frisbie Hoar (1826-1904), was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 29th of August 1826. He graduated at Harvard in 1846 and at the Harvard Law School in 1849. He settled in the practice of law in Worcester, Massachusetts, where in 1852 he became a partner of Emory Washburn (1800-1877). In 1852 he was elected as a Free-Soiler to the 543 Massachusetts House of Representatives, and during his single term of service became the leader of his party in that body. He was active in the organization of the Republican party in Massachusetts, and in 1857 was elected to the State senate, but declined a re-election. During 1856-1857 he was active in behalf of the Free-State cause in Kansas. He was a member of the National House of Representatives from 1869 until 1877, and in this body took high rank as a ready debater and a conscientious committee worker. He was prominent as a defender and supporter of the Freedman’s Bureau, took a leading part in the later reconstruction legislation and in the investigation of the Crédit Mobilier scandal, and in 1876 was one of the House managers of the impeachment of General W. W. Belknap, Grant’s secretary of war. In 1877 he was a member of the Electoral Commission which settled the disputed Hayes-Tilden election. From 1877 until his death he was a member of the United States senate. In the senate almost from the start he took rank as one of the most influential leaders of the Republican party; he was a member from 1882 until his death of the important Judiciary Committee, of which he was chairman in 1891-1893 and in 1895-1904. His most important piece of legislation was the Presidential Succession Act of 1886. He was a delegate to every Republican National Convention from 1876 to 1904, and presided over that at Chicago in 1880. He was a conservative by birth and training, and although he did not leave his party he disagreed with its policy in regard to the Philippines, and spoke and voted against the ratification of the Spanish Treaty. He was regent of the Smithsonian Institution in 1880-1881, and long served as an overseer of Harvard University (1896-1904) and as president of its alumni association. He was also president of the American Historical Association (1894-1895) and of the American Antiquarian Society (1884-1887). Like his brother, he was a leading Unitarian, and was president of its National Conference from 1894 to 1902. He died at Worcester, Massachusetts, on the 30th of September 1904. A memorial statue has been erected there.
See his Recollections of Seventy Years (New York, 1903).
HOARE, SIR RICHARD COLT, Bart. (1758-1838), English antiquary, was the eldest son of Richard Hoare, who was created a baronet in 1786, and was born on the 9th of December 1758. He was descended from Sir Richard Hoare (1648-1718), lord mayor of London, the founder of the family banking business. An ample allowance from his grandfather, Henry Hoare, enabled him to pursue the archaeological studies for which he had already shown an inclination. In 1783 he married Hester, daughter of William Henry, Lord Lyttelton, and after her death in 1785 he paid a prolonged visit to France, Italy and Switzerland. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1787, and in 1788 made a second continental tour, the record of his travels appearing in 1819 under the title A Classical Tour through Italy and Sicily. A journey through Wales was followed by a translation of the Itinerarium Cambriae and of the Descriptio Cambriae of Giraldus Cambrensis, Hoare adding notes and a life of Giraldus to the translation. This was first published in 1804, and has been revised by T. Wright (London, 1863). Sir Richard died at Stourhead, Wiltshire, on the 19th of May 1838, being succeeded in the baronetcy by his half-brother, Henry Hugh Hoare. Hoare’s most important work was his Ancient History of North and South Wiltshire (1812-1819); he also did some work on the large History of Modern Wiltshire (1822-1844).
For notices of him and a list of his works, many of which were printed privately, see the Gentleman’s Magazine for July 1838, and the Dict. Nat. Biog. vol. xxvii. (1891). See also E. Hoare, History of the Hoare Family (1883).
HOBART, GARRET AUGUSTUS (1844-1899), Vice-President of the United States 1897-1899, was born at Long Branch, N.J., on the 3rd of June 1844. He graduated at Rutgers College in 1863, was admitted to the bar in 1869, practised law at Paterson, N.J., and rose to prominence in the State. He was long conspicuous in the State Republican organization, was chairman of the New Jersey State Republican Committee from 1880 to 1890, became a member in 1884 of the Republican National Committee, and was the delegate-at-large from New Jersey to five successive Republican national nominating conventions. He served in the New Jersey Assembly in 1873-1874, and in the New Jersey Senate in 1877-1882, and was speaker of the Assembly in 1874 and president of the Senate in 1881 and 1882. He was also prominent and successful in business and accumulated a large fortune. He accepted the nomination as Vice-President in 1896, on the ticket with President McKinley, and was elected; but while still in office he died at Paterson, N.J., on the 21st of November 1899.
See the Life (New York, 1910) by David Magie.
HOBART, JOHN HENRY (1775-1830), American Protestant Episcopal bishop, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of September 1775, being fifth in direct descent from Edmund Hobart, a founder of Hingham, Massachusetts. He was educated at the Philadelphia Latin School, the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania), and Princeton, where he graduated in 1793. After studying theology under Bishop William White at Philadelphia, he was ordained deacon in 1798, and priest two years later. He was elected assistant bishop of New York, with the right of succession, in 1811, and was acting diocesan from that date because of the ill-health of Bishop Benjamin Moore, whom he formally succeeded on the latter’s death in February 1816. He was one of the founders of the General Theological Seminary, became its professor of pastoral theology in 1821, and as bishop was its governor. In his zeal for the historic episcopacy he published in 1807 An Apology for Apostolic Order and its Advocates, a series of letters to Rev. John M. Mason, who, in The Christian’s Magazine, of which he was editor, had attacked the Episcopacy in general and in particular Hobart’s Collection of Essays on the Subject of Episcopacy (1806). Hobart’s zeal for the General Seminary and the General Convention led him to oppose the plan of Philander Chase, bishop of Ohio, for an Episcopal seminary in that diocese; but the Ohio seminary was made directly responsible to the House of Bishops, and Hobart approved the plan. His strong opposition to “dissenting churches” was nowhere so clearly shown as in a pamphlet published in 1816 to dissuade all Episcopalians from joining the American Bible Society, which he thought the Protestant Episcopal Church had not the numerical or the financial strength to control. In 1818, to counterbalance the influence of the Bible Society and especially of Scott’s Commentaries, he began to edit with selected notes the Family Bible of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He delivered episcopal charges to the clergy of Connecticut and New York entitled The Churchman (1819) and The High Churchman Vindicated (1826), in which he accepted the name “high churchman,” and stated and explained his principles “in distinction from the corruptions of the Church of Rome and from the Errors of Certain Protestant Sects.” He exerted himself greatly in building up his diocese, attempting to make an annual visit to every parish. His failing health led him to visit Europe in 1823-1825. Upon his return he preached a characteristic sermon entitled The United States of America compared with some European Countries, particularly England (published 1826), in which, although there was some praise for the English church, he so boldly criticized the establishment, state patronage, cabinet appointment of bishops, lax discipline, and the low requirements of theological education, as to rouse much hostility in England, where he had been highly praised for two volumes of Sermons on the Principal Events and Truths of Redemption (1824). He died at Auburn, New York, on the 12th of September 1830. He was able, impetuous, frank, perfectly fearless in controversy, a speaker and preacher of much eloquence, a supporter of missions to the Oneida Indians in his diocese, and the compiler of the following devotional works: A Companion for the Altar (1804), Festivals and Fasts (1804), A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer (1805), and A Clergyman’s Companion (1805).
See Memorial of Bishop Hobart, containing a Memoir (New York, 1831); John McVickar, The Early Life and Professional Years of Bishop Hobart (New York, 1834), and The Closing Years of Bishop Hobart (New York, 1836).
HOBART PASHA, Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden (1822-1886), English naval captain and Turkish admiral, was 544 born in Leicestershire on the 1st of April 1822, being the third son of the 6th Earl of Buckinghamshire. In 1835 he entered the Royal Navy and served as a midshipman on the coast of Brazil in the suppression of the slave trade, displaying much gallantry in the operations. In 1855 he took part, as captain of the “Driver,” in the Baltic Expedition, and was actively engaged at Bomarsund and Abo. In 1862 he retired from the navy with the rank of post-captain; but his love of adventure led him, during the American Civil War, to take the command of a blockade-runner. He had the good fortune to run the blockade eighteen times, conveying war material to Charleston and returning with a cargo of cotton. In 1867 Hobart entered the Turkish service, and was immediately nominated to the command of that fleet, with the rank of “Bahrie Limassi” (rear-admiral). In this capacity he performed splendid service in helping to suppress the insurrection in Crete, and was rewarded by the Sultan with the title of Pasha (1869). In 1874 Hobart, whose name had, on representations made by Greece, been removed from the British Navy List, was reinstated; his restoration did not, however, last long, for on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war he again entered Turkish service. In command of the Turkish squadron he completely dominated the Black Sea, blockading the ports of South Russia and the mouths of the Danube, and paralysing the action of the Russian fleet. On the conclusion of peace Hobart still remained in the Turkish service, and in 1881 was appointed Mushir, or marshal, being the first Christian to hold that high office. His achievements as a blockade-runner, his blockade of Crete, and his handling of the Turkish fleet against the torpedo-lined coasts of Russia, showed him to be a daring, resourceful, and skilful commander, worthy to be ranked among the illustrious names of British naval heroes. He died at Milan on the 19th of June 1886.
See his Sketches of My Life (1886), which must, however, be used with caution, since it contains many proved inaccuracies.
HOBART, the capital of Tasmania, in the county of Buckingham, on the southern coast of the island. It occupies a site of great beauty, standing on a series of low hills at the foot of Mount Wellington, a lofty peak (4166 ft.) which is snow-clad for many months in the year. The town fronts Sullivan’s Cove, a picturesque bay opening into the estuary of the river Derwent, and is nearly square in form, laid out with wide streets intersecting at right angles, the chief of which are served by electric tramways. It is the seat of the Anglican bishop of Tasmania, and of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Hobart. The Anglican cathedral of St David dates from 1873, though its foundations were laid as early as 1817. St Mary’s Roman Catholic cathedral is a beautiful building; but perhaps the most notable ecclesiastical building in Hobart is the great Baptist tabernacle in Upper Elizabeth Street. The most prominent public buildings are the Houses of Parliament, to which an excellent library is attached; the town hall, a beautiful building of brown and white Tasmanian freestone in Italian style; the museum and national art gallery, and the general post office (1904) with its lofty clock-tower. Government House, the residence of the governor of Tasmania, a handsome castellated building, stands in its domain on the banks of the Derwent, to the north of the town. The botanical gardens adjoin. Of the parks and public gardens, the most extensive is the Queen’s Domain, covering an area of about 700 acres, while the most central is Franklin Square, adorned with a statue of Sir John Franklin, the famous Arctic explorer, who was governor of Tasmania from 1837 to 1843. The university of Tasmania, established in 1890, and opened in 1893, has its headquarters at Hobart. The town is celebrated for its invigorating climate, and its annual regatta on the Derwent attracts numerous visitors. The harbour is easy of access, well sheltered and deep, with wharf accommodation for vessels of the largest tonnage. It is a regular port of call for several intercolonial lines from Sydney and Melbourne, and for lines from London to New Zealand. The exports, of an average value of £850,000 annually, consist mainly of fruit, hops, grain, timber and wool. The industries comprise brewing, saw-milling, iron-founding, flour-milling, tanning, and the manufacture of pottery and woollen goods. Hobart is the centre of a large fruit-growing district, the produce of which, for the most part, is exported to London and Sydney. The city was founded in 1804 and takes its name from Lord Hobart (see Buckinghamshire, Earls of), then secretary of state for the colonies. It was created a municipality in 1853, and a city in 1857; and in 1881 its name was changed from Hobart Town to the present form. The chief suburbs are Newton, Sandy Bay, Wellington, Risdon, Glenorchy, Bellerive and Beltana. The population of the city proper in 1901 was 24,652, or including suburbs, 34,182.
HOBBEMA, MEYNDERT (c. 1638-1709), the greatest landscape painter of the Dutch school after Ruysdael, lived at Amsterdam in the second half of the 17th century. The facts of his life are somewhat obscure. Nothing is more disappointing than to find that in Hobbema’s case chronology and signed pictures substantially contradict each other. According to the latter his practice lasted from 1650 to 1689; according to the former his birth occurred in 1638, his death as late as 1709. If the masterpiece formerly in the Bredel collection, called “A Wooded Stream,” honestly bears the date of 1650, or “The Cottages under Trees” of the Ford collection the date of 1652, the painter of these canvases cannot be Hobbema, whose birth took place in 1638, unless indeed we admit that Hobbema painted some of his finest works at the age of twelve or fourteen. For a considerable period it was profitable to pass Hobbemas as Ruysdaels, and the name of the lesser master was probably erased from several of his productions. When Hobbema’s talent was recognized, the contrary process was followed, and in this way the name, and perhaps fictitious dates, reappeared by fraud. An experienced eye will note the differences which occur in Hobbema’s signatures in such well-known examples as adorn the galleries of London and Rotterdam, or the Grosvenor and van der Hoop collections. Meanwhile, we must be content to know that, if the question of dates could be brought into accordance with records and chronology, the facts of Hobbema’s life would be as follows.
Meyndert Hobbema was married at the age of thirty to Eeltije Vinck of Gorcum, in the Oudekerk or old church at Amsterdam, on the 2nd of November 1668. Witnesses to the marriage were the bride’s brother Cornelius Vinck and Jacob Ruysdael. We might suppose from this that Hobbema and Ruysdael, the two great masters of landscape, were united at this time by ties of friendship, and accept the belief that the former was the pupil of the latter. Yet even this is denied to us, since records tell us that there were two Jacob Ruysdaels, cousins and contemporaries, at Amsterdam in the middle of the 17th century—one a framemaker, the son of Solomon, the other a painter, the son of Isaac Ruysdael. Of Hobbema’s marriage there came between 1668 and 1673 four children. In 1704 Eeltije died, and was buried in the pauper section of the Leiden cemetery at Amsterdam. Hobbema himself survived till December 1709, receiving burial on the 14th of that month in the pauper section of the Westerkerk cemetery at Amsterdam. Husband and wife had lived during their lifetime in the Rozengracht, at no great distance from Rembrandt, who also dwelt there in his later and impoverished days. Rembrandt, Hals, Jacob Ruysdael, and Hobbema were in one respect alike. They all died in misery, insufficiently rewarded perhaps for their toil, imprudent perhaps in the use of the means derived from their labours. Posterity has recognized that Hobbema and Ruysdael together represent the final development of landscape art in Holland. Their style is so related that we cannot suppose the first to have been unconnected with the second. Still their works differ in certain ways, and their character is generally so marked that we shall find little difficulty in distinguishing them, nor indeed shall we hesitate in separating those of Hobbema from the feebler productions of his imitators and predecessors—Isaac Ruysdael, Rontbouts, de Vries, Dekker, Looten, Verboom, du Bois, van Kessel, van der Hagen, even Philip de Koningk. In the exercise of his craft Hobbema was patient beyond all conception. It is doubtful whether any one ever so completely 545 mastered as he did the still life of woods and hedges, or mills and pools. Nor can we believe that he obtained this mastery otherwise than by constantly dwelling in the same neighbourhood, say in Guelders or on the Dutch Westphalian border, where day after day he might study the branching and foliage of trees and underwood embowering cottages and mills, under every variety of light, in every shade of transparency, in all changes produced by the seasons. Though his landscapes are severely and moderately toned, generally in an olive key, and often attuned to a puritanical grey or russet, they surprise us, not only by the variety of their leafage, but by the finish of their detail as well as the boldness of their touch. With astonishing subtlety light is shown penetrating cloud, and illuminating, sometimes transiently, sometimes steadily, different portions of the ground, shining through leaves upon other leaves, and multiplying in an endless way the transparency of the picture. If the chance be given him he mirrors all these things in the still pool near a cottage, the reaches of a sluggish river, or the swirl of the stream that feeds a busy mill. The same spot will furnish him with several pictures. One mill gives him repeated opportunities of charming our eye; and this wonderful artist, who is only second to Ruysdael because he had not Ruysdael’s versatility and did not extend his study equally to downs and rocky eminences, or torrents and estuaries—this is the man who lived penuriously, died poor, and left no trace in the artistic annals of his country! It has been said that Hobbema did not paint his own figures, but transferred that duty to Adrian van de Velde, Lingelbach, Barendt Gael, and Abraham Storck. As to this much is conjecture.
The best of Hobbema’s dated pictures are those of the years 1663 to 1667. Of the former, several in the galleries of Brussels and St Petersburg, and one in the Holford collection, are celebrated. Of 1665 fine specimens are at Grosvenor House and the Wallace collection. Of seven pieces in the National Gallery, including the “Avenue at Middelharnis,” which some assign to 1689, and the “Ruins of Breberode Castle,” two are dated 1667. A sample of the last of these years is also in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. Amongst the masterpieces in private hands in England may be noticed two landscapes in Buckingham Palace, two at Bridgewater House, and one belonging to Mr Walter of Bearwood. On the continent are a “Wooded Landscape” in the Berlin gallery, a “Forest” belonging to the duchess of Sagan in Paris, and a “Glade” in the Louvre. There are other fine Hobbemas in the Antwerp Museum, the Arenberg gallery at Brussels, and the Belvedere at Vienna.
HOBBES, THOMAS (1588-1679), English philosopher, second son of Thomas Hobbes, was born at Westport (now part of Malmesbury, Wiltshire) on the 5th of April 1588. His father, vicar of Charlton and Westport, an illiterate and choleric man, quarrelled, it is said, with a brother clergyman at the church door, and was forced to decamp, leaving his three children to the care of an elder brother Francis, a flourishing glover at Malmesbury. Thomas Hobbes was put to school at Westport church at the age of four, passed to the Malmesbury school at eight, and was taught again in Westport later at a private school kept by a young man named Robert Latimer, fresh from Oxford and “a good Grecian.” He had begun Latin and Greek early, and under Latimer made such progress as to be able to translate the Medea of Euripides into Latin iambic verse before he was fourteen. About the age of fifteen he was sent to Oxford and entered at Magdalen Hall. During his residence, the first principal of Magdalen Hall, John Hussee, was succeeded by John Wilkinson, who ruled in the interest of the Calvinistic party in the university. Thus early was he brought into contact with the aggressive Puritan spirit. Apart from this, Hobbes owed little to his university training, which was based on the scholastic logic then prevalent. We have from himself a lively record of his student life (Vit. carm. exp. p. lxxxv.), which, though penned in extreme old age, may be taken as trustworthy. He tells how, when he had slowly taken in the doctrine of logical figures and moods, he put it aside and would prove things only in his own way; how he then heard about bodies as consisting of matter and form, as throwing off species of themselves for perception, and as moved by sympathies and antipathies, with much else of a like sort, all beyond his comprehension; and how he therefore turned to his old books again, fed his mind on maps and charts of earth and sky, traced the sun in his path, followed Drake and Cavendish girdling the main, and gazed with delight upon pictured haunts of men and wonders of unknown lands. Very characteristic is the interest in men and things, and the disposition to cut through questions in the schools after a trenchant fashion of his own. He was little attracted by the scholastic learning, though it would be wrong to take his words as evidence of a precocious insight into its weakness. The truth probably is that he took no interest in studies which there was no risk in neglecting, and thought as little of rejecting as of accepting the traditional doctrines. He adds that he took his degree at the proper time; but in fact, upon any computation and from whatever cause, he remained at Magdalen Hall five, instead of the required four, years, not being admitted as bachelor till the 5th of February 1608.
In the same year Hobbes was recommended by Wilkinson as tutor to the son of William Cavendish, baron of Hardwick (afterwards 2nd earl of Devonshire), and thus began a lifelong connexion with a great and powerful family. Twice it was loosened—once, for a short time, after twenty years, and again, for a longer period, during the Civil War—but it never was broken. Hobbes spoke of the first years of his tutorship as the happiest of his life. Young Cavendish was hardly younger than Hobbes, and had been married, a few months before, at the instance of the king, to Christiana, the only daughter of Edward, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, though by reason of the bride’s age, which was only twelve years, the pair had no establishment for some time. Hobbes was his companion rather than tutor (before becoming secretary); and, growing greatly attached to each other, they were sent abroad together on the grand tour in 1610. During this journey, the duration of which cannot be precisely stated, Hobbes acquired some knowledge of French and Italian, and also made the important discovery that the scholastic philosophy which he had learned in Oxford was almost universally neglected in favour of the scientific and critical methods of Galileo, Kepler and Montaigne. Unable at first to cope with their unfamiliar ideas, he determined to become a scholar, and until 1628 was engaged in a careful study of Greek and Latin authors, the outcome of which was his great translation of Thucydides. But Translation of Thucydides. when he had finished his work he kept it lying by him for years, being no longer so sure of finding appreciative readers; and when he did send it forth, in 1628, he was fain to be content with “the few and better sort.”1 That he was finally determined to publication by the political troubles of the year 1628 may be regarded as certain, not only from his own express declaration at a later time (Vit. carm. exp.), but also from unmistakable hints in the account of the life and work of his author prefixed to the translation on its appearance. This was the year of the Petition of Right, extorted from the king in the third parliament he had tried within three years of his accession; and, in view of Hobbes’s later activity, it is significant that he came forward just then, at the mature age of forty, with his version of the story of the Athenian democracy as the first production of his pen. Nothing else is known of his doings 546 before 1628, except that through his connexion with young Cavendish he had relations with literary men of note like Ben Jonson, and also with Bacon and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. If he never had any sympathy with Herbert’s intuitionalist principles in philosophy, he was no less eager, as he afterwards showed, than Herbert to rationalize in matters of religious doctrine, so that he may be called the second of the English deists, as Herbert has been called the first. With Bacon he was so intimate (Aubrey’s Lives, pp. 222, 602) that some writers have described him as a disciple. The facts that he used to walk with Bacon at Gorhambury, and would jot down with exceptional intelligence the eager thinker’s sudden “notions,” and that he was employed to make the Latin version of some of the Essays, prove nothing when weighed against his own disregard of all Bacon’s principles, and the other evidence that the impulse to independent thinking came to him not from Bacon, and not till some time after Bacon’s death in 1626.2
So far as we have any positive evidence, it was not before the year 1629 that Hobbes entered on philosophical inquiry. Meanwhile a great change had been wrought in his circumstances. His friend and master, after about two years’ Philosophic Inquiry. tenure of the earldom of Devonshire, died of the plague in June 1628, and the affairs of the family were so disordered financially that the widowed countess was left with the task of righting them in the boyhood of the third earl. Hobbes went on for a time living in the household; but his services were no longer in demand, and, remaining inconsolable under his personal bereavement, he sought distraction, in 1629, in another engagement which took him abroad as tutor to the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, of an old Nottinghamshire family. This, his second, sojourn abroad appears to have been spent chiefly in Paris, and the one important fact recorded of it is that he then first began to look into Euclid. The engagement came to an end in 1631, when he was recalled to train the young earl of Devonshire, now thirteen years old, son of his previous pupil. In the course of the next seven years in Derbyshire and abroad, Hobbes took his pupil over rhetoric,3 logic, astronomy, and the principles of law, with other subjects. His mind was now full of the thought of motion in nature, and on the continent he sought out the philosophical speculators or scientific workers. In Florence in 1636 he saw Galileo, for whom he ever retained the warmest admiration, and spent eight months in daily converse with the members of a scientific circle in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne (q.v.). From that time (the winter of 1636-1637) he too, as he tells us, was numbered among philosophers.
His introduction to Euclid took place accidentally in 1629 (Aubrey’s Lives, p. 604). Euclid’s manner of proof became the model for his own way of thinking upon all subjects. It is less easy to determine when he awoke to an interest in the physical doctrine of motion. The story told by himself (Vit. p. xx.) is that, hearing the question asked “What is sense?” he fell to thinking often on the subject, till it suddenly occurred to him that if bodies and their internal parts were at rest, or were always in the same state of motion, there could be no distinction of anything, and consequently no sense; the cause of all things must therefore be sought in diversity of movements. Starting from this principle he was driven to geometry for insight into the ground and modes of motion. The biographies we possess do not tell us where or when this great change of interest occurred. Nothing is said, however, which contradicts a statement that on his third journey in Europe he began to study the doctrine of motion more seriously, being interested in it before; and as he claims more than once (L.W. v. 303; E.W. vii. 468) to have explained light and sound by a mechanical hypothesis as far back as 1630, the inspiration may be assigned to the time of the second journey. But it was not till the third journey that the new interest became an overpowering passion, and the “philosopher” was on his way home before he had advanced so far as to conceive the scheme of a system of thought to the elaboration of which his life should henceforth be devoted.
Hobbes was able to carry out his plan in some twenty years or more from the time of its conception, but the execution was so broken in upon by political events, and so complicated with other labours, that its stages can hardly be followed without some previous understanding of the relations of the parts of the scheme, as there is reason to believe they were sketched out from the beginning. His scheme was first to work out, in a separate treatise De corpore, a systematic doctrine of Body, showing how physical phenomena were universally explicable in terms of motion, as motion or mechanical action was then (through Galileo and others) understood—the theory of motion being applied in the light of mathematical science, after quantity, the subject-matter of mathematics, had been duly considered in its place among the fundamental conceptions of philosophy, and a clear indication had been given, at first starting, of the logical ground and method of all philosophical inquiry. He would then single out Man from the realm of nature, and, in a treatise De homine, show what specific bodily motions were involved in the production of the peculiar phenomena of sensation and knowledge, as also of the affections and passions thence resulting, whereby man came into relation with man. Finally he would consider, in a crowning treatise De cive, how men, being naturally rivals or foes, were moved to enter into the better relation of Society, and demonstrate how this grand product of human wit must be regulated if men were not to fall back into brutishness and misery. Thus he proposed to unite in one coherent whole the separate phenomena of Body, Man and the State.
Hobbes came home, in 1637, to a country seething with discontent. The reign of “Thorough” was collapsing, and the forces pent up since 1629 were soon to rend the fabric of the state. By these events Hobbes was distracted from the orderly execution of his philosophic plan. The Short Parliament, as he tells us at a later time (E.W. iv. 414), was not dissolved before he had ready “a little treatise in English,” in which he sought to prove that the points of the royal prerogative which the members were determined to dispute before granting supplies “were inseparably annexed to the sovereignty which they did not then deny to be in the king.” Now it can be proved that at this time he had written not only his Human Nature but also his De corpore politico, the two treatises (though published separately ten years later) having been composed as parts of one work;4 and there cannot be the least question that together they make “the little treatise” just mentioned. We are therefore to understand, first, that he wrote the earliest draft of his political theory some years before the outbreak of the Civil War, and, secondly, that this earliest draft was not written till, in accordance with his philosophical conception, he had established the grounds of polity in human nature. The first point is to be noted, because it has often been supposed that Hobbes’s political doctrine took its peculiar complexion from his revulsion against the state of anarchy before his eyes, as he wrote during the progress of the Civil War. The second point must be maintained against his own implied, if not express, statement some years later, when publishing his De cive (L.W. ii. 151), that he wrote this third part of his system before he had been able to set down any finished representation of the fundamental doctrines which it presupposed. In the beginning of 1640, therefore, he had written out his doctrine of Man at least, with almost as much elaboration as it ever received from him.
In November 1640 the Long Parliament succeeded to the Short, and sent Laud and Strafford to the Tower, and Hobbes, who had become, or thought he had become, a marked man by the circulation of his treatise (of which, In Paris. “though not printed, many gentlemen had copies”), hastened to Paris, “the first of all that fled.” He was now for the fourth and last time abroad, and did not return for eleven years. Apparently he remained the greater part of the time in or about 547 Paris. He was welcomed back into the scientific coterie about Mersenne, and forthwith had the task assigned him of criticizing the Meditations of Descartes, which had been sent from Holland, before publication, to Mersenne with the author’s request for criticism from the most different points of view. Hobbes was soon ready with the remarks that were printed as “Third” among the six (later seven) sets of “Objections” appended, with “Replies” from Descartes, to the Meditations, when published shortly afterwards in 1641 (reprinted in L.W. v. 249-274). About the same time also Mersenne sent to Descartes, as if they came from a friend in England, another set of objections which Hobbes had to offer on various points in the scientific treatises, especially the Dioptrics, appended by Descartes to his Discourse on Method in 1637; to which Descartes replied without suspecting the common authorship of the two sets. The result was to keep the two thinkers apart rather than bring them together. Hobbes was more eager to bring forward his own philosophical and physical ideas than careful to enter into the full meaning of another’s thought; and Descartes was too jealous, and too confident in his conclusions to bear with this kind of criticism. He was very curt in his replies to Hobbes’s philosophical objections, and broke off all correspondence on the physical questions, writing privately to Mersenne that he had grave doubts of the Englishman’s good faith in drawing him into controversy (L.W. v. 277-307).
Meanwhile Hobbes had his thoughts too full of the political theory which the events of the last years had ripened within him to settle, even in Paris, to the orderly composition of his works. Though connected in his own mind with his view of human nature and of nature generally, the political theory, as he always declared, could stand by itself. Also, while he may have hoped at this time to be able to add much (though he never did) to the sketch of his doctrine of Man contained in the unpublished “little treatise,” he might extend, but could hardly otherwise modify, the sketch he had there given of his carefully articulated theory of Body Politic. Possibly, indeed, before that sketch was written early in 1640, he may, under pressure of the political excitement, have advanced no small way in the actual composition of the treatise De Cive, the third section of his projected system. In any case, it was upon this section, before the others, that he set to work in Paris; and before the end of 1641 the book, as we know from the date of the dedication (November 1), was finished. Though it was forthwith printed in the course of the year 1642, he was content to circulate a limited number of copies privately5; and when he found his work received with applause (it was praised even by Descartes), he seems to have taken this recognition of his philosophical achievement as an additional reason for deferring publication till the earlier works of the system were completed. Accordingly, for the next three or four years, he remained steadily at work, and nothing appeared from him in public except a short treatise on optics (Tractatus opticus, L.W. v. 217-248) included in the collection of scientific tracts published by Mersenne under the title Cogitata physico-mathematica in 1644, and a highly compressed statement of his psychological application of the doctrine of motion (L.W. v. 309-318), incorporated with Mersenne’s Ballistica, published in the same year. Thus or otherwise he had become sufficiently known by 1645 to be chosen as a referee, with Descartes, Roberval and others, in the famous controversy between John Pell (q.v.) and the Dane Longomontanus (q.v.) over that problem of the squaring of the circle which was seen later on to have such a fatal charm for himself. But though about this time he had got ready all or most of the materials for his fundamental work on Body, not even now was he able to make way with its composition, and when he returned to it after a number of years, he returned a different man.
The Civil War had broken out in 1642, and the royalist cause began to decline from the time of the defeat at Marston Moor, in the middle of 1644. Then commenced an exodus of the king’s friends. Newcastle himself, who was a cousin of Hobbes’s late patron and to whom he dedicated the “little treatise” of 1640, found his way to Paris, and was followed by a stream of fugitives, many of whom were known to Hobbes. The sight of these exiles made the political interest once more predominant in Hobbes, and before long the revived feeling issued in the formation of a new and important design. It first showed itself in the publication of the De cive, of which the fame, but only the fame, had extended beyond the inner circle of friends and critics who had copies of the original impression. Hobbes now entrusted it, early in 1646, to his admirer, the Frenchman Samuel de Sorbière, by whom it was seen through the Elzevir press at Amsterdam in 1647—having previously inserted a number of notes in reply to objections, and also a striking preface, in the course of which he explained its relation to the other parts of the system not yet forthcoming, and the (political) occasion of its having been composed and being now published before them.6 So hopeless, meanwhile, was he growing of being able to return home that, later on in the year, he was on the point of leaving Paris to take up his abode in the south with a French friend,7 when he was engaged “by the month” as mathematical instructor to the young prince of Wales, who had come over from Jersey about the month of July. This Leviathan. engagement lasted nominally from 1646 to 1648 when Charles went to Holland. Thus thrown more than ever into the company of the exiled royalists, it was then, if not earlier, that he conceived his new design of bringing all his powers of thought and expression to bear upon the production of an English book that should set forth his whole theory of civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. The De cive, presently to be published, was written in Latin for the learned, and gave the political theory without its foundation in human nature. The unpublished treatise of 1640 contained all or nearly all that he had to tell concerning human nature, but was written before the terrible events of the last years had disclosed how men might still be urged by their anti-social passions back into the abyss of anarchy. There was need of an exposition at once comprehensive, incisive and popular. The State, it now seemed to Hobbes, might be regarded as a great artificial man or monster (Leviathan), composed of men, with a life that might be traced from its generation through human reason under pressure of human needs to its dissolution through civil strife proceeding from human passions. This, we may suppose, was the presiding conception from the first, but the design may have been variously modified in the three or four years of its execution. Before the end, in 1650-1651, it is plain that he wrote in direct reference to the greatly changed aspect of affairs in England. The king being dead, and the royalist cause appearing to be hopelessly lost, he did not scruple, in closing the work with a general “Review and Conclusion,” to raise the question of the subject’s right to change allegiance when a former sovereign’s power to protect was irrecoverably gone. Also he took advantage of the rule of the Commonwealth to indulge much more freely than he might have otherwise dared in rationalistic criticism of religious doctrines; while, amid the turmoil of sects, he could the more forcibly urge that the preservation of social order, when again firmly restored, must depend on the assumption by the civil power of the right 548 to wield all sanctions, supernatural as well as natural, against the pretensions of any clergy, Catholic, Anglican or Presbyterian, to the exercise of an imperium in imperio.
We know the Leviathan only as it finally emerged from Hobbes’s pen. During the years of its composition he remained in or near Paris, at first in attendance on his royal pupil, with whom he became a great favourite. In 1647 Hobbes was overtaken by a serious illness which disabled him for six months. Mersenne begged him not to die outside the Roman Catholic Church, but Hobbes said that he had already considered the matter sufficiently and afterwards took the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. On recovering from this illness, which nearly proved fatal, he resumed his literary task, and carried it steadily forward to completion by the year 1650, having also within the same time translated into English, with characteristic force of expression, his Latin treatise. Otherwise the only thing known (from one or two letters) of his life in those years is that from the year 1648 he had begun to think of returning home; he was then sixty and might well be weary of exile. When 1650 came, as if to prepare the way for the reception of his magnum opus, he allowed the publication of his earliest treatise, divided into two separate small volumes (Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policy, E.W. iv. 1-76, and De Corpore Politico, or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politic, pp. 77-228).8 In 16519 he published his translation of the De Cive under the title of Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society (E.W. ii.). Meanwhile the printing of the greater work was proceeding, and finally it appeared about the middle of the same year, 1651, under the title of Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (E.W. iii.), with a quaint frontispiece in which, from behind hills overlooking a fair landscape of town and country, there towered the body (above the waist) of a crowned giant, made up of tiny figures of human beings and bearing sword and crozier in the two hands. It appeared, and soon its author was more lauded and decried than any other thinker of his time; but the first effect of its publication was to sever his connexion with the exiled royalist party, and to throw him for protection on the revolutionary Government. No sooner did copies of the book reach Paris than he found himself shunned by his former associates, and though he was himself so little conscious of disloyalty that he was forward to present a manuscript copy “engrossed in vellum in a marvellous fair hand”10 to the young king of the Scots (who, after the defeat at Worcester, escaped to Paris about the end of October), he was denied the royal presence when he sought it shortly afterwards. Straightway, then, he saw himself exposed to a double peril. The exiles had among them desperadoes who could slay; and, besides exciting the enmity of the Anglican clergy about the king, who bitterly resented the secularist spirit of his book, he had compromised himself with the French authorities by his elaborate attack on the papal system. In the circumstances, no resource was left him but secret flight. Travelling with what speed he could in the depths of a severe winter and under the effects of a recent (second) illness, he managed to reach London, where, sending in his submission to the council of state, he was allowed to subside into private life.
Though Hobbes came back, after his eleven years’ absence, without having as yet publicly proved his title to rank with the natural philosophers of the age, he was sufficiently conscious of what he had been able to achieve in Leviathan; and it was Return to London. in no humble mood that he now, at the age of sixty-four, turned to complete the fundamental treatise of his philosophical system. Neither those whom his masterpiece soon roused to enthusiasm, nor those whom it moved to indignation, were likely to be indifferent to anything he should now write, whether it lay near to or far from the region of practice. Taking up his abode in Fetter Lane, London, on his return, and continuing to reside there for the sake of intellectual society, even after renewing his old ties with the earl of Devonshire, who lived in the country till the Restoration,11 he worked so steadily as to be printing the De corpore in the year 1654. Circumstances (of which more presently), however, kept the book back till the following year, and meanwhile the readers of Leviathan had a different excitement. In 1654 a small treatise, “Of Liberty and Necessity” (E.W. iv. 229-278), Controversy with Bramhall. issued from the press, claiming to be an answer to a discourse on the same subject by Bishop Bramhall of Londonderry (afterwards archbishop of Armagh, d. 1663), addressed by Hobbes to the marquis of Newcastle.12 It had grown out of an oral discussion between Hobbes and Bramhall in the marquis’s presence at Paris in 1646. Bramhall, a strong Arminian, had afterwards written down his views and sent them to Newcastle to be answered in this form by Hobbes. Hobbes duly replied, but not for publication, because he thought the subject a delicate one. But it happened that Hobbes had allowed a French acquaintance to have a private translation of his reply made by a young Englishman, who secretly took a copy of the original for himself; and now it was this unnamed purloiner who, in 1654, when Hobbes had become famous and feared, gave it to the world of his own motion, with an extravagantly laudatory epistle to the reader in its front. Upon Hobbes himself the publication came as a surprise, but, after his plain speaking in Leviathan, there was nothing in the piece that he need scruple to have made known, and he seems to have condoned the act. On the other hand, Bramhall, supposing Hobbes privy to the publication, resented the manner of it, especially as no mention was made of his rejoinder. Accordingly, in 1655, he printed everything that had passed between them (under the title of A Defence of the True Liberty of Human Actions from Antecedent or Extrinsic Necessity), with loud complaint against the treatment he had received, and the promise added that, in default of others, he himself would stand forward to expose the deadly principles of Leviathan. About this time Hobbes had begun to be hard pressed by other foes, and, being never more sure of himself than upon the question of the will, he appears to have welcomed the opportunity thus given him of showing his strength. By 1656 he was ready with his Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance (E.W. v.), in which he replied with astonishing force to the bishop’s rejoinder point by point, besides explaining the occasion and circumstances of the whole debate, and reproducing (as Bramhall had done) all the pieces from the beginning. As perhaps the first clear exposition and defence of the psychological doctrine of determinism, Hobbes’s own two pieces must ever retain a classical importance in the history of the free-will controversy; while Bramhall’s are still worth study as specimens of scholastic fence. The bishop, it should be added, returned to the charge in 1658 with ponderous Castigations of Mr Hobbes’s Animadversions, and also made good his previous threat in a bulky 549 appendix entitled The Catching of Leviathan the Great Whale. Hobbes never took any notice of the Castigations, but ten years later replied to the charges of atheism, &c., made in the non-political part of the appendix, of which he says he then heard for the first time (E.W. iv. 279-384). This Answer was first published after Hobbes’s death.13
We may now follow out the more troublesome conflict, or rather series of conflicts, in which Hobbes became entangled from the time of publishing his De corpore in 1655, and which checkered all his remaining years. In Leviathan he had Controversy with Wallis and Ward. vehemently assailed the system of the universities, as originally founded for the support of the papal against the civil authority, and as still working social mischief by adherence to the old learning. The attack was duly noted at Oxford, where under the Commonwealth a new spirit of scientific activity had begun to stir. In 1654 Seth Ward (1617-1689), the Savilian professor of astronomy, replying in his Vindiciae academiarum to some other assaults (especially against John Webster’s Examen of Academies) on the academic system, retorted upon Hobbes that, so far from the universities being now what he had known them in his youth, he would find his geometrical pieces, when they appeared, better understood there than he should like. This was said in reference to the boasts in which Hobbes seems to have been freely indulging of having squared the circle and accomplished other such feats; and, when a year later the De corpore (L.W. i.) finally appeared, it was seen how the thrust had gone home. In the chapter (xx.) of that work where Hobbes dealt with the famous problem whose solution he thought he had found, there were left expressions against Vindex (Ward) at a time when the solutions still seemed to him good; but the solutions themselves, as printed, were allowed to be all in different ways halting, as he naively confessed he had discovered only when he had been driven by the insults of malevolent men to examine them more closely with the help of his friends. A strange conclusion this, and reached by a path not less strange, as was now to be disclosed by a relentless hand. Ward’s colleague, the more famous John Wallis (q.v.), Savilian professor of geometry from 1649, had been privy to the challenge thrown out in 1654, and it was arranged that they should critically dispose of the De corpore between them. Ward was to occupy himself with the philosophical and physical sections, which he did in leisurely fashion, bringing out his criticism in the course of next year (In Th. Hobbii philosophiam exercitatio epistolica). Wallis was to confine himself to the mathematical chapters, and set to work at once with characteristic energy. Obtaining an unbound copy of the De corpore, he saw by the mutilated appearance of the sheets that Hobbes had repeatedly altered his demonstrations before he issued them at last in their actual form, grotesque as it was, rather than delay the book longer. Obtaining also a copy of the work as it had been printed before Hobbes had any doubt of the validity of his solutions, Wallis was able to track his whole course from the time of Ward’s provocation—his passage from exultation to doubt, from doubt to confessed impotence, yet still without abandoning the old assumption of confident strength; and all his turnings and windings were now laid bare in one of the most trenchant pieces of controversial writing ever penned. Wallis’s Elenchus geometriae Hobbianae, published in 1655 about three months after the De corpore, contained also an elaborate criticism of Hobbes’s whole attempt to relay the foundations of mathematical science in its place within the general body of reasoned knowledge—a criticism which, if it failed to allow for the merit of the conception, exposed only too effectually the utter inadequacy of the result. Taking up mathematics when not only his mind was already formed but his thoughts were crystallizing into a philosophical system, Hobbes had, in fact, never put himself to school and sought to work up gradually to the best knowledge of the time, but had been more anxious from the first to become himself an innovator with whatever insufficient means. The consequence was that, when not spending himself in vain attempts to solve the impossible problems that have always waylaid the fancy of self-sufficient beginners, he took an interest only in the elements of geometry, and never had any notion of the full scope of mathematical science, undergoing as it then was (and not least at the hands of Wallis) the extraordinary development which made it before the end of the century the potent instrument of physical discovery which it became in the hands of Newton. He was even unable, in dealing with the elementary conceptions of geometry, to work out with any consistency the few original thoughts he had, and thus became the easy sport of Wallis. At his advanced age, however, and with the sense he had of his powers, he was not likely to be brought to a better mind by so insulting an opponent. He did indeed, before allowing an English translation of the De corpore (E.W. i.) to appear in 1656, take care to remove some of the worst mistakes exposed by Wallis, and, while leaving out all the references to Vindex, now profess to make, in altered form, a series of mere “attempts” at quadrature; but he was far from yielding the ground to the enemy. With the translation,14 in the spring of 1656, he had ready Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, one of Geometry, the other of Astronomy, in the University of Oxford (E.W. vii. 181-356), in which, after reasserting his view of the principles of geometry in opposition to Euclid’s, he proceeded to repel Wallis’s objections with no lack of dialectical skill, and with an unreserve equal to Wallis’s own. He did not scruple, in the ardour of conflict, even to maintain positions that he had resigned in the translation, and he was not afraid to assume the offensive by a counter criticism of three of Wallis’s works then published. When he had thus disposed of the “Paralogisms” of his more formidable antagonist in the first five lessons, he ended with a lesson on “Manners” to the two professors together, and set himself gravely at the close to show that he too could be abusive. In this particular part of his task, it must be allowed, he succeeded very well; his criticism of Wallis’s works, especially the great treatise Arithmetica infinitorum (1655), only showed how little able he was to enter into the meaning of the modern analysis. Wallis, on his side, was not less ready to keep up the game in English than he had been to begin it in Latin. Swift as before to strike, in three months’ time he had deftly turned his own word against the would-be master by administering Due Correction for Mr Hobbes, or School Discipline for not saying his Lessons right, in a piece that differed from the Elenchus only in being more biting and unrestrained. Having an easy task in defending himself against Hobbes’s trivial criticism, he seized the opportunity given him by the English translation of the De corpore to track Hobbes again step by step over the whole course, and now to confront him with his incredible inconsistencies multiplied by every new utterance. But it was no longer a fight over mathematical questions only. Wallis having been betrayed originally by his fatal cleverness into the pettiest carping at words, Hobbes had retorted in kind, and then it became a high duty in the other to defend his Latin with great parade of learning and give fresh provocation. One of Wallis’s rough sallies in this kind suggested to Hobbes the title of the next rejoinder with which, in 1657, he sought to close the unseemly wrangle. Arguing in the Lessons that a mathematical point must have quantity, though this were not reckoned, he had explained the Greek word στιγμή, used for a point, to mean a visible mark made with a hot iron; whereupon he was charged by Wallis with gross ignorance for confounding στιγμή and στιγμα. Hence the title of his new piece: Στιγμαὶ ἀγεωμετρίας, ἀγροικίας, ἀντιπολιτείας, ἀμαθείας, or Marks of the Absurd Geometry, Rural Language, Scottish Church Politics, and Barbarisms of John Wallis, Professor of Geometry and Doctor of Divinity (E.W. vii. 357-400). He now attacked more in detail but not more happily than before Wallis’s great work, while hardly attempting any further defence of his own positions; also he repelled with some force and dignity the insults that had been heaped upon him, and fought the verbal points, but could not leave the field without making political insinuations against his adversary, quite irrelevant in themselves and only noteworthy as evidence of his own resignation to Cromwell’s rule. The thrusts were easily and nimbly parried by Wallis in a reply (Hobbiani puncti dispunctio, 1657) occupied mainly with the verbal questions. Irritating as it was, it did not avail to shake Hobbes’s determination to remain silent; and thus at last there was peace for a time.
Before the strife flamed up again, Hobbes had published, in 1658, the outstanding section of his philosophical system, and thus completed, after a fashion, the scheme he had planned more than twenty years before. So far as the treatise De homine (L.W. ii. 11-32) was concerned, the completion was more in name than in fact. It consisted for the most part of an elaborate theory of vision which, though very creditable to Hobbes’s scientific insight, was out of place, or at least out of proportion, in a philosophical consideration of human nature generally. The remainder of the treatise, dealing cursorily with some of the topics more fully treated in the Human Nature and the Leviathan, has all the appearance of having been tagged in haste to the optical chapters (composed years before)15 as 550 a makeshift for the proper transition required in the system from questions of Body Natural to questions of Body Politic. Hobbes had in fact spent himself in his earlier constructive efforts, and at the age of seventy, having nothing to add to his doctrine of Man as it was already in one form or another before the world, was content with anything that might stand for the fulfilment of his philosophical purpose. But he had still in him more than twenty years of vigorous vitality, and, not conscious to himself of any shortcoming, looked forward, now his hands were free, to doing battle for his doctrines. Rather than remain quiet, on finding no notice taken of his latest production, he would himself force on a new conflict with the enemy. Wallis having meanwhile published other works and especially a comprehensive treatise on the general principles of calculus (Mathesis universalis, 1657), he might take this occasion of exposing afresh the new-fangled methods of mathematical analysis and reasserting his own earlier positions. Accordingly, by the spring of 1660, he had managed to put his criticism and assertions into five dialogues under the title Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae hodiernae qualis explicatur in libris Johannis Wallisii, with a sixth dialogue so called, consisting almost entirely of seventy or more propositions on the circle and cycloid.16 Wallis, however, would not take the bait. Hobbes then tried another tack. Next year, having solved, as he thought, another ancient crux, the duplication of the cube, he had his solution brought out anonymously at Paris in French, so as to put Wallis and other critics off the scent and extort a judgment that might be withheld from a work of his. The artifice was successful, and no sooner had Wallis publicly refuted the solution than Hobbes claimed the credit of it, and went more wonderfully than ever astray in its defence. He presently republished it (in modified form), with his remarks, at the end of a new Latin dialogue which he had meanwhile written in defence of another part of his philosophical doctrine. This was the Dialogus physicus, sive De natura aëris (L.W. iv. 233-296), fulminated in 1661 against Boyle and other friends of Wallis who, as he fancied, under the influence of that malevolent spirit, were now in London, after the Restoration, forming themselves into a society (incorporated as the Royal Society in 1662) for experimental research, to the exclusion of himself personally, and in direct contravention of the method of physical inquiry enjoined in the De corpore.17 All the laborious manipulation recorded in Boyle’s New Experiments touching the Spring of the Air (1660), which Hobbes chose, without the least warrant, to take as the manifesto of the new “academicians,” seemed to him only to confirm the conclusions he had reasoned out years before from speculative principles, and he warned them that if they were not content to begin where he had left off their work would come to nought. To as much of this diatribe as concerned himself Boyle quickly replied with force and dignity, but it was from Hobbes’s old enemy that retribution came, in the scathing satire Hobbius heauton-timorumenos (1662). Wallis, who had deftly steered his course amid all the political changes of the previous years, managing ever to be on the side of the ruling power, was now apparently stung to fury by a wanton allusion in Hobbes’s latest dialogue to a passage of his former life (his deciphering for the parliament the king’s papers taken at Naseby), whereof he had once boasted but after the Restoration could not speak or hear too little. The revenge he took was crushing. Professing to be roused by the attack on his friend Boyle, when he had scorned to lift a finger in defence of himself against the earlier dialogues, he tore them all to shreds with an art of which no general description can give an idea. He got, however, upon more dangerous ground when, passing wholly by the political insinuation against himself, he roundly charged Hobbes with having written Leviathan in support of Oliver’s title, and deserted his royal master in distress. Hobbes seems to have been fairly bewildered by the rush and whirl of sarcasm with which Wallis drove him anew from every mathematical position he had ever taken up, and did not venture forth into the field of scientific controversy again for some years, when he had once followed up the physical dialogue of 1661 by seven shorter ones, with the inevitable appendix, entitled Problemata physica, una cum magnitudine circuli (L.W. iv. 297-384), in 1662.18 But all the more eagerly did he take advantage of Wallis’s loose calumny to strike where he felt himself safe. His answer to the personal charges took the form of a letter about himself in the third person addressed to Wallis in 1662, under the title of Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners and Religion of Thomas Hobbes (E.W. iv. 409-440). In this piece, which is of great biographical value, he told his own and Wallis’s “little stories during the time of the late rebellion” with such effect that Wallis, like a wise man, attempted no further reply. Thus ended the second bout.
After a time Hobbes took heart again and began a third period of controversial activity, which did not end, on his side, till his ninetieth year. Little need be added to the simple catalogue of the untiring old man’s labours in this last stage of his life. The first piece, published in 1666, De principiis et ratiocinatione geometrarum (L.W. iv. 385-484), was designed, as the sub-title declared, to lower the pride of geometrical professors by showing that there was no less uncertainty and error in their works than in those of physical or ethical writers. Wallis replied shortly in the Philosophical Transactions (August 1666). Three years later he brought his three great achievements together in compendious form, Quadratura circuli, Cubatio sphaerae, Duplicatio cubi, and as soon as they were once more refuted by Wallis, reprinted them with an answer to the objections, in compliment to the grand-duke of Tuscany, who paid him attentions on a visit to England in 1669 (L.W. iv. 485-522). Wallis, who had promised to leave him alone henceforward, refuted him again before the year was out. In 1671 he worked up his propositions over again in Rosetum geometricum (L.W. v. 1-50), as a fragrant offering to the geometrical reader, appending a criticism (Censura brevis, pp. 50-88) on the first part of Wallis’s treatise De motu, published in 1669; also he sent Three Papers to the Royal Society on selected points treated very briefly, and when Wallis, still not weary of confuting, shortly replied, published them separately with triumphant Considerations on Dr Wallis’s Answer to them (E.W. vii. 429-448). Next year (1672), having now, as he believed, established himself with the Royal Society, he proceeded to complete the discomfiture of Wallis by a public address to the Society on all the points at issue between them from the beginning, Lux Mathematica excussa collisionibus Johannis Wallisii et Thomae Hobbesii (L.W. v. 89-150), the light, as the author R. R. (Roseti Repertor) added, being here “increased by many very brilliant rays.” Wallis replied in the Transactions, and then finally held his hand. Hobbes’s energy was not yet exhausted. In 1674, at the age of eighty-six, he published his Principia et problemata aliquot geometrica, ante desperata nunc breviter explicata et demonstrata (L.W. v. 150-214), containing in the chapters dealing with questions of principle not a few striking observations, which ought not to be overlooked in the study of his philosophy. His last piece of all, Decameron physiologicum (E.W. vii. 69-180), in 1678, was a new set of dialogues on physical questions, most of which he had treated in a similar fashion before; but now, in dealing with gravitation, he was able to fire a parting shot at Wallis; and one more demonstration of the equality of a straight line to the arc of a circle, thrown in at the end, appropriately closed the strangest warfare in which perverse thinker ever engaged.19
We must now turn back to trace the fortunes of Hobbes and his other doings in the last twenty years of his life. All these controversial writings on mathematics and physics represent but one half of his activity after the age of Later Years. seventy; though, as regards the other half, it is not possible, for a reason that will be seen, to say as definitely in what order the works belonging to the period were produced. From the time of the Restoration he acquired a new prominence in the public eye. No year had passed since the appearance of Leviathan without some indignant protest against the influence which its trenchant doctrine was calculated to produce upon minds longing above everything for civil repose; but after the Restoration “Hobbism” became a fashionable creed, which it was the duty of every lover of true morality and religion to denounce. Two or three days after Charles’s arrival in London, Hobbes drew in the street the notice of his former pupil, and was at once received into favour. The young king, if he had ever himself resented the apparent disloyalty of the “Conclusion” of Leviathan, had not retained the feeling long, and could appreciate the principles of the great book when the application of them happened, as now, to be turned in his own favour. He had, besides, a relish for Hobbes’s wit (as he used to say, “Here comes the bear to be baited”), and did not like the old man the less because his presence at court scandalized the bishops or the prim virtue of Chancellor Hyde. He even went the length of bestowing on Hobbes (but not always paying) a pension of £100, and had his portrait hung up in the royal 551 closet. These marks of favour, naturally, did not lessen Hobbes’s self-esteem, and perhaps they explain, in his later writings, a certain slavishness toward the regal authority, which is wholly absent from his rational demonstration of absolutism in the earlier works. At all events Hobbes was satisfied with the rule of a king who had appreciated the author of Leviathan, and protected him when, after a time, protection in a very real sense became necessary. His eagerness to defend himself against Wallis’s imputation of disloyalty, and his apologetic dedication of the Problemata physica to the king, are evidence of the hostility with which he was being pressed as early as 1662; but it was not till 1666 that he felt himself seriously in danger. In that year the Great Fire of London, following on the Great Plague, roused the superstitious fears of the people, and the House of Commons embodied the general feeling in a bill against atheism and profaneness. On the 17th of October it was ordered that the committee to which the bill was referred “should be empowered to receive information touching such books as tend to atheism, blasphemy and profaneness, or against the essence and attributes of God, and in particular the book published in the name of one White,20 and the book of Mr Hobbes called the Leviathan, and to report the matter with their opinion to the House.” Hobbes, then verging upon eighty, was terrified at the prospect of being treated as a heretic, and proceeded to burn such of his papers as he thought might compromise him. At the same time he set himself, with a very characteristic determination, to inquire into the actual state of the law of heresy. The results of his investigation were first announced in three short Dialogues added (in place of the old “Review and Conclusion,” for which the day had passed) as an Appendix to his Latin translation of Leviathan (L.W. iii.), included with the general collection of his works published at Amsterdam in 1668. In this appendix, as also in the posthumous tract, published in 1680, An Historical Narration concerning Heresy and the Punishment thereof (E.W. iv. 385-408), he aimed at showing that, since the High Court of Commission had been put down, there remained no court of heresy at all to which he was amenable, and that even when it stood nothing was to be declared heresy but what was at variance with the Nicene Creed, as he maintained the doctrine of Leviathan was not.
The only consequence that came of the parliamentary scare was that Hobbes could never afterwards get permission to print anything on subjects relating to human conduct. The collected edition of his Latin works (in two quarto volumes) appeared at Amsterdam in 1668, because he could not obtain the censor’s licence for its publication at London, Oxford or Cambridge. Other writings which he had finished, or on which he must have been engaged about this time, were not made public till after his death—the king apparently having made it the price of his protection that no fresh provocation should be offered to the popular sentiment. The most important of the works composed towards 1670, and thus kept back, is the extremely spirited dialogue to which he gave the title Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England and of the Counsels and Artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1660.21 To the same period probably belongs the unfinished Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (E.W. vi. 1-160), a trenchant criticism of the constitutional theory of English government as upheld by Coke. Aubrey takes credit for having tried to induce Hobbes to write upon the subject in 1664 by presenting him with a copy of Bacon’s Elements of the Laws of England, and though the attempt was then unsuccessful, Hobbes later on took to studying the statute-book, with Coke upon Littleton. One other posthumous production also (besides the tract on Heresy before mentioned) may be referred to this, if not, as Aubrey suggests, an earlier time—the two thousand and odd elegiac verses in which he gave his view of ecclesiastical encroachment on the civil power; the quaint verses, disposed in his now favourite dialogue-form, were first published, nine years after his death, under the title Historia ecclesiastica (L.W. v. 341-408), with a preface by Thomas Rymer.
For some time Hobbes was not even allowed to utter a word of protest, whatever might be the occasion that his enemies took to triumph over him. In 1669 an unworthy follower—Daniel Scargil by name, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge—had to recant publicly and confess that his evil life had been the result of Hobbist doctrines. In 1674 John Fell, the dean of Christ Church, who bore the charges of the Latin translation of Anthony Wood’s History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford (1670), struck out all the complimentary epithets in the account of his life, and substituted very different ones; but this time the king did suffer him to defend himself by publishing a dignified letter (Vit. Auct. pp. xlvii.-l.), to which Fell replied by adding to the translation when it appeared a note full of the grossest insults. And, amid all his troubles, Hobbes was not without his consolations. No Englishman of that day stood in the same repute abroad, and foreigners, noble or learned, who came to England, never forgot to pay their respects to the old man, whose vigour and freshness of intellect no progress of the years seemed able to quench. Among these was the grand-duke of Tuscany (Ferdinand II.), who took away some works and a portrait to adorn the Medicean library.
His pastimes in the latest years were as singular as his labours. The autobiography in Latin verse, with its playful humour, occasional pathos and sublime self-complacency, was thrown off at the age of eighty-four. At eighty-five, in the year 1673, he sent forth a translation of four books of the Odyssey (ix.-xii.) in rugged but not seldom happily turned English rhymes; and, when he found this Voyage of Ulysses eagerly received, he had ready by 1675 a complete translation of both Iliad and Odyssey (E.W. x.), prefaced by a lively dissertation “Concerning the Virtues of an Heroic Poem,” showing his unabated interest in questions of literary style. After 1675, he passed his time at his patron’s seats in Derbyshire, occupied to the last with intellectual work in the early morning and in the afternoon hours, which it had long been his habit to devote to thinking and to writing. Even as late as August 1679 he was promising his publisher “somewhat to print in English.” The end came very soon afterwards. A suppression of urine in October, in spite of which he insisted upon being conveyed with the family from Chatsworth to Hardwick Hall towards the end of November, was followed by a paralytic stroke, under which he sank on the 4th of December, in his ninety-second year. He lies buried in the neighbouring church of Ault Hucknall.
He was tall and erect in figure, and lived on the whole a temperate life, though he used to say that he had been drunk about a hundred times. His favourite exercise was tennis, which he played regularly even after the age of Personal characteristics. seventy. Socially he was genial and courteous, though in argument he occasionally lost his temper. As a friend he was generous and loyal. Intellectually bold in the extreme, he was curiously timid in ordinary life, and is said to have had a horror of ghosts. He read little, and often boasted that he would have known as little as other men if he had read as much. He appears to have had an illegitimate daughter for whom he made generous provision. In the National Portrait Gallery there is a portrait of him by J. M. Wright, and two others are in the possession of the Royal Society.
As already suggested, it cannot be allowed that Hobbes falls into any regular succession from Bacon; neither can it be said that he handed on the torch to Locke. He was the one English thinker of the first rank in the long period Place in English thought. of two generations separating Locke from Bacon, but, save in the chronological sense, there is no true relation of succession among the three. It would be difficult even to prove any ground of affinity among them beyond a desposition to take sense as a prime factor in the account of subjective experience: their common interest in physical science was shared 552 equally by rationalist thinkers of the Cartesian school, and was indeed begotten of the time. Backwards, Hobbes’s relations are rather with Galileo and the other inquirers who, from the beginning of the 17th century, occupied themselves with the physical world in the manner that has come later to be distinguished by the name of science in opposition to philosophy. But even more than in external nature, Hobbes was interested in the phenomena of social life, presenting themselves so impressively in an age of political revolution. So it came to pass that, while he was unable, by reason of imperfect training and too tardy development, with all his pains, to make any contribution to physical science or to mathematics as instrumental in physical research, he attempted a task which no other adherent of the new “mechanical philosophy” conceived—nothing less than such a universal construction of human knowledge as would bring Society and Man (at once the matter and maker of Society) within the same principles of scientific explanation as were found applicable to the world of Nature. The construction was, of course, utterly premature, even supposing it were inherently possible; but it is Hobbes’s distinction, in his century, to have conceived it, and he is thereby lifted from among the scientific workers with whom he associated to the rank of those philosophical thinkers who have sought to order the whole domain of human knowledge. The effects of his philosophical endeavour may be traced on a variety of lines. Upon every subject that came within the sweep of his system, except mathematics and physics, his thoughts have been productive of thought. When the first storm of opposition from smaller men had begun to die down, thinkers of real weight, beginning with Cumberland and Cudworth, were moved by their aversion to his analysis of the moral nature of man to probe anew the question of the natural springs and the rational grounds of human action; and thus it may be said that Hobbes gave the first impulse to the whole of that movement of ethical speculation that, in modern times, has been carried on with such remarkable continuity in England. In politics the revulsion from his particular conclusions did not prevent the more clear-sighted of his opponents from recognizing the force of his supreme demonstration of the practical irresponsibility of the sovereign power, wherever seated, in the state; and, when in a later age the foundations of a positive theory of legislation were laid in England, the school of Bentham—James Mill, Grote, Molesworth—brought again into general notice the writings of the great publicist of the 17th century, who, however he might, by the force of temperament, himself prefer the rule of one, based his whole political system upon a rational regard to the common weal. Finally, the psychology of Hobbes, though too undeveloped to guide the thoughts or even perhaps arrest the attention of Locke, when essaying the scientific analysis of knowledge, came in course of time (chiefly through James Mill) to be connected with the theory of associationism developed from within the school of Locke, in different ways, by Hartley and Hume; nor is it surprising that the later associationists, finding their principle more distinctly formulated in the earlier thinker, should sometimes have been betrayed into affiliating themselves to Hobbes rather than to Locke. For his ethical theories see Ethics.
Sufficient information is given in the Vitae Hobbianae auctarium (L.W. i. p. lxv. ff.) concerning the frequent early editions of Hobbes’s separate works, and also concerning the works of those who wrote against him, to the end of the 17th century. In the 18th century, after Clarke’s Boyle Lectures of 1704-1705, the opposition was less express. In 1750 The Moral and Political Works were collected, with life, &c., by Dr Campbell, in a folio edition, including in order, Human Nature, De corpore politico, Leviathan, Answer to Bramhall’s Catching of the Leviathan, Narration concerning Heresy, Of Liberty and Necessity, Behemoth, Dialogue of the Common Laws, the Introduction to the Thucydides, Letter to Davenant and two others, the Preface to the Homer, De mirabilibus Pecci (with English translation), Considerations on the Reputation, &., of T. H. In 1812 the Human Nature and the Liberty and Necessity (with supplementary extracts from the Questions of 1656) were reprinted in a small edition of 250 copies, with a meritorious memoir (based on Campbell) and dedication to Horne Tooke, by Philip Mallet. Molesworth’s edition (1839-1845), dedicated to Grote, has been referred to in a former note. Of translations may be mentioned Les Élémens philosophiques du citoyen (1649) and Le Corps politique (1652), both by S. de Sorbière, conjoined with Le Traité de la nature humaine, by d’Holbach, in 1787, under the general title Les Œuvres philosophiques et politiques de Thomas Hobbes; a translation of the first section, “Computatio sive logica,” of the De corpore, included by Destutt de Tracy with his Élémens d’idéologie (1804); a translation of Leviathan into Dutch in 1678, and another (anonymous) into German—Des Engländers Thomas Hobbes Leviathan oder der kirchliche und bürgerliche Staat (Halle, 1794, 2 vols.); a translation of the De cive by J. H. v. Kirchmann—T. Hobbes: Abhandlung über den Bürger, &c. (Leipzig, 1873). Important later editions are those of Ferdinand Tönnies, Behemoth (1889), on which see Croom Robertson’s Philosophical Remains (1894), p. 451; Elements of Law (1889).
Biographical and Critical Works.—There are three accounts of Hobbes’s life, first published together in 1681, two years after his death, by R. B. (Richard Blackbourne, a friend of Hobbes’s admirer, John Aubrey), and reprinted, with complimentary verses by Cowley and others, at the beginning of Sir W. Molesworth’s collection of the Latin Works: (1) T. H. Malmesb. vita (pp. xiii.-xxi.), written by Hobbes himself, or (as also reported) by T. Rymer, at his dictation; (2) Vitae Hobbianae auctarium (pp. xxii.-lxxx.), turned into Latin from Aubrey’s English; (3) T. H. Malmesb. vita carmine expressa (pp. lxxxi.-xcix.), written by Hobbes at the age of eighty-four (first published by itself in 1680). The Life of Mr T. H. of Malmesburie, printed among the Lives of Eminent Men, in 1813, from Aubrey’s papers in the Bodleian, &c. (vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 593-637), contains some interesting particulars not found in the Auctarium. All that is of any importance for Hobbes’s life is contained in G. Croom Robertson’s Hobbes (1886) in Blackwood’s Philosophical Classics, and Sir Leslie Stephen’s Hobbes (1904) in the “English Men of Letters” series, both of which deal fully with his philosophy also. See also F. Tönnies, Hobbes Leben und Lehre (1896), Hobbes-Analekten (1904 foll.); G. Zart, Einfluss der englischen Philosophie seit Bacon auf die deutsche Philosophie des 18ten Jahrh. (Berlin, 1881); G. Brandt, Thomas Hobbes: Grundlinien seiner Philosophie (1895); G. Lyon, La Philos. de Hobbes (1893); J. M. Robertson, Pioneer Humanists (1907); J. Rickaby, Free Will and Four English Philosophers (1906), pp. 1-72; J. Watson, Hedonistic Theories (1895); W. Graham, English Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Maine (1899); W. J. H. Campion, Outlines of Lectures on Political Science (1895).
1 The translation, under the title Eight Books of the Peloponnesian War, written by Thucydides the son of Olorus, interpreted with faith and diligence immediately out of the Greek by Thomas Hobbes, secretary to the late Earl of Devonshire, appeared in 1628 (or 1629), after the death of the earl, to whom touching reference is made in the dedication. It reappeared in 1634, with the date of the dedication altered, as if then newly written. Though Hobbes claims to have performed his work “with much more diligence than elegance,” his version is remarkable as a piece of English writing, but is by no means accurate. It fills vols. viii. and ix. in Molesworth’s collection (11 vols., including index vol.) of Hobbes’s English Works (London, Bohn, 1839-1845). The volumes of this collection will here be cited as E. W. Molesworth’s collection of the Latin Opera philosophica (5 vols., 1839-1845) will be cited as L.W. The five hundred and odd Latin hexameters under the title De mirabilibus Pecci (L.W. v. 323-340), giving an account of a short excursion from Chatsworth to view the seven wonders of the Derbyshire Peak, were written before 1628 (in 1626 or 1627), though not published till 1636. It was a New Year’s present to his patron, who gave him £5 in return. A later edition, in 1678, included an English version by another hand.
2 Hobbes, in minor works dealing with physical questions (L.W. iv. 316; E.W. vii. 112), makes two incidental references to Bacon’s writings, but never mentions Bacon as he mentions Galileo, Kepler, Harvey, and others (De corpore, ep. ded.), among the lights of the century. The word “Induction,” which occurs in only three or four passages throughout all his works (and these again minor ones), is never used by him with the faintest reminiscence of the import assigned to it by Bacon; and, as will be seen, he had nothing but scorn for experimental work in physics.
3 The free English abstract of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, published in 1681, after Hobbes’s death, as The Whole Art of Rhetoric (E.W. vi. 423-510), corresponds with a Latin version dictated to his young pupil. Among Hobbes’s papers preserved at Hardwick, where he died, there remains the boy’s dictation-book, interspersed with headings, examples, &c. in Hobbes’s hand.
4 Among the Hardwick papers there is preserved a MS. copy of the work, under the title Elementes of Law Naturall and Politique, with the dedication to the earl of Newcastle, written in Hobbes’s own hand, and dated May 9, 1640. This dedication was prefixed to the first thirteen chapters of the work when printed by themselves, under the title Human Nature in 1650.
5 The book, of which the copies are rare (one in Dr Williams’s library in London and one in the Bodleian), was printed in quarto size (Paris, 1642), with a pictorial title-page (not afterwards reproduced) of scenes and figures illustrating its three divisions, “Libertas,” “Imperium,” “Religio.” The title Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertia, De Cive, expresses its relation to the unwritten sections, which also comes out in one or two back-references in the text.
6 L.W. ii. 133-134. In this first public edition (12mo), the title was changed to Elementa philosophica de cive, the references in the text to the previous sections being omitted. The date of the dedication to the young earl of Devonshire was altered from 1641 to 1646.
7 Described as “nobilis Languedocianus” in Vit.; doubtless the same with the “Dominus Verdusius, nobilis Aquitanus,” to whom was dedicated the Exam. et emend. math. hod. (L.W. iv.) in 1660. Du Verdus was one of Hobbes’s profoundest admirers and most frequent correspondents in later years; there are many of his letters among Hobbes’s papers at Hardwick.
8 The Human Nature corresponds with cc. i.-xiii. of the first part of the original treatise. The remaining six chapters of the part stand now as Part I. of the De Corpore Politico. Part II. of the D.C.P. corresponds with the original second part of the whole work.
9 At the beginning of this year he wrote and published in Paris a letter on the nature and conditions of poetry, chiefly epic, in answer to an appeal to his judgment made in the preface to Sir W. Davenant’s heroic poem, Gondibert (E.W. iv. 441-458). The letter is dated Jan. 10, 1650 (1650/1).
10 This presentation copy, so described by Clarendon (Survey of the Leviathan, 1676, p. 8), is doubtless the beautifully written and finely bound MS. now to be found in the British Museum (Egerton MSS. 1910).
11 During all the time he was abroad he had continued to receive from his patron a yearly pension of £80, and they remained in steady, correspondence. The earl, having sided with the king in 1642, was declared unfit to sit in the House of Peers, and though, by submission to Parliament, he recovered his estates when they were sequestered later on, he did not sit again till 1660. Among Hobbes’s friends at this time are specially mentioned John Selden and William Harvey, who left him a legacy of £10. According to Aubrey, Selden left him an equal bequest, but this seems to be a mistake. Harvey (not Bacon) is the only Englishman he mentions in the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the De corpore, among the founders, before himself, of the new natural philosophy.
12 The treatise bore the date, “Rouen, Aug. 20, 1652,” but it should have been 1646, as afterwards explained by Hobbes himself (E.W. v. 25).
13 “The Vit. auct. refers to 1676, a ‘Letter to William duke of Newcastle on the Controversy about Liberty and Necessity, held with Benjamin Laney, bishop of Ely.’ In that year there did appear a (confused) little tract written by Laney against Hobbes’s concluding statement of his own ‘Opinion’ in the ‘Liberty and Necessity’ of 1654 (1646), but I can find no trace of any further writing by Hobbes on the subject” (G. Croom Robertson, Hobbes, p. 202).
14 This translation, Concerning Body, though not made by Hobbes, was revised by him; but it is far from accurate, and not seldom, at critical places (e.g. c. vi. § 2), quite misleading. Philosophical citations from the De corpore should always be made in the original Latin. Molesworth reprints the Latin, not from the first edition of 1655, but from the modified edition of 1668—modified, in the mathematical chapters, in general (not exact) keeping with the English edition of 1656. The Vindex episode, referred to in the Six Lessons, becomes intelligible only by going beyond Molesworth to the original Latin edition of 1655.
15 They were composed originally, in a somewhat different and rather more extended form, as the second part of an English treatise on Optics, completed by the year 1646. Of this treatise, preserved in Harleian MSS. 3360, Molesworth otherwise prints the dedication to the marquis of Newcastle, and the concluding paragraphs (E.W. vii. 467-471).
16 L.W. iv. 1-232. The propositions on the circle, forty-six in number (shattered by Wallis in 1662), were omitted by Hobbes when he republished the Dialogues in 1668, in the collected edition of his Latin works from which Molesworth reprints. In the part omitted, at p. 154 of the original edition, Hobbes refers to his first introduction to Euclid, in a way that confirms the story in Aubrey quoted in an earlier paragraph.
17 Remaining at Oxford, Wallis, in fact, took no active part in the constitution of the new society, but he had been, from 1645, one of the originators of an earlier association in London, thus continued or revived. This earlier society had been continued also at Oxford after the year 1649, when Wallis and others of its members received appointments there.
18 The Problemata physica was at the same time put into English (with some changes and omission of part of the mathematical appendix), and presented to the king, to whom the work was dedicated in a remarkable letter apologizing for Leviathan. In its English form, as Seven Philosophical Problems and Two Propositions of Geometry (E.W. vii. 1-68), the work was first published in 1682, after Hobbes’s death.
19 Wallis’s pieces were excluded from the collected edition of his works (1693-1697), and have become extremely rare.
20 The De medio animarum statu of Thomas White, a heterodox Catholic priest, who contested the natural immortality of the soul. White (who died 1676) and Hobbes were friends.
21 E.W. vi. 161-418. Though Behemoth was kept back at the king’s express desire, it saw the light, without Hobbes’s leave, in 1679, before his death.
HOBBY, a small horse, probably from early quotations, of Irish breed, trained to an easy gait so that riding was not fatiguing. The common use of the word is for a favourite pursuit or occupation, with the idea either of excessive devotion or of absence of ulterior motive or of profit, &c., outside the occupation itself. This use is probably not derived from the easy ambling gait of the Irish “hobby,” but from the “hobby-horse,” the mock horse of the old morris-dances, made of a painted wooden horse’s head and tail, with a framework casing for an actor’s body, his legs being covered by a cloth made to represent the “housings” of the medieval tilting-horse. A hobby or hobby-horse is thus a toy, a diversion. The O. Fr. hobin, or hobi, Mod. aubin, and Ital. ubina are probably adaptations of the English, according to the New English Dictionary. The O. Fr. hober, to move, which is often taken to be the origin of all these words, is the source of a use of “hobby” for a small kind of falcon, falco subbuteo, used in hawking.
HOBHOUSE, ARTHUR HOBHOUSE, 1st Baron (1819-1904), English judge, fourth son of Henry Hobhouse, permanent under-secretary of state in the Home Office, was born at Hadspen, Somerset, on the 10th of November 1819. Educated at Eton and Balliol, he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1845, and rapidly acquired a large practice as a conveyancer and equity draftsman; he became Q.C. in 1862, and practised in the Rolls Court, retiring in 1866. He was an active member of the charity commission and urged the appropriation of pious bequests to educational and other purposes. In 1872 he began a five years’ term of service as legal member of the council of the governor-general of India, his services being acknowledged by a K.C.S.I.; and in 1881 he was appointed a member of the judicial committee of the privy council, on which he served for twenty years. He was made a peer in 1885, and consistently supported the Liberal party in the House of Lords. He died on the 6th of December 1904, leaving no heir to the barony.
His papers read before the Social Science Association on the subject of property were collected in 1880 under the title of The Dead Hand.
HOBOKEN, a small town of Belgium on the right bank of the Scheldt about 4 m. above Antwerp. It is only important on account of the shipbuilding yard which the Cockerill firm of Seraing has established at Hoboken. Many wealthy Antwerp 553 merchants have villas here, and it is the headquarters of several of the leading rowing clubs on the Scheldt. Pop. (1904) 12,816.
HOBOKEN, a city of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the Hudson river, adjoining Jersey City on the S. and W. and opposite New York city, with which it is connected by ferries and by two subway lines through tunnels under the river. Pop. (1890) 43,648; (1900) 59,364, of whom 21,380 were foreign-born, 10,843 being natives of Germany; (1910 census) 70,324. Of the total population in 1900, 48,349 had either one or both parents foreign-born, German being the principal racial element. The city is served by the West Shore, and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railways, being the eastern terminus of the latter, and is connected by electric railway with the neighbouring cities of north-eastern New Jersey. In Hoboken are the piers of the North German Lloyd, the Hamburg American, the Netherlands American, the Scandinavian and the Phoenix steamship lines. Hoboken occupies a little more than 1 sq. m. and lies near the foot of the New Jersey Palisades, which rise both on the W. and N. to a height of nearly 200 ft. Much of its surface has had to be filled in to raise it above high tide, but Castle Point, in the N.E., rises from the generally low level about 100 ft. On this Point are the residence and private estate of the founder of the city, John Stevens (1749-1838), Hudson Park, and facing it the Stevens Institute of Technology, an excellent school of mechanical engineering endowed by Edwin A. Stevens (1795-1868), son of John Stevens, opened in 1871, and having in 1909-1910 34 instructors and 390 students. The institute owes much to its first president, Henry Morton (1836-1902), a distinguished scientist, whose aim was “to offer a course of instruction in which theory and practice were carefully balanced and thoroughly combined,” and who gave to the institute sums aggregating $175,000 (see Morton Memorial, History of Stevens Institute, ed. by Furman, 1905). In connexion with the institute there is a preparatory department, the Stevens School (1870). The city maintains a teachers’ training school. Among the city’s prominent buildings are the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western station, the Hoboken Academy (1860), founded by German Americans, and the public library. The city has an extensive coal trade and numerous manufactures, among which are lead pencils, leather goods, silk goods, wall-paper and caskets. The value of the manufactured product increased from $7,151,391 in 1890 to $12,092,872 in 1900, or 69.1%. The factory product in 1905 was valued at $14,077,305, an increase of 34.3% over that for 1900. The site of Hoboken (originally “Hobocanhackingh,” the place of the tobacco pipe) was occupied about 1640 as a Dutch farm, but in 1643 the stock and all the buildings except a brew-house were destroyed by the Indians. In 1711 title to the place was acquired by Samuel Bayard, a New York merchant, who built on Castle Point his summer residence. During the War of Independence his descendant, William Bayard, was a loyalist, and his home was burned and his estate confiscated. In 1784 the property was purchased by John Stevens, the inventor, who in 1804 laid it out as a town. For the next thirty-five years its “Elysian Fields” were a famous pleasure resort of New York City. Hoboken was incorporated as a town in 1849 and as a city in 1855. On the 30th of June 1900 the wharves of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company and three of its ocean liners were almost completely destroyed by a fire, which caused a loss of more than 200 lives and over $5,000,000.
HOBSON’S CHOICE, i.e. “this or nothing,” an expression that arose from the fact that the Cambridge-London carrier, Thomas Hobson (1544-1630), refused, when letting his horses on hire, to allow any animal to leave the stable out of its turn. Among other bequests made by Hobson, and commemorated by Milton, was a conduit for the Cambridge market-place, for which he provided the perpetual maintenance. See Spectator, No. 509 (14th of October 1712).
HOBY, SIR THOMAS (1530-1566), English diplomatist and translator, son of William Hoby of Leominster, was born in 1530. He entered St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1545, but in 1547 he went to Strassburg, where he was the guest of Martin Bucer, whose Gratulation ... unto the Church of Englande for the restitution of Christes Religion he translated into English. He then proceeded to Italy, visiting Padua and Venice, Florence and Siena, and in May 1550 he had settled at Rome, when he was summoned by his half-brother, Sir Philip Hoby (1505-1558), then ambassador at the emperor’s court, to Augsburg. The brothers returned to England at the end of the year, and Thomas attached himself to the service of the marquis of Northampton, whom he accompanied to France on an embassy to arrange a marriage between Edward VI. and the princess Elizabeth. Shortly after he returned to England he started once more for Paris, and in 1552 he was engaged on his translation of The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio. His work was probably completed in 1554, and the freedom of the allusions to the Roman church probably accounts for the fact that it was withheld from publication until 1561. The Cortegiano of Baldassare Castiglione, which Dr Johnson called “the best book that ever was written upon good breeding,” is a book as entirely typical of the Italian Renaissance as Machiavelli’s Prince in another direction. It exercised an immense influence on the standards of chivalry throughout Europe, and was long the recognized authority for the education of a nobleman. The accession of Mary made it desirable for the Hobys to remain abroad, and they were in Italy until the end of 1555. Thomas Hoby married in 1558 Elizabeth, the learned daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, who wrote a Latin epitaph on her husband. He was knighted in 1566 by Elizabeth, and was sent to France as English ambassador. He died on the 13th of July in the same year in Paris, and was buried in Bisham Church.
His son, Sir Edward Hoby (1560-1617), enjoyed Elizabeth’s favour, and he was employed on various confidential missions. He was constable of Queenborough Castle, Kent, where he died on the 1st of March 1617. He took part in the religious controversies of the time, publishing many pamphlets against Theophilus Higgons and John Fludd or Floyd. He translated, from the French of Mathieu Coignet, Politique Discourses on Trueth and Lying (1586).
The authority for Thomas Hoby’s biography is a MS. “Booke of the Travaile and lief of me Thomas Hoby, with diverse things worth the noting.” This was edited for the Royal Historical Society by Edgar Powell in 1902. Hoby’s translation of The Courtyer was edited (1900) by Professor Walter Raleigh for the “Tudor Translations” series.
HOCHE, LAZARE (1768-1797), French general, was born of poor parents near Versailles on the 24th of June 1768. At sixteen years of age he enlisted as a private soldier in the Gardes françaises. He spent his entire leisure in earning extra pay by civil work, his object being to provide himself with books, and this love of study, which was combined with a strong sense of duty and personal courage, soon led to his promotion. When the Gardes françaises were broken up in 1789 he was a corporal, and thereafter he served in various line regiments up to the time of his receiving a commission in 1792. In the defence of Thionville in that year Hoche earned further promotion, and he served with credit in the operations of 1792-1793 on the northern frontier of France. At the battle of Neerwinden he was aide-de-camp to General le Veneur, and when Dumouriez deserted to the Austrians, Hoche, along with le Veneur and others, fell under suspicion of treason; but after being kept under arrest and unemployed for some months he took part in the defence of Dunkirk, and in the same year (1793) he was promoted successively chef de brigade, general of brigade, and general of division. In October 1793 he was provisionally appointed to command the Army of the Moselle, and within a few weeks he was in the field at the head of his army in Lorraine. His first battle was that of Kaiserslautern (28th-30th of November) against Prussians. The French were defeated, but even in the midst of the Terror the Committee of Public Safety continued Hoche in his command. Pertinacity and fiery energy in their eyes outweighed everything else, and Hoche soon showed that he possessed these qualities. On the 22nd of December he stormed the lines of Fröschweiler, and the representatives of the Convention with his army at once added the Army of the Rhine to his sphere of command. On the 26th of December the French 554 carried by assault the famous lines of Weissenburg, and Hoche pursued his success, sweeping the enemy before him to the middle Rhine in four days. He then put his troops into winter quarters. Before the following campaign opened, he married Anne Adelaïde Dechaux at Thionville (March 11th, 1794). But ten days later he was suddenly arrested, charges of treason having been preferred by Pichegru, the displaced commander of the Army of the Rhine, and by his friends. Hoche escaped execution, however, though imprisoned in Paris until the fall of Robespierre. Shortly after his release he was appointed to command against the Vendéans (21st of August 1794). He completed the work of his predecessors in a few months by the peace of Jaunaye (15th of February 1795), but soon afterwards the war was renewed by the Royalists. Hoche showed himself equal to the crisis and inflicted a crushing blow on the Royalist cause by defeating and capturing de Sombreuil’s expedition at Quiberon and Penthièvre (16th-21st of July 1795). Thereafter, by means of mobile columns (which he kept under good discipline) he succeeded before the summer of 1796 in pacifying the whole of the west, which had for more than three years been the scene of a pitiless civil war. After this he was appointed to organize and command the troops destined for the invasion of Ireland, and he started on this enterprise in December 1796. A tempest, however, separated Hoche from the expedition, and after various adventures the whole fleet returned to Brest without having effected its purpose. Hoche was at once transferred to the Rhine frontier, where he defeated the Austrians at Neuwied (April), though operations were soon afterwards brought to an end by the Preliminaries of Leoben. Later in 1797 he was minister of war for a short period, but in this position he was surrounded by obscure political intrigues, and, finding himself the dupe of Barras and technically guilty of violating the constitution, he quickly laid down his office, returning to his command on the Rhine frontier. But his health grew rapidly worse, and he died at Wetzlar on the 19th of September 1797 of consumption. The belief was widely spread that he had been poisoned, but the suspicion seems to have been without foundation. He was buried by the side of his friend Marceau in a fort on the Rhine, amidst the mourning not only of his army but of all France.
See Privat, Notions historiques sur la vie morale, politique et militaire du général Hoche (Strassburg, 1798); Daunou, Éloge du général Hoche (1798), delivered on behalf of the Institut at Hoche’s funeral; Rousselin, Vie de Lazare Hoche, général des armées de la république française (Paris, 1798; this work was printed at the public expense and distributed to the schools); Dubroca, Éloge funèbre du général Hoche (Paris, 1800); Vie et pensées du général Hoche (Bern); Champrobert, Notice historique sur Lazare Hoche, le pacificateur de la Vendée (Paris, 1840); Dourille, Histoire de Lazare Hoche (Paris, 1844); Desprez, Lazare Hoche d’après sa correspondance (Paris, 1858; new ed., 1880); Bergounioux, Essai sur la vie de Lazare Hoche (1852); É. de Bonnechose, Lazare Hoche (1867); H. Martin, Hoche et Bonaparte (1875); Dutemple, Vie politique et militaire du général Hoche (1879); Escaude, Hoche en Irlande (1888); Cunéo d’Ornano, Hoche (1892); A. Chuquet, Hoche et la lutte pour l’Alsace (a volume of this author’s series on the campaigns of the Revolution, 1893); E. Charavaray, Le Général Hoche (1893); A. Duruy, Hoche et Marceau (1885).
HOCHHEIM, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, situated on an elevation not far from the right bank of the Main, 3 m. above its influx into the Rhine and 3 m. E. of Mainz by the railway from Cassel to Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 3779. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and carries on an extensive trade in wine, the English word “Hock,” the generic term for Rhine wine, being derived from its name. Hochheim is mentioned in the chronicles as early as the 7th century. It is also memorable as the scene of a victory gained here, on the 7th of November 1813 by the Austrians over the French.
See Schüler, Geschichte der Stadt Hochheim am Main (Hochheim, 1888).
HÖCHST, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau on the Main, 6 m. by rail W. of Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 14,121. It is a busy industrial town with large dye-works and manufactures of machinery, snuff, tobacco, waxcloth, gelatine, furniture and biscuits. Brewing is carried on and there is a considerable river trade. The Roman Catholic church of St Justinus is a fine basilica originally built in the 9th century; it has been restored several times, and a Gothic choir was added in the 15th century. The town has also an Evangelical church and a synagogue, and a statue of Bismarck by Alois Mayer. Höchst belonged formerly to the electors of Mainz who had a palace here; this was destroyed in 1634 with the exception of one fine tower which still remains. In 1622 Christian, duke of Brunswick, was defeated here by Count Tilly, and in 1795 the Austrians gained a victory here over the French.
Höchst is also the name of a small town in Hesse. This has some manufactures, and was formerly the seat of a Benedictine monastery.
HÖCHSTÄDT, a town of Bavaria, Germany, in the district of Swabia, on the left bank of the Danube, 34 m. N.E. of Ulm by rail. Pop. (1905) 2305. It has three Roman Catholic churches, a castle flanked by walls and towers and some small industries, including malting and brewing. Höchstädt, which came into the possession of Bavaria in 1266, has been a place of battles. Here Frederick of Hohenstaufen, vicegerent of the Empire for Henry IV., was defeated by Henry’s rival, Hermann of Luxemburg, in 1081; in 1703 the Imperialists were routed here by Marshal Villars in command of the French; in August 1704 Marlborough and Prince Eugene defeated the French and Bavarians commanded by Max Emanuel, the elector of Bavaria and Marshal Tallard, this battle being usually known as that of Blenheim; and in June 1800 an engagement took place here between the Austrians and the French.
There is another small town in Bavaria named Höchstadt. Pop. 2000. This is on the river Aisch, not far from Bamberg, to which bishopric it belonged from 1157 to 1802, when it was ceded to Bavaria.
HOCHSTETTER, FERDINAND CHRISTIAN VON, Baron (1829-1884), Austrian geologist, was born at Esslingen, Würtemberg, on the 30th of April 1829. He was the son of Christian Ferdinand Hochstetter (1787-1860), a clergyman and professor at Brünn, who was also a botanist and mineralogist. Having received his early education at the evangelical seminary at Maulbronn, he proceeded to the university of Tübingen; there under F. A. Quenstedt the interest he already felt in geology became permanently fixed, and there he obtained his doctor’s degree and a travelling scholarship. In 1852 he joined the staff of the Imperial Geological Survey of Austria and was engaged until 1856 in parts of Bohemia, especially in the Böhmerwald, and in the Fichtel and Karlsbad mountains. His excellent reports established his reputation. Thus he came to be chosen as geologist to the Novara expedition (1857-1859), and made numerous valuable observations in the voyage round the world. In 1859 he was engaged by the government of New Zealand to make a rapid geological survey of the islands. On his return he was appointed in 1860 professor of mineralogy and geology at the Imperial Polytechnic Institute in Vienna, and in 1876 he was made superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum. In these later years he explored portions of Turkey and eastern Russia, and he published papers on a variety of geological, palaeontological and mineralogical subjects. He died at Vienna on the 18th of July 1884.
Publications.—Karlsbad, seine geognostischen Verhältnisse und seine Quellen (1858); Neu-Seeland (1863); Geological and Topographical Atlas of New Zealand (1864); Leitfaden der Mineralogie und Geologie (with A. Bisching) (1876, ed. 8, 1890).
HOCKEY (possibly derived from the “hooked” stick with which it is played; cf. O. Fr. hoquet, shepherd’s crook), a game played with a ball or some similar object by two opposing sides, using hooked or bent sticks, with which each side attempts to drive it into the other’s goal. In one or more of its variations Hockey was known to most northern peoples in both Europe and Asia, and the Romans possessed a game of similar nature. It was played indiscriminately on the frozen ground or the ice in winter. In Scotland it was called “shinty,” and in Ireland “hurley,” and was usually played on the hard, sandy sea-shore 555 with numerous players on each side. The rules were simple and the play very rough.
Modern Hockey, properly so called, is played during the cold season on the hard turf, and owes its recent vogue to the formation of “The Men’s Hockey Association” in England in 1875. The rules drawn up by the Wimbledon Club in 1883 still obtain in all essentials. Since 1895 “international” matches at hockey have been played annually between England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales; and in 1907 a match was played between England and France, won by England by 14 goals to nil. In 1890 Divisional Association matches (North, South, West, Midlands) and inter-university matches (Oxford and Cambridge) were inaugurated, and have since been played annually. County matches are also now regularly played in England, twenty-six counties competing in 1907. Of other hockey clubs playing regular matches in 1907, there were eighty-one in the London district, and fifty-nine in the provinces.
Diagram of Hockey Field. | |
G, Goal. RB, Right Back. LB, Left Back. RH, Right Half. CH, Centre Half. LH, Left Half. |
RW, Right Wing. RI, Inside Right. CF, Centre Forward. LI, Inside Left. LW, Left Wing. |
The game is played by teams of eleven players on a ground 100 yds. long and 50 to 60 yds. wide. The goals are in the centre of each end-line, and consist of two uprights 7 ft. high surmounted by a horizontal bar, enclosing a space 12 ft. wide. In front of each goal is a space enclosed by a curved line, its greatest diameter from the goal-line being 15 ft., called the striking-circle. The positions of the players on each side may be seen on the accompanying diagram. Two umpires, one on each side of the centre-line, officiate.
The ball is an ordinary cricket-ball painted white. The stick has a hard-wood curved head, and a handle of cork or wrapped cane. It must not exceed 2 in. in diameter nor 28 oz. in weight. At the start of the game, which consists of two thirty or thirty-five minute periods, the two centre-forwards “bully off” the ball in the middle of the field. In “bullying off” each centre must strike the ground on his own side of the ball three times with his stick and strike his opponent’s stick three times alternately; after which either may strike the ball. Each side then endeavours, by means of striking, passing and dribbling, to drive the ball into its opponents’ goal. A player is “off side” if he is nearer the enemy’s goal than one of his own side who strikes the ball, and he may not strike the ball himself until it has been touched by one of the opposing side. The ball may be caught (but not held) or stopped by any part of the body, but may not be picked up, carried, kicked, thrown or knocked except with the stick. An opponent’s stick may be hooked, but not an opponent’s person, which may not be obstructed in any way. No left-handed play is allowed. Penalties for infringing rules are of two classes; “free hits” and “penalty bullies,” to be taken where the foul occurred. For flagrant fouls penalty goals may also be awarded. A “corner” occurs when the ball goes behind the goal-line, but not into goal. If it is hit by the attacking side, or unintentionally by the defenders, it must be brought out 25 yds., in a direction at right angles to the goal-line from the point where it crossed the line, and there “bullied.” But if the ball is driven from within the 25-yd. line unintentionally behind the goal-line by the defenders, a member of the attacking side is given a free hit from a point within 3 yds. of a corner flag, the members of the defending side remaining behind their goal-line. If the ball is hit intentionally behind the goal-line by the attacking side, the free hit is taken from the point where the ball went over. No goal can be scored from a free hit directly.
Ice Hockey (or Bandy, to give it its original name) is far more popular than ordinary Hockey in countries where there is much ice; in fact in America “Hockey” means Ice Hockey, while the land game is called Field Hockey. Ice Hockey in its simplest form of driving a ball across a given limit with a stick or club has been played for centuries in northern Europe, attaining its greatest popularity in the Low Countries, and there are many 16th- and 17th-century paintings extant which represent games of Bandy, the players using an implement formed much like a golf club.
In England Bandy is controlled by the “National Bandy Association.” A team consists of eleven players, wearing skates, and the proper space for play is 200 yds. by 100 yds. in extent. The ball is of solid india-rubber, between 2¼ and 2¾ in. in diameter. The bandies are 2 in. in diameter and about 4 ft. long. The goals, placed in the centre of each goal-line, consist of two upright posts 7 ft. high and 12 ft. apart, connected by a lath. A match is begun by the referee throwing up the ball in the centre of the field, after which it must not be touched other than with the bandy until a goal is scored or the ball passes the boundaries of the course, in which case it is hit into the field in any direction excepting forward from the point where it went out by the player who touched it last. If the ball is hit across the goal-line but not into a goal, it is hit out by one of the defenders from the point where it went over, the opponents not being allowed to approach nearer than 25 yds. from the goal-line while the hit is made.
Hockey Stick. |
In America the development of the modern game is due to the Victoria Hockey Club and McGill University (Montreal). About 1881 the secretary of the former club made the first efforts towards drawing up a recognized code of laws, and for some time afterwards playing rules were agreed upon from time to time whenever an important match was played, the chief teams being, besides those already mentioned, the Ottawa, Quebec, Crystal and Montreal Hockey Clubs, the first general tournament taking place in 1884. Three years later the “Amateur Hockey Association of Canada” was formed, and a definite code of rules drawn up. Soon afterwards, in consequence of exhibitions given by the best Canadian teams in some of the larger cities of the United States, the new game was taken up by American schools, colleges and athletic clubs, and became nearly as popular in the northern states as in the Dominion. The rules differ widely from those of English Bandy. The rink must be at least 112 ft. long by 58 ft. wide, and seven players form a side. The goals are 6 ft. wide and 4 ft. high and are provided with goal-nets. Instead of the English painted cricket-ball a puck is used, made of vulcanized rubber in the form of a draught-stone, 1 in. thick, and 3 in. in diameter. The sticks are made of one piece of hard wood, and may not be more than 3 in. wide at any part. The game is played for two half-hour or twenty-minute periods with an intermission of ten minutes. At the beginning of a match, and also when a goal has been made, the puck is faced, i.e. it is placed in the middle of the rink between the sticks of the two left-centres, and the referee calls “play.” Whichever side then secures the ball endeavours by means of passing and dribbling to get the puck into a position from which a goal may be shot. The puck may be stopped by any part of the person but not carried or knocked except with the stick. No stick may be raised above the shoulder except when actually striking the puck. When the puck is driven off the rink or behind the goal, or a foul has been made behind the goal, it is faced 5 yds. inside the rink. The goal-keeper must maintain a standing position.
There are a number of Hockey organizations in America, all under the jurisdiction of the “American Amateur Hockey League” in the United States and the “Canadian Amateur Athletic League” in Canada.
Ice Polo, a winter sport similar to Ice Hockey, is almost exclusively played in the New England states. A rubber-covered ball is used and the stick is heavier than that used in Ice Hockey. The radical difference between the two games is that, in Ice Polo, there is no strict off-side rule, so that passes and shots at goal may come from any and often the most unexpected direction. Five men constitute a team: a goal-tend, a half-back, a centre and two rushers. The rushers must be rapid skaters, adepts in dribbling and passing and good goal shots. The centre supports the rushers, passing the ball to them or trying for goal himself. The half-back is the first defence and the goal-tend the last. The rink is 150 ft. long.
Ring Hockey may be played on the floor of any gymnasium or large room by teams of six, comprising a goal-keeper, a quarter, three 556 forwards and a centre. The goals consist of two uprights 3 ft. high and 4 ft. apart. The ring, which takes the place of the ball or puck, is made of flexible rubber, and is 5 in. in diameter with a 3-in. opening through the centre. It weighs between 12 and 16 oz. The stick is a wand of light but tough wood, between 36 and 40 in. long, about ¾ in. in diameter, provided with a 5-in. guard 20 in. from the lower end. The method of shooting is to insert the end of the stick in the hole of the ring and drive it towards the goal. A goal shot from the field counts one point, a goal from a foul ½ point. When a foul is called by the referee a player of the opposing side is allowed a free shot for goal from any point on the quarter line.
Roller Polo, played extensively during the winter months in the United States, is practically Ice Polo adapted to the floors of gymnasiums and halls, the players, five on a side, wearing roller-skates. The first professional league was organized in 1883.
HOCK-TIDE, an ancient general holiday in England, celebrated on the second Monday and Tuesday after Easter Sunday. Hock-Tuesday was an important term day, rents being then payable, for with Michaelmas it divided the rural year into its winter and summer halves. The derivation of the word is disputed: any analogy with Ger. hoch, “high,” being generally denied. No trace of the word is found in Old English, and “hock-day,” its earliest use in composition, appears first in the 12th century. The characteristic pastime of hock-tide was called binding. On Monday the women, on Tuesday the men, stopped all passers of the opposite sex and bound them with ropes till they bought their release with a small payment, or a rope was stretched across the highroads, and the passers were obliged to pay toll. The money thus collected seems to have gone towards parish expenses. Many entries are found in parish registers under “Hocktyde money.” The hock-tide celebration became obsolete in the beginning of the 18th century. At Coventry there was a play called “The Old Coventry Play of Hock Tuesday.” This, suppressed at the Reformation owing to the incidental disorder, and revived as part of the festivities on Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Kenilworth in July 1575, depicted the struggle between Saxons and Danes, and has given colour to the suggestion that hock-tide was originally a commemoration of the massacre of the Danes on St Brice’s Day, the 13th of November A.D. 1002, or of the rejoicings at the death of Hardicanute on the 8th of June 1042 and the expulsion of the Danes. But the dates of these anniversaries do not bear this out.
HOCUS, a shortened form of “hocus pocus,” used in the 17th century in the sense of “to play a trick on any one,” to “hoax,” which is generally taken to be a derivative. “Hocus pocus” appears to have been a mock Latin expression first used as the name of a juggler or conjurer. Thus in Ady’s Candle in the Dark (1655), quoted in the New English Dictionary, “I will speak of one man ... that went about in King James his time ... who called himself, The Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly without discovery.” Tillotson’s guess (Sermons, xxvi.) that the phrase was a corruption of hoc est corpus and alluded to the words of the Eucharist, “in ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation,” has frequently been accepted as a serious derivation, but has no foundation. A connexion with a supposed demon of Scandinavian mythology, called “Ochus Bochus,” is equally unwarranted. “Hocus” is used as a verb, meaning to drug, stupefy with opium, &c., for a criminal purpose. This use dates from the beginning of the 19th century.
HODDEN (a word of unknown origin), a coarse kind of cloth made of undyed wool, formerly much worn by the peasantry of Scotland. It was usually made on small hand-looms by the peasants themselves. Grey hodden was made by mixing black and white fleeces together in the proportion of one to twelve when weaving.
HODDESDON, an urban district in the Hertford parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, near the river Lea, 17 m. N. from London by the Great Eastern railway (Broxbourne and Hoddesdon station on the Cambridge line). Pop. (1901), 4711. This is the northernmost of a series of populous townships extending from the suburbs of London along the Lea valley as far as its junction with the Stort, which is close to Hoddesdon. They are in the main residential. Hoddesdon was a famous coaching station on the Old North Road; and the Bull posting-house is mentioned in Matthew Prior’s “Down Hall.” The Lea has been a favourite resort of anglers (mainly for coarse fish in this part) from the time of Izaak Walton, in whose book Hoddesdon is specifically named. The church of St Augustine, Broxbourne, is a fine example of Perpendicular work, and contains interesting monuments, including an altar tomb with enamelled brasses of 1473. Hoddesdon probably covers the site of a Romano-British village.
HODEDA (Hodeida, Hadeda), a town in Arabia situated on the Red Sea coast 14° 48′ N. and 42° 57′ E. It lies on a beach of muddy sand exposed to the southerly and westerly winds. Steamers anchor more than a mile from shore, and merchandize has to be transhipped by means of sambuks or native boats. But Hodeda has become the chief centre of the maritime trade of Turkish Yemen, and has superseded Mokha as the great port of export of South Arabian coffee. The town is composed of stone-built houses of several storeys, and is surrounded, except on the sea face, by a fortified enceinte. The population is estimated at 33,000, and contains, besides the Arab inhabitants and the Turkish officials and garrison, a considerable foreign element, Greeks, Indians and African traders from the opposite coast. There are consulates of Great Britain, United States, France, Germany, Italy and Greece. The steam tonnage entering and clearing the port in 1904 amounted to 78,700 tons, the highest hitherto recorded. Regular services are maintained with Aden, and with Suez, Massowa and the other Red Sea ports. Large dhows bring dates from the Persian Gulf, and occasional steamers from Bombay call on their way to Jidda with cargoes of grain. The imports for 1904 amounted in value to £467,000, the chief items being piece goods, food grains and sugar; the exports amounted to £451,000, including coffee valued at £229,000.
HODENING, an ancient Christmas custom still surviving in Wales, Kent, Lancashire and elsewhere. A horse’s skull or a wooden imitation on a pole is carried round by a party of youths, one of whom conceals himself under a white cloth to simulate the horse’s body, holding a lighted candle in the skull. They make a house-to-house visitation, begging gratuities. The “Penitential” of Archbishop Theodore (d. 690) speaks of “any who, on the kalands of January, clothe themselves with the skins of cattle and carry heads of animals.” This, coupled with the fact that among the primitive Scandinavians the horse was often the sacrifice made at the winter solstice to Odin for success in battle, has been thought to justify the theory that hodening is a corruption of Odining.
HODGE, CHARLES (1797-1878), American theologian, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of December 1797. He graduated at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) in 1815, and in 1819 at the Princeton Theological seminary, where he became an instructor in 1820, and the first professor of Oriental and Biblical literature in 1822. Meanwhile, in 1821, he had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister. From 1826 to 1828 he studied under de Sacy in Paris, under Gesenius and Tholuck in Halle, and under Hengstenberg, Neander and Humboldt in Berlin. In 1840 he was transferred to the chair of exegetical and didactic theology, to which subjects that of polemic theology was added in 1854, and this office he held until his death. In 1825 he established the quarterly Biblical Repertory, the title of which was changed to Biblical Repertory and Theological Review in 1830 and to Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review in 1837. With it, in 1840, was merged the Literary and Theological Review of New York, and in 1872 the American Presbyterian Review of New York, the title becoming Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review in 1872 and Princeton Review in 1877. He secured for it the position of theological organ of the Old School division of the Presbyterian church, and continued its principal editor and contributor until 1868, when the Rev. Lyman H. Atwater became his colleague. His more important essays were republished under the titles Essays and Reviews 557 (1857), Princeton Theological Essays, and Discussions in Church Polity (1878). He was moderator of the General Assembly (O.S.) in 1846, a member of the committee to revise the Book of Discipline of the Presbyterian church in 1858, and president of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in 1868-1870. The 24th of April 1872, the fiftieth anniversary of his election to his professorship, was observed in Princeton as his jubilee by between 400 and 500 representatives of his 2700 pupils, and $50,000 was raised for the endowment of his chair. He died at Princeton on the 19th of June 1878. Hodge was one of the greatest of American theologians.
Besides his articles in the Princeton Review, he published a Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1835, abridged 1836, rewritten and enlarged 1864, new ed. 1886), Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (2 vols., 1839-1840); The Way of Life (1841); Commentaries on Ephesians (1856); 1 Corinthians (1857); 2 Corinthians (1859); Systematic Theology (3 vols., 2200 pp., 1871-1873), probably the best of all modern expositions of Calvinistic dogmatic; and What is Darwinism? (1874), in which he opposed “Atheistic Evolutionism.” After his death a volume of Conference Papers (1879) was published. His life, by his son, was published in 1880.
His son, Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823-1886), also famous as a Presbyterian theologian, was born at Princeton on the 18th of July 1823. He graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1841, and at the Princeton Theological seminary in 1846, and was ordained in 1847. From 1847 to 1850 he was a missionary at Allahabad, India, and was then pastor of churches successively at Lower West Nottingham, Maryland (1851-1855); at Fredericksburg, Virginia (1855-1861), and at Wilkes-Barré, Pennsylvania (1861-1864). From 1864 to 1877 he was professor of didactic and polemical theology in the Allegheny Theological seminary at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, where he was also from 1866 to 1877 pastor of the North Church (Presbyterian). In 1878 he succeeded his father as professor of didactic theology at the Princeton seminary. He died on the 11th of November 1886. Besides writing the biography of his father, he was the author of Outlines of Theology (1860, new ed. 1875; enlarged, 1879); The Atonement (1867); Exposition of the Confession of Faith (1869); and Popular Lectures on Theological Themes (1887).
See C. A. Salmond’s Charles and A. A. Hodge (New York, 1888).
HODGKIN, THOMAS (1831- ), British historian, son of John Hodgkin (1800-1875), barrister, was born in London on the 29th of July 1831. Having been educated as a member of the Society of Friends and taken the degree of B.A. at London University, he became a partner in the banking house of Hodgkin, Barnett & Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne, a firm afterwards amalgamated with Lloyds’ Bank. While continuing in business as a banker, Hodgkin devoted a good deal of time to historical study, and soon became a leading authority on the history of the early middle ages, his books being indispensable to all students of this period. His chief works are, Italy and her Invaders (8 vols., Oxford, 1880-1899); The Dynasty of Theodosius (Oxford, 1889); Theodoric the Goth (London, 1891); and an introduction to the Letters of Cassiodorus (London, 1886). He also wrote a Life of Charles the Great (London, 1897); Life of George Fox (Boston, 1896); and the opening volume of Longman’s Political History of England (London, 1906).
HODGKINSON, EATON (1789-1861), English engineer, the son of a farmer, was born at Anderton near Northwich, Cheshire, on the 26th of February 1789. After attending school at Northwich, he began to help his widowed mother on the farm, but to escape from that uncongenial occupation he persuaded her in 1811 to remove to Manchester and start a pawnbroking business. There he made the acquaintance of John Dalton, and began those inquiries into the strength of materials which formed the work of his life. He was associated with Sir William Fairbairn in an important series of experiments on cast iron, and his help was sought by Robert Stephenson in regard to the forms and dimensions of the tubes for the Britannia bridge. A paper which he communicated to the Royal Society on “Experimental Researches on the Strength of Pillars of Cast Iron and other Materials,” in 1840 gained him a Royal medal in 1841, and he was also elected a fellow. In 1847 he was appointed professor of the mechanical principles of engineering in University College, London, and at the same time he was employed as a member of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the application of iron to railway structures. In 1848 he was chosen president of the Manchester Philosophical Society, of which he had been a member since 1826, and to which, both previously and subsequently, he contributed many of the more important results of his discoveries. For several years he took an active part in the discussions of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which he was elected an honorary member in 1851. He died at Eaglesfield House, near Manchester, on the 18th of June 1861.
HODGSON, BRIAN HOUGHTON (1800-1894), English administrator, ethnologist and naturalist, was born at Lower Beech, Prestbury, Cheshire, on the 1st of February 1800. His father, Brian Hodgson, came of a family of country gentlemen, and his mother was a daughter of William Houghton of Manchester. In 1816 he obtained an East Indian writership. After passing through the usual course at Haileybury, he went out to India in 1818, and after a brief service at Kumaon as assistant-commissioner was in 1820 appointed assistant to the Resident at Katmandu, the capital of Nepal. In 1823 he obtained an under-secretaryship in the foreign department at Calcutta, but his health failed, and in 1824 he returned to Nepal, to which the whole of his life, whether in or out of India, may be said to have been thenceforth given. He devoted himself particularly to the collection of Sanskrit MSS. relating to Buddhism, and hardly less so to the natural history and antiquities of the country, and by 1839 had contributed eighty-nine papers to the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His investigations of the ethnology of the aboriginal tribes were especially important. In 1833 he became Resident in Nepal, and passed many stormy years in conflict with the cruel and faithless court to which he was accredited. He succeeded, nevertheless, in concluding a satisfactory treaty in 1839; but in 1842 his policy, which involved an imperious attitude towards the native government, was upset by the interference of Lord Ellenborough, but just arrived in India and not unnaturally anxious to avoid trouble in Nepal during the conflict in Afghanistan. Hodgson took upon himself to disobey his instructions, a breach of discipline justified to his own mind by his superior knowledge of the situation, but which the governor-general could hardly be expected to overlook. He was, nevertheless, continued in office for a time, but was recalled in 1843, and resigned the service. In 1845 he returned to India and settled at Darjeeling, where he devoted himself entirely to his favourite pursuits, becoming the greatest authority on the Buddhist religion and on the flora of the Himalayas. It was he who early suggested the recruiting of Gurkhas for the Indian army, and who influenced Sir Jung Bahadur to lend his assistance to the British during the mutiny in 1857. In 1858 he returned to England, and lived successively in Cheshire and Gloucestershire, occupied with his studies to the last. He died at his seat at Alderley Grange in the Cotswold Hills on the 23rd of May 1894. No man has done so much to throw light on Buddhism as it exists in Nepal, and his collections of Sanskrit manuscripts, presented to the East India Office, and of natural history, presented to the British Museum, are unique as gatherings from a single country. He wrote altogether 184 philological and ethnological and 127 scientific papers, as well as some valuable pamphlets on native education, in which he took great interest. His principal work, Illustrations of the Literature and Religion of Buddhists (1841), was republished with the most important of his other writings in 1872-1880.
His life was written by Sir W. W. Hunter in 1896.
HÓDMEZÖ-VÁSÁRHELY, a town of Hungary, in the county of Csongrád, 135 m. S.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 60,824 of which about two-thirds are Protestants. The town, situated on Lake Hód, not far from the right bank of the Tisza, has a modern aspect. The soil of the surrounding country, of which 383 sq. m. belong to the municipality, is exceedingly fertile, the chief products being wheat, mangcorn, barley, oats, millet, maize and various descriptions of fruit, especially melons. Extensive vineyards, yielding large quantities of both white and red grapes, skirt the town, and the horned cattle and horses of Hódmezö-Vásárhely have a good reputation; sheep and pigs are also extensively reared. The commune is protected from inundations of the Tisza by an enormous dike, but the town, nevertheless, sometimes suffers considerable damage during the spring floods.
HODOGRAPH (Gr. ὁδός, a way, and γράφειν, to write), a curve of which the radius vector is proportional to the velocity of a moving particle. It appears to have been used by James Bradley, but for its practical development we are mainly indebted to Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who published an account of it in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 1846. If a point be in motion in any orbit and with any velocity, and if, at each instant, a line be drawn from a fixed point parallel and equal to the velocity of the moving point at that instant, the extremities of these lines will lie on a curve called the hodograph. Let PP1P2 be the path of the moving point, and let OT, OT1, OT2, be drawn from the fixed point O parallel and equal to the velocities at P, P1, P2 respectively, then the locus of T is the hodograph of the orbits described by P (see figure). From this definition we have the following important fundamental property which belongs to all hodographs, viz. that at any point the tangent to the hodograph is parallel to the direction, and the velocity in the hodograph equal to the magnitude of the resultant acceleration at the corresponding point of the orbit. This will be evident if we consider that, since radii vectores of the hodograph represent velocities in the orbit, the elementary arc between two consecutive radii vectores of the hodograph represents the velocity which must be compounded with the velocity of the moving point at the beginning of any short interval of time to get the velocity at the end of that interval, that is to say, represents the change of velocity for that interval. Hence the elementary arc divided by the element of time is the rate of change of velocity of the moving-point, or in other words, the velocity in the hodograph is the acceleration in the orbit.
Analytically thus (Thomson and Tait, Nat. Phil.):—Let x, y, z be the coordinates of P in the orbit, ξ, η, ζ those of the corresponding point T in the hodograph, then
ξ = | dx | , η = | dy | , ζ = | dz | ; |
dt | dt | dt |
therefore
dξ | = | dη | = | dζ |
d²x/dt² | d²y/dt² | d²z/dt² |
Also, if s be the arc of the hodograph,
ds | = v = √ [( | dξ | ) | ² | + ( | dη | ) | ² | + ( | dζ | ) | ² | ] |
dt | dt | dt | dt |
= √ [( | d²x | ) | ² | + ( | d²y | ) | ² | + ( | d²z | ) | ² | ] |
dt² | dt² | dt² |
Equation (1) shows that the tangent to the hodograph is parallel to the line of resultant acceleration, and (2) that the velocity in the hodograph is equal to the acceleration.
Every orbit must clearly have a hodograph, and, conversely, every hodograph a corresponding orbit; and, theoretically speaking, it is possible to deduce the one from the other, having given the other circumstances of the motion.
For applications of the hodograph to the solution of kinematical problems see Mechanics.
HODSON, WILLIAM STEPHEN RAIKES (1821-1858), known as “Hodson of Hodson’s Horse,” British leader of light cavalry during the Indian Mutiny, third son of the Rev. George Hodson, afterwards archdeacon of Stafford and canon of Lichfield, was born on the 19th of March 1821 at Maisemore Court, near Gloucester. He was educated at Rugby and Cambridge, and accepted a cadetship in the Indian army at the advanced age for those days of twenty-three. Joining the 2nd Bengal Grenadiers he went through the first Sikh War, and was present at the battles of Moodkee, Ferozeshah and Sobraon. In one of his letters home at this period he calls the campaign a “tissue of mismanagement, blunders, errors, ignorance and arrogance”, and outspoken criticism such as this brought him many bitter enemies throughout his career, who made the most of undeniable faults of character. In 1847, through the influence of Sir Henry Lawrence, he was appointed adjutant of the corps of Guides, and in 1852 was promoted to the command of the Guides with the civil charge of Yusafzai. But his brusque and haughty demeanour to his equals made him many enemies. In 1855 two separate charges were brought against him. The first was that he had arbitrarily imprisoned a Pathan chief named Khadar Khan, on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Colonel Mackeson. The man was acquitted, and Lord Dalhousie removed Hodson from his civil functions and remanded him to his regiment on account of his lack of judgment. The second charge was more serious, amounting to an accusation of malversation in the funds of his regiment. He was tried by a court of inquiry, who found that his conduct to natives had been “unjustifiable and oppressive,” that he had used abusive language to his native officers and personal violence to his men, and that his system of accounts was “calculated to screen peculation and fraud.” Subsequently another inquiry was carried out by Major Reynell Taylor, which dealt simply with Hodson’s accounts and found them to be “an honest and correct record ... irregularly kept.” At this time the Guides were split up into numerous detachments, and there was a system of advances which made the accounts very complicated. The verdicts of the two inquiries may be set against each other, and this particular charge declared “not proven.” It is possible that Hodson was careless and extravagant in money matters rather than actually dishonest; but there were several similar charges against him. During a tour through Kashmir with Sir Henry Lawrence he kept the purse and Sir Henry could never obtain an account from him; subsequently Sir George Lawrence accused him of embezzling the funds of the Lawrence Asylum at Kasauli; while Sir Neville Chamberlain in a published letter says of the third brother, Lord Lawrence, “I am bound to say that Lord Lawrence had no opinion of Hodson’s integrity in money matters. He has often discussed Hodson’s character in talking to me, and it was to him a regret that a man possessing so many fine gifts should have been wanting in a moral quality which made him untrustworthy.” Finally, on one occasion Hodson spent £500 of the pay due to Lieutenant Godby, and under threat of exposure was obliged to borrow the money from a native banker through one of his officers named Bisharat Ali.
It was just at the time when Hodson’s career seemed ruined that the Indian Mutiny broke out, and he obtained the opportunity of rehabilitating himself. At the very outset of the campaign he made his name by riding with despatches from General Anson at Karnal to Meerut and back again, a distance of 152 m. in all, in seventy-two hours, through a country swarming with the rebel cavalry. This feat so pleased the commander-in-chief that he empowered him to raise a regiment of 2000 irregular horse, which became known to fame as Hodson’s Horse, and placed him at the head of the Intelligence Department. In his double rôle of cavalry leader and intelligence officer, Hodson played a large part in the reduction of Delhi and consequently in saving India for the British empire. He was the finest swordsman in the army, and possessed that daring recklessness which is the most useful quality of leadership against Asiatics. In explanation of the fact that he never received the Victoria Cross it was said of him that it was because he earned it every day of his life. But he also had the defects of his qualities, and could display on occasion a certain cruelty and callousness of disposition. Reference has already been made to Bisharat Ali, who had lent Hodson money. During the siege of Delhi another native, said to be an enemy of Bisharat Ali’s, informed Hodson that he had turned rebel 559 and had just reached Khurkhouda, a village near Delhi. Hodson thereupon took out a body of his sowars, attacked the village, and shot Bisharat Ali and several of his relatives. General Crawford Chamberlain states that this was Hodson’s way of wiping out the debt. Again, after the fall of Delhi, Hodson obtained from General Wilson permission to ride out with fifty horsemen to Humayun’s tomb, 6 m. out of Delhi, and bring in Bahadur Shah, the last of the Moguls. This he did with safety in the face of a large and threatening crowd, and thus dealt the mutineers a heavy blow. On the following day with 100 horsemen he went out to the same tomb and obtained the unconditional surrender of the three princes, who had been left behind on the previous occasion. A crowd of 6000 persons gathered, and Hodson with marvellous coolness ordered them to disarm, which they proceeded to do. He sent the princes on with an escort of ten men, while with the remaining ninety he collected the arms of the crowd. On galloping after the princes he found the crowd once more pressing on the escort and threatening an attack; and fearing that he would be unable to bring his prisoners into Delhi he shot them with his own hand. This is the most bitterly criticized action in his career, but no one but the man on the spot can judge how it is necessary to handle a crowd; and in addition one of the princes, Abu Bukt, heir-apparent to the throne, had made himself notorious for cutting off the arms and legs of English children and pouring the blood into their mothers’ mouths. Considering the circumstances of the moment, Hodson’s act at the worst was one of irregular justice. A more unpleasant side to the question is that he gave the king a safe conduct, which was afterwards seen by Sir Donald Stewart, before he left the palace, and presumably for a bribe; and he took an armlet and rings from the bodies of the princes. He was freely accused of looting at the time, and though this charge, like that of peculation, is matter for controversy, it is very strongly supported. General Pelham Burn said that he saw loot in Hodson’s boxes when he accompanied him from Fatehgarh to take part in the siege of Lucknow, and Sir Henry Daly said that he found “loads of loot” in Hodson’s boxes after his death, and also a file of documents relating to the Guides case, which had been stolen from him and of which Hodson denied all knowledge. On the other hand the Rev. G. Hodson states in his book that he obtained the inventory of his brother’s possessions made by the Committee of Adjustment and it contained no articles of loot, and Sir Charles Gough, president of the committee, confirmed this evidence. This statement is totally incompatible with Sir Henry Daly’s and is only one of many contradictions in the case. Sir Henry Norman stated that to his personal knowledge Hodson remitted several thousand pounds to Calcutta which could only have been obtained by looting. On the other hand, again, Hodson died a poor man, his effects were sold for £170, his widow was dependent on charity for her passage home, was given apartments by the queen at Hampton Court, and left only £400 at her death.
Hodson was killed on the 11th of March 1858 in the attack on the Begum Kotee at Lucknow. He had just arrived on the spot and met a man going to fetch powder to blow in a door; instead Hodson, with his usual recklessness, rushed into the doorway and was shot. On the whole, it can hardly be doubted that he was somewhat unscrupulous in his private character, but he was a splendid soldier, and rendered inestimable services to the empire.
The controversy relating to Hodson’s moral character is very complicated and unpleasant. Upon Hodson’s side see Rev. G. Hodson, Hodson of Hodson’s Horse (1883), and L. J. Trotter, A Leader of Light Horse (1901); against him, R. Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, appendix to the 6th edition of 1885; T. R. E. Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny, appendix N to the 5th edition of 1898, and Four Famous Soldiers by the same author, 1889; and General Sir Crawford Chamberlain, Remarks on Captain Trotter’s Biography of Major W. S. R. Hodson (1901).
HODY, HUMPHREY (1659-1707), English divine, was born at Odcombe in Somersetshire in 1659. In 1676 he entered Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became fellow in 1685. In 1684 he published Contra historiam Aristeae de LXX. interpretibus dissertatio, in which he showed that the so-called letter of Aristeas, containing an account of the production of the Septuagint, was the late forgery of a Hellenist Jew originally circulated to lend authority to that version. The dissertation was generally regarded as conclusive, although Isaac Vossius published an angry and scurrilous reply to it in the appendix to his edition of Pomponius Mela. In 1689 Hody wrote the Prolegomena to the Greek chronicle of John Malalas, published at Oxford in 1691. The following year he became chaplain to Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, and for his support of the ruling party in a controversy with Henry Dodwell regarding the non-juring bishops he was appointed chaplain to Archbishop Tillotson, an office which he continued to hold under Tenison. In 1698 he was appointed regius professor of Greek at Oxford, and in 1704 was made archdeacon of Oxford. In 1701 he published A History of English Councils and Convocations, and in 1703 in four volumes De Bibliorum textis originalibus, in which he included a revision of his work on the Septuagint, and published a reply to Vossius. He died on the 20th of January 1707.
A work, De Graecis Illustribus, which he left in manuscript, was published in 1742 by Samuel Jebb, who prefixed to it a Latin life of the author.
HOE, RICHARD MARCH (1812-1886), American inventor, was born in New York City on the 12th of September 1812. He was the son of Robert Hoe (1784-1833), an English-born American mechanic, who with his brothers-in-law, Peter and Matthew Smith, established in New York City a manufactory of printing presses, and used steam to run his machinery. Richard entered his father’s manufactory at the age of fifteen and became head of the firm (Robert Hoe & Company) on his father’s death. He had considerable inventive genius and set himself to secure greater speed for printing presses. He discarded the old flat-bed model and placed the type on a revolving cylinder, a model later developed into the well-known Hoe rotary or “lightning” press, patented in 1846, and further improved under the name of the Hoe web perfecting press (see Printing). He died in Florence, Italy, on the 7th of June 1886.
See A Short History of the Printing Press (New York, 1902) by his nephew Robert Hoe (1839-1909), who was responsible for further improvements in printing, and was an indefatigable worker in support of the New York Metropolitan Museum.
HOE (through Fr. houe from O.H.G. houwâ, mod. Ger. Haue; the root is seen in “hew,” to cut, cleave; the word must be distinguished from “hoe,” promontory, tongue of land, seen in place names, e.g. Morthoe, Luton Hoo, the Hoe at Plymouth, &c.; this is the same as Northern English “heugh” and is connected with “hang”), an agricultural and gardening implement used for extirpating weeds, for stirring the surface-soil in order to break the capillary channels and so prevent the evaporation of moisture, for singling out turnips and other root-crops and similar purposes. Among common forms of hoe are the ordinary garden-hoe (numbered 1 in fig. 1), which consists of a flat blade set transversely in a long wooden handle; the Dutch or thrust-hoe (2), which has the blade set into the handle after the fashion of a spade; and the swan-neck hoe (3), the best manual hoe for agricultural purposes, which has a long curved neck to attach the blade to the handle; the soil falls back over this, blocking is thus avoided and a longer stroke obtained. Several types of horse-drawn hoe capable of working one or more rows at a time are used among root and grain crops. The illustrations show two forms of the implement, the blades of which differ in shape from those of the garden-hoe. Fig. 2 is in ordinary use for hoeing between two lines of beans or turnips or other “roots.” Fig. 3 560 is adapted for the narrow rows of grain crops and is also convertible into a root-hoe. In the lever-hoe, which is largely used in grain crops, the blades may be raised and lowered by means of a lever. The horse-drawn hoe is steered by means of handles in the rear, but its successful working depends on accurate drilling of the seed, because unless the rows are parallel the roots of the plants are liable to be cut and the foliage injured. Thus Jethro Tull (17th century), with whose name the beginning of the practice of horse-hoeing is principally connected, used the drill which he invented as an essential adjunct in the so-called “Horse-hoeing Husbandry” (see Agriculture).
Fig. 1.—Three Forms of Manual Hoe. |
Fig. 2.—Martin’s One-Row Horse Hoe. |
Fig. 3.—Martin’s General Purpose Steerage Horse Hoe. |
HOEFNAGEL, JORIS (1545-1601), Dutch painter and engraver, the son of a diamond merchant, was born at Antwerp. He travelled abroad, making drawings from archaeological subjects, and was a pupil of Jan Bol at Mechlin. He was afterwards patronized by the elector of Bavaria at Munich, where he stayed eight years, and by the Emperor Rudolph at Prague. He died at Vienna in 1601. He is famous for his miniature work, especially on a missal in the imperial library at Vienna; he painted animals and plants to illustrate works on natural history; and his engravings (especially for Braun’s Civitates orbis terrarum, 1572, and Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1570) give him an interesting place among early topographical draughtsmen.
HOF, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian province of Upper Franconia, beautifully situated on the Saale, on the north-eastern spurs of the Fichtelgebirge, 103 m. S.W. of Leipzig on the main line of railway to Regensburg and Munich. Pop. (1885) 22,257; (1905) 36,348. It has one Roman Catholic and three Protestant churches (among the latter that of St Michael, which was restored in 1884), a town hall of 1563, a gymnasium with an extensive library, a commercial school and a hospital founded in 1262. It is the seat of various flourishing industries, notably woollen, cotton and jute spinning, jute weaving, and the manufacture of cotton and half-woollen fabrics. It has also dye-works, flour-mills, saw-mills, breweries, iron-works, and manufactures of machinery, iron and tin wares, chemicals and sugar. In the neighbourhood there are large marble quarries and extensive iron mines. Hof, originally called Regnitzhof, was built about 1080. It was held for some time by the dukes of Meran, and was sold in 1373 to the burgraves of Nuremberg. The cloth manufacture introduced into it in the 15th century, and the manufacture of veils begun in the 16th century, greatly promoted its prosperity, but it suffered severely in the Albertine and Hussite wars as well as in the Thirty Years’ War. In 1792 it came into the possession of Prussia; in 1806 it fell to France; and in 1810 it was incorporated with Bavaria. In 1823 the greater part of the town was destroyed by fire.
See Ernst, Geschichte und Beschreibung des Bezirks und der Stadt Hof (1866); Tillmann, Die Stadt Hof und ihre Umgebung (Hof, 1899), and C. Meyer, Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Hof (1894-1896).
HOFER, ANDREAS (1767-1810), Tirolese patriot, was born on the 22nd of November 1767 at St Leonhard, in the Passeier valley. There his father kept an inn known as “am Sand,” which Hofer inherited, and on that account he was popularly known as the “Sandwirth.” In addition to this he carried on a trade in wine and horses with the north of Italy, acquiring a high reputation for intelligence and honesty. In the wars against the French from 1796 to 1805 he took part, first as a sharp-shooter and afterwards as a captain of militia. By the treaty of Pressburg (1805) Tirol was transferred from Austria to Bavaria, and Hofer, who was almost fanatically devoted to the Austrian house, became conspicuous as a leader of the agitation against Bavarian rule. In 1808 he formed one of a deputation who went to Vienna, at the invitation of the archduke John, to concert a rising; and when in April 1809 the Tirolese rose in arms, Hofer was chosen commander of the contingent from his native valley, and inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the Bavarians at Sterzing (April 11). This victory, which resulted in the temporary reoccupation of Innsbruck by the Austrians, made Hofer the most conspicuous of the insurgent leaders. The rapid advance of Napoleon, indeed, and the defeat of the main Austrian army under the archduke Charles, once more exposed Tirol to the French and Bavarians, who reoccupied Innsbruck. The withdrawal of the bulk of the troops, however, gave the Tirolese their chance again; after two battles fought on the Iselberg (May 25 and 29) the Bavarians were again forced to evacuate the country, and Hofer entered Innsbruck in triumph. An autograph letter of the emperor Francis (May 29) assured him that no peace would be concluded by which Tirol would again be separated from the Austrian monarchy, and Hofer, believing his work accomplished, returned to his home. Then came the news of the armistice of Znaim (July 12), by which Tirol and Vorarlberg were surrendered by Austria unconditionally and given up to the vengeance of the French. The country was now again invaded by 40,000 French and Bavarian troops, and Innsbruck fell; but the Tirolese once more organized resistance to the French “atheists and freemasons,” and, after a temporary hesitation, Hofer—on whose head a price had been placed—threw himself into the movement. On the 13th of August, in another battle on the Iselberg, the French under Marshal Lefebvre were routed by the Tirolese peasants, and Hofer once more entered Innsbruck, which he had some difficulty in saving from sack. Hofer was now elected Oberkommandant of Tirol, took up his quarters in the Hofburg at Innsbruck, and for two months ruled the country in the emperor’s name. He preserved the habits of a simple peasant, and his administration was characterized in part by the peasant’s shrewd common sense, but yet more by a pious solicitude for the minutest details of faith and morals. On the 29th of September Hofer received from the emperor a chain and medal of honour, which encouraged him in the belief that Austria did not intend again to desert him; the news of the conclusion of the treaty of Schönbrunn (October 14), by which Tirol was again ceded to Bavaria, came upon him as an overwhelming surprise. The French in overpowering force at once pushed into the country, and, an amnesty having been stipulated in the treaty, Hofer and his companions, after some hesitation, gave in their submission. On the 12th of November, however, 561 urged on by the hotter heads among the peasant leaders and deceived by false reports of Austrian victories, Hofer again issued a proclamation calling the mountaineers to arms. The summons met with little response; the enemy advanced in irresistible force, and Hofer, a price once more set on his head, had to take refuge in the mountains. His hiding-place was betrayed by one of his neighbours, named Josef Raffl, and on the 27th of January 1810 he was captured by Italian troops and sent in chains to Mantua. There he was tried by court-martial, and on the 20th of February was shot, twenty-four hours after his condemnation. This crime, which was believed to be due to Napoleon’s direct orders, caused an immense sensation throughout Germany and did much to inflame popular sentiment against the French. At the court of Austria, too, which was accused of having cynically sacrificed the hero, it produced a painful impression, and Metternich, when he visited Paris on the occasion of the marriage of the archduchess Marie Louise to Napoleon, was charged to remonstrate with the emperor. Napoleon expressed his regret, stating that the execution had been carried out against his wishes, having been hurried on by the zeal of his generals. In 1823 Hofer’s remains were removed from Mantua to Innsbruck, where they were interred in the Franciscan church, and in 1834 a marble statue was erected over his tomb. In 1893 a bronze statue of him was also set up on the Iselberg. At Meran his patriotic deeds of heroism are the subject of a festival play celebrated annually in the open air. In 1818 the patent of nobility bestowed upon him by the Austrian emperor in 1809 was conferred upon his family.
See Leben und Thaten des ehemaligen Tyroler Insurgenten-Chefs Andr. Hofer (Berlin, 1810); Andr. Hofer und die Tyroler Insurrection im Jahre 1809 (Munich, 1811); Hormayr, Geschichte Andr. Hofer’s Sandwirths auf Passeyr (Leipzig, 1845); B. Weber, Das Thal Passeyr und seine Bewohner mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Andreas Hofer und das Jahr 1809 (Innsbruck, 1851); Rapp, Tirol im Jahr 1809 (Innsbruck, 1852); Weidinger, Andreas Hofer und seine Kampfgenossen (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1861); Heigel, Andreas Hofer (Munich, 1874); Stampfer, Sandwirt Andreas Hofer (Freiburg, 1874); Schmölze, Andreas Hofer und seine Kampfgenossen (Innsbruck, 1900). His history has supplied the materials for tragedies to B. Auerbach and Immermann, and for numerous ballads, of which some remain very popular in Germany (see Franke, Andreas Hofer im Liede, Innsbruck, 1884).
HÖFFDING, HARALD (1843- ), Danish philosopher, was born and educated in Copenhagen. He became a schoolmaster, and ultimately in 1883 professor in the university of Copenhagen. He was much influenced by Sören Kierkegaard in the early development of his thought, but later became a positivist, retaining, however, and combining with it the spirit and method of practical psychology and the critical school. His best-known work is perhaps his Den nyere Filosofis Historie (1894), translated into English from the German edition (1895) by B. E. Meyer as History of Modern Philosophy (2 vols., 1900), a work intended by him to supplement and correct that of Hans Bröchner, to whom it is dedicated. His Psychology, the Problems of Philosophy (1905) and Philosophy of Religion (1906) also have appeared in English.
Among Höffding’s other writings, practically all of which have been translated into German, are: Den engelske Filosofi i vor Tid (1874); Etik (1876; ed. 1879); Psychologi i Omrids paa Grundlag of Erfaring (ed. 1892); Psykologiske Undersogelser (1889); Charles Darwin (1889); Kontinuiteten i Kants filosofiske Udviklingsgang (1893); Det psykologiske Grundlag for logiske Domme (1899); Rousseau und seine Philosophie (1901); Mindre Arbejder (1899).
HOFFMANN, AUGUST HEINRICH (1798-1874), known as Hoffmann von Fallersleben, German poet, philologist and historian of literature, was born at Fallersleben in the duchy of Lüneburg, Hanover, on the 2nd of April 1798, the son of the mayor of the town. He was educated at the classical schools of Helmstedt and Brunswick, and afterwards at the universities of Göttingen and Bonn. His original intention was to study theology, but he soon devoted himself entirely to literature. In 1823 he was appointed custodian of the university library at Breslau, a post which he held till 1838. He was also made extraordinary professor of the German language and literature at that university in 1830, and ordinary professor in 1835; but he was deprived of his chair in 1842 in consequence of his Unpolitische Lieder (1840-1841), which gave much offence to the authorities in Prussia. He then travelled in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and lived for two or three years in Mecklenburg, of which he became a naturalized citizen. After the revolution of 1848 he was enabled to return to Prussia, where he was restored to his rights, and received the Wartegeld—the salary attached to a promised office not yet vacant. He married in 1849, and during the next ten years lived first in Bingerbrück, afterwards in Neuwied, and then in Weimar, where together with Oskar Schade (1826-1906) he edited the Weimarische Jahrbuch (1854-1857). In 1860 he was appointed librarian to the Duke of Ratibor at the monasterial castle of Corvey near Höxter on the Weser, where he died on the 19th of January 1874. Fallersleben was one of the best popular poets of modern Germany. In politics he ardently sympathized with the progressive tendencies of his time, and he was among the earliest and most effective of the political poets who prepared the way for the outbreak of 1848. As a poet, however, he acquired distinction chiefly by the ease, simplicity and grace with which he gave expression to the passions and aspirations of daily life. Although he had not been scientifically trained in music, he composed melodies for many of his songs, and a considerable number of them are sung by all classes in every part of Germany. Among the best known is the patriotic Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, composed in 1841 on the island of Heligoland, where a monument was erected in 1891 to his memory (subsequently destroyed).
The best of his poetical writings is his Gedichte (1827; 9th ed., Berlin, 1887); but there is great merit also in his Alemannische Lieder (1826; 5th ed., 1843), Soldatenlieder (1851), Soldatenleben (1852), Rheinleben (1865), and in his Fünfzig Kinderlieder, Fünfzig neue Kinderlieder, and Alte und neue Kinderlieder. His Unpolitische Lieder, Deutsche Lieder aus der Schweiz and Streiflichter are not without poetical value, but they are mainly interesting in relation to the movements of the age in which they were written. As a student of ancient Teutonic literature Hoffmann von Fallersleben ranks among the most persevering and cultivated of German scholars, some of the chief results of his labours being embodied in his Horae Belgicae, Fundgruben für Geschichte deutscher Sprache und Literatur, Altdeutsche Blätter, Spenden zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte and Findlinge. Among his editions of particular works may be named Reineke Vos, Monumenta Elnonensia and Theophilus. Die deutsche Philologie im Grundriss (1836) was at the time of its publication a valuable contribution to philological research, and historians of German literature still attach importance to his Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes bis auf Luther (1832; 3rd ed., 1861), Unsere volkstümlichen Lieder (3rd ed., 1869) and Die deutschen Gesellschaftslieder des 16. und 17. Jahrh. (2nd ed., 1860). In 1868-1870 Hoffmann published in 6 vols. an autobiography, Mein Leben: Aufzeichnungen und Erinnerungen (an abbreviated ed. in 2 vols., 1894). His Gesammelte Werke were edited by H. Gerstenberg in 8 vols. (1891-1894); his Ausgewählte Werke by H. Benzmann (1905, 4 vols.). See also Briefe von Hoffmann von Fallersleben und Moritz Haupt an Ferdinand Wolf (1874); J. M. Wagner, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, 1818-1868 (1869-1870), and R. von Gottschall, Porträts und Studien (vol. v., 1876).
HOFFMANN, ERNST THEODOR WILHELM (1776-1822), German romance-writer, was born at Königsberg on the 24th of January 1776. For the name Wilhelm he himself substituted Amadeus in homage to Mozart. His parents lived unhappily together, and when the child was only three they separated. His bringing up was left to an uncle who had neither understanding nor sympathy for his dreamy and wayward temperament. Hoffmann showed more talent for music and drawing than for books. In 1792, when little over sixteen years old, he entered the university of Königsberg, with a view to preparing himself for a legal career. The chief features of interest in his student years were an intimate friendship for Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel (1775-1843), a nephew of the novelist Hippel, and an unhappy passion for a lady to whom he gave music lessons; the latter found its outlet, not merely in music, but also in two novels, neither of which he was able to have published. In the summer of 1795 he began his practical career as a jurist in Königsberg, but his mother’s death and the complications in which his love-affair threatened to involve him made him decide to leave his native town and continue his legal apprenticeship 562 in Glogau. In the autumn of 1798 he was transferred to Berlin, where the beginnings of the new Romantic movement were in the air. Music, however, had still the first place in his heart, and the Berlin opera house was the chief centre of his interests.
In 1800 further promotion brought him to Posen, where he gave himself up entirely to the pleasures of the hour. Unfortunately, however, his brilliant powers of caricature brought him into ill odour, and instead of receiving the hoped-for preferment in Posen itself, he found himself virtually banished to the little town of Plozk on the Vistula. Before leaving Posen he married, and his domestic happiness alleviated to some extent the monotony of the two years’ exile. His leisure was spent in literary studies and musical composition. In 1804 he was transferred to Warsaw, where, through J. E. Hitzig (1780-1849), he was introduced to Zacharias Werner, and began to take an interest in the later Romantic literature; now, for the first time, he discovered how writers like Novalis, Tieck, and especially Wackenroder, had spoken out of his own heart. But in spite of this literary stimulus, his leisure in Warsaw was mainly occupied by composition; he wrote music to Brentano’s Lustige Musikanten and Werner’s Kreuz an der Ostsee, and also an opera Liebe und Eifersucht, based on Calderón’s drama La Banda y la Flor.
The arrival of the French in Warsaw and the consequent political changes put an end to Hoffmann’s congenial life there, and a time of tribulation followed. A position which he obtained in 1808 as musical director of a new theatre in Bamberg availed him little, as within a very short time the theatre was bankrupt and Hoffmann again reduced to destitution. But these misfortunes induced him to turn to literature in order to eke out the miserable livelihood he earned by composing and giving music lessons. The editor of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung expressed his willingness to accept contributions from Hoffmann, and here appeared for the first time some of the musical sketches which ultimately passed over into the Phantasiestücke in Callots Manier. This work appeared in four volumes in 1814 and laid the foundation of his fame as a writer. Meanwhile, Hoffmann had again been for some time attached, in the capacity of musical director, to a theatrical company, whose headquarters were at Dresden. In 1814 he gladly embraced the opportunity that was offered him of resuming his legal profession in Berlin, and two years later he was appointed councillor of the Court of Appeal (Kammergericht). Hoffmann had the reputation of being an excellent jurist and a conscientious official; he had leisure for literary pursuits and was on the best of terms with the circle of Romantic poets and novelists who gathered round Fouqué, Chamisso and his old friend Hitzig. Unfortunately, however, the habits of intemperance which, in earlier years, had thrown a shadow over his life, grew upon him, and his health was speedily undermined by the nights he spent in the wine-house, in company unworthy of him. He was struck down by locomotor ataxy, and died on the 24th of July 1822.
The Phantasiestücke, which had been published with a commendatory preface by Jean Paul, were followed in 1816 by the gruesome novel—to some extent inspired by Lewis’s Monk—Die Elixiere des Teufels, and the even more gruesome and grotesque stories which make up the Nachtstücke (1817, 2 vols.). The full range of Hoffmann’s powers is first clearly displayed in the collection of stories (4 vols., 1819-1821) Die Serapionsbrüder, this being the name of a small club of Hoffmann’s more intimate literary friends. Die Serapionsbrüder includes not merely stories in which Hoffmann’s love for the mysterious and the supernatural is to be seen, but novels in which he draws on his own early reminiscences (Rat Krespel, Fermate), finely outlined pictures of old German life (Der Artushof, Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen), and vivid and picturesque incidents from Italian and French history (Doge und Dogaressa, the story of Marino Faliero, and Das Fräulein von Scuderi). The last-mentioned story is usually regarded as Hoffmann’s masterpiece. Two longer works also belong to Hoffmann’s later years and display to advantage his powers as a humorist; these are Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober (1819), and Lebensansichten des Katers Murr, nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler (1821-1822).
Hoffmann is one of the master novelists of the Romantic movement in Germany. He combined with a humour that reminds us of Jean Paul the warm sympathy for the artist’s standpoint towards life, which was enunciated by early Romantic leaders like Tieck and Wackenroder; but he was superior to all in the almost clairvoyant powers of his imagination. His works abound in grotesque and gruesome scenes—in this respect they mark a descent from the high ideals of the Romantic school; but the gruesome was only one outlet for Hoffmann’s genius, and even here the secret of his power lay not in his choice of subjects, but in the wonderfully vivid and realistic presentation of them. Every line he wrote leaves the impression behind it that it expresses something felt or experienced; every scene, vision or character he described seems to have been real and living to him. It is this realism, in the best sense of the word, that made him the great artist he was, and gave him so extraordinary a power over his contemporaries.
The first collected edition of Hoffmann’s works appeared in ten volumes (Ausgewählte Schriften, 1827-1828); to these his widow added five volumes in 1839 (including the 3rd edition of J. E. Hitzig’s Aus Hoffmanns Leben und Nachlass, 1823). Other editions of his works appeared in 1844-1845, 1871-1873, 1879-1883, and, most complete of all, Sämtliche Werke, edited by E. Grisebach, in 15 vols. (1900). There are many editions of selections, as well as cheap reprints of the more popular stories. All Hoffmann’s important works—except Klein Zaches and Kater Murr—have been translated into English: The Devil’s Elixir (1824), The Golden Pot by Carlyle (in German Romance, 1827), The Serapion Brethren by A. Ewing (1886-1892), &c. In France Hoffmann was even more popular than in England. Cp. G. Thurau, Hoffmanns Erzählungen in Frankreich (1896). An edition of his Œuvres complètes appeared in 12 vols. in Paris in 1830. The best monograph on Hoffmann is by G. Ellinger, E. T. A. Hoffmann (1894); see also O. Klinke, Hoffmanns Leben und Werke vom Standpunkte eines Irrenarztes (1903); and the exhaustive bibliography in Goedeke’s Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, 2nd ed., vol. viii. pp. 468 ff. (1905).
HOFFMANN, FRANÇOIS BENOÎT (1760-1828), French dramatist and critic, was born at Nancy on the 11th of July 1760. He studied law at the university of Strassburg, but a slight hesitation in his speech precluded success at the bar, and he entered a regiment on service in Corsica. He served, however, for a very short time, and, returning to Nancy, he wrote some poems which brought him into notice at the little court of Lunéville over which the marquise de Boufflers then presided. In 1784 he went to Paris, and two years later produced the opera Phèdre. His opera Adrien (1792) was objected to by the government on political grounds, and Hoffmann, who refused to make the changes proposed to him, ran considerable risk under the revolutionary government. His later operas, which were numerous, were produced at the Opéra Comique. In 1807 he was invited by Étienne to contribute to the Journal de l’Empire (afterwards the Journal des débats). Hoffmann’s wide reading qualified him to write on all sorts of subjects, and he turned, apparently with no difficulty, from reviewing books on medicine to violent attacks on the Jesuits. His severe criticism of Chateaubriand’s Martyrs led the author to make some changes in a later edition. He had the reputation of being an absolutely conscientious and incorruptible critic and thus exercised wide influence. Hoffmann died in Paris on the 25th of April 1828. Among his numerous plays should be mentioned an excellent one-act comedy, Le Roman d’une heure (1803), and an amusing one-act opera Les Rendez-vous bourgeois.
See Sainte-Beuve, “M. de Feletz et la critique littéraire sous l’Empire” in Causeries du lundi, vol. i.
HOFFMANN, FRIEDRICH (1660-1742), German physician, a member of a family that had been connected with medicine for 200 years before him, was born at Halle on the 19th of February 1660. At the gymnasium of his native town he acquired that taste for and skill in mathematics to which he attributed much of his after success. At the age of eighteen he went to study medicine at Jena, whence in 1680 he passed to Erfurt, in order to attend Kasper Cramer’s lectures on chemistry. Next year, returning to Jena, he received his doctor’s diploma, and, after publishing a thesis, was permitted to 563 teach. Constant study then began to tell on his health, and in 1682, leaving his already numerous pupils, he proceeded to Minden in Westphalia to recruit himself, at the request of a relative who held a high position in that town. After practising at Minden for two years, Hoffmann made a journey to Holland and England, where he formed the acquaintance of many illustrious chemists and physicians. Towards the end of 1684 he returned to Minden, and during the next three years he received many flattering appointments. In 1688 he removed to the more promising sphere of Halberstadt, with the title of physician to the principality of Halberstadt; and on the founding of Halle university in 1693, his reputation, which had been steadily increasing, procured for him the primarius chair of medicine, while at the same time he was charged with the responsible duty of framing the statutes for the new medical faculty. He filled also the chair of natural philosophy. With the exception of four years (1708-1712), which he passed at Berlin in the capacity of royal physician, Hoffmann spent the rest of his life at Halle in instruction, practice and study, interrupted now and again by visits to different courts of Germany, where his services procured him honours and rewards. His fame became European. He was enrolled a member of many learned societies in different foreign countries, while in his own he became privy councillor. He died at Halle on the 12th of November 1742.
Of his numerous writings a catalogue is to be found in Haller’s Bibliotheca medicinae practicae. The chief is Medicina rationalis systematica, undertaken at the age of sixty, and published in 1730. It was translated into French in 1739, under the title of Médecine raisonnée d’Hoffmann. A complete edition of Hoffmann’s works, with a life of the author, was published at Geneva in 1740, to which supplements were added in 1753 and 1760. Editions appeared also at Venice in 1745 and at Naples in 1753 and 1793. (See also Medicine.)
HOFFMANN, JOHANN JOSEPH (1805-1878), German scholar, was born at Würzburg on the 16th of February 1805. After studying at Würzburg he went on the stage in 1825; but owing to an accidental meeting with the German traveller, Dr Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), in July 1830, his interest was diverted to Oriental philology. From Siebold he acquired the rudiments of Japanese, and in order to take advantage of the instructions of Ko-ching-chang, a Chinese teacher whom Siebold had brought home with him, he made himself acquainted with Malay, the only language except Chinese which the Chinaman could understand. In a few years he was able to supply the translations for Siebold’s Nippon; and the high character of his work soon attracted the attention of older scholars. Stanislas Julien invited him to Paris; and he would probably have accepted the invitation, as a disagreement had broken out between him and Siebold, had not M. Baud, the Dutch colonial minister, appointed him Japanese translator with a salary of 1800 florins (£150). The Dutch authorities were slow in giving him further recognition; and he was too modest a man successfully to urge his claims. It was not till after he had received the offer of the professorship of Chinese in King’s College, London, that the authorities made him professor at Leiden and the king allowed him a yearly pension. In 1875 he was decorated with the order of the Netherlands Lion, and in 1877 he was elected corresponding member of the Berlin Academy. He died at the Hague on the 23rd of January 1878.
Hoffmann’s chief work was his unfinished Japanese Dictionary, begun in 1839 and afterwards continued by L. Serrurier. Unable at first to procure the necessary type, he set himself to the cutting of punches, and even when the proper founts were obtained he had to act as his own compositor as far as Chinese and Japanese were concerned. His Japanese grammar (Japanische Sprachlehre) was published in Dutch and English in 1867, and in English and German in 1876. Of his miscellaneous productions it is enough to mention “Japans Bezüge mit der koraischen Halbinsel und mit Schina” in Nippon, vii.; Yo-San-fi-Rok, L’Art d’élever les vers à soie au Japon, par Ouckaki Mourikouni (Paris, 1848); “Die Heilkunde in Japan” in Mittheil. d. deutsch. Gesellsch. für Natur- und Völkerk. Ost-Asiens (1873-1874); and Japanische Studien (1878).
HOFMANN, AUGUST WILHELM VON (1818-1892), German chemist, was born at Giessen on the 8th of April 1818. Not intending originally to devote himself to physical science, he first took up the study of law and philology at Göttingen, and the general culture he thus gained stood him in good stead when he turned to chemistry, the study of which he began under Liebig. When, in 1845, a school of practical chemistry was started in London, under the style of the Royal College of Chemistry, Hofmann, largely through the influence of the Prince Consort, was appointed its first director. It was with some natural hesitation that he, then a Privatdozent at Bonn, accepted the position, which may well have seemed rather a precarious one; but the difficulty was removed by his appointment as extraordinary professor at Bonn, with leave of absence for two years, so that he could resume his career in Germany if his English one proved unsatisfactory. Fortunately the college was more or less successful, owing largely to his enthusiasm and energy, and many of the men who were trained there subsequently made their mark in chemical history. But in 1864 he returned to Bonn, and in the succeeding year he was selected to succeed E. Mitscherlich as professor of chemistry and director of the laboratory in Berlin University. In leaving England, of which he used to speak as his adopted country, Hofmann was probably influenced by a combination of causes. The public support extended to the college of chemistry had been dwindling for some years, and before he left it had ceased to have an independent existence and had been absorbed into the School of Mines. This event he must have looked upon as a curtailment of its possibilities of usefulness. But, in addition, there is only too much reason to suppose that he was disappointed at the general apathy with which his science was regarded in England. No man ever realized more fully than he how entirely dependent on the advance of scientific knowledge is the continuation of a country’s material prosperity, and no single chemist ever exercised a greater or more direct influence upon industrial development. In England, however, people cared for none of these things, and were blind to the commercial potentialities of scientific research. The college to which Hofmann devoted nearly twenty of the best years of his life was starved; the coal-tar industry, which was really brought into existence by his work and that of his pupils under his direction at that college, and which with a little intelligent forethought might have been retained in England, was allowed to slip into the hands of Germany, where it is now worth millions of pounds annually; and Hofmann himself was compelled to return to his native land to find due appreciation as one of the foremost chemists of his time. The rest of his life was spent in Berlin, and there he died on the 5th of May 1892. That city possesses a permanent memorial to his name in Hofmann House, the home of the German Chemical Society (of which he was the founder), which was formally opened in 1900, appropriately enough with an account of that great triumph of German chemical enterprise, the industrial manufacture of synthetical indigo.
Hofmann’s work covered a wide range of organic chemistry, though with inorganic bodies he did but little. His first research, carried out in Liebig’s laboratory at Giessen, was on coal-tar, and his investigation of the organic bases in coal-gas naphtha established the nature of aniline. This substance he used to refer to as his first love, and it was a love to which he remained faithful throughout his life. His perception of the analogy between it and ammonia led to his famous work on the amines and ammonium bases and the allied organic phosphorus compounds, while his researches on rosaniline, which he first prepared in 1858, formed the first of a series of investigations on colouring matters which only ended with quinoline red in 1887. But in addition to these and numberless other investigations for which he was responsible the influence he exercised through his pupils must also be taken into account. As a teacher, besides the power of accurately gauging the character and capabilities of those who studied under him, he had the faculty of infecting them with his own enthusiasm, and thus of stimulating them to put forward their best efforts. In the lecture-room he laid great stress on the importance of experimental demonstrations, paying particular attention to their selection and arrangement, though, since he 564 himself was a somewhat clumsy manipulator, their actual exhibition was generally entrusted to his assistants. He was the possessor of a clear and graceful, if somewhat florid, style, which showed to special advantage in his numerous obituary notices or encomiums (collected and published in three volumes Zur Erinnerung an vorangegangene Freunde, 1888). He also excelled as a speaker, particularly at gatherings of an international character, for in addition to his native German he could speak English, French and Italian with fluency.
See Memorial Lectures delivered before the Chemical Society, 1893-1900 (London, 1901).
HOFMANN, JOHANN CHRISTIAN KONRAD VON (1810-1877), Lutheran theologian and historian, was born on the 21st of December 1810 at Nuremberg, and studied theology and history at the university of Erlangen. In 1829 he went to Berlin, where Schleiermacher, Hengstenberg, Neander, Ranke and Raumer were among his teachers. In 1833 he received an appointment to teach Hebrew and history in the gymnasium of Erlangen. In 1835 he became Repetent, in 1838 Privatdozent and in 1841 professor extraordinarius in the theological faculty at Erlangen. In 1842 he became professor ordinarius at Rostock, but in 1845 returned once more to Erlangen as the successor of Gottlieb Christoph Adolf von Harless (1806-1879), founder of the Zeitschrift für Protestantismus und Kirche, of which Hofmann became one of the editors in 1846, J. F. Höfling (1802-1853) and Gottfried Thomasius (1802-1875) being his collaborators. He was a conservative in theology, but an enthusiastic adherent of the progressive party in politics, and sat as member for Erlangen and Fürth in the Bavarian second chamber from 1863 to 1868. He died on the 20th of December 1877.
He wrote Die siebzig Jahre des Jeremias u. die siebzig Jahrwochen des Daniel (1836); Geschichte des Aufruhrs in den Cevennen (1837); Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte für Gymnasien (1839), which became a text-book in the Protestant gymnasia of Bavaria; Weissagung u. Erfüllung im alten u. neuen Testamente (1841-1844; 2nd ed., 1857-1860); Der Schriftbeweis (1852-1856; 2nd ed., 1857-1860); Die heilige Schrift des neuen Testaments zusammenhängend untersucht (1862-1875); Schutzschriften (1856-1859), in which he defends himself against the charge of denying the Atonement; and Theologische Ethik (1878). His most important works are the five last named. In theology, as in ecclesiastical polity, Hofmann was a Lutheran of an extreme type, although the strongly marked individuality of some of his opinions laid him open to repeated accusations of heterodoxy. He was the head of what has been called the Erlangen School, and “in his day he was unquestionably the chief glory of the University of Erlangen” (Lichtenberger).
See the articles in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie and the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie; and cf. F. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century (1889) pp. 446-458.
HOFMANN, MELCHIOR (c. 1498-1543-4), anabaptist, was born at Hall, in Swabia, before 1500 (Zur Linden suggests 1498). His biographers usually give his surname as above; in his printed works it is Hoffman, in his manuscripts Hoffmann. He was without scholarly training, and first appears as a furrier at Livland. Attracted by Luther’s doctrine, he came forward as a lay preacher, combining business travels with a religious mission. Accompanied by Melchior Rinck, also a skinner or furrier, and a religious enthusiast, he made his way to Sweden. Joined by Bernard Knipperdolling, the party reached Stockholm in the autumn of 1524. Their fervid attacks on image worship led to their expulsion. By way of Livonia, Hofmann arrived at Dorpat in November 1524, but was driven thence in the following January. Making his way to Riga, and thence to Wittenberg, he found favour with Luther; his letter of the 22nd of June 1525 appears in a tract by Luther of that year. He was again at Dorpat in May 1526; later at Magdeburg. Returning to Wittenberg, he was coldly received; he wrote there his exposition of Daniel xii. (1527). Repairing to Holstein, he got into the good graces of Frederick I. of Denmark, and was appointed by royal ordinance to preach the Gospel at Kiel. He was extravagant in denunciation, and developed a Zwinglian view of the Eucharist. Luther was alarmed. At a colloquy of preachers in Flensburg (8th April 1529) Hofmann, John Campanus and others were put on their defence. Hofmann maintained (against the “magic” of the Lutherans) that the function of the Eucharist, like that of preaching, is an appeal for spiritual union with Christ. Refusing to retract, he was banished. At Strassburg to which he now turned, he was well received (1529) till his anabaptist development became apparent. He was in relations with Schwenkfeld and with Carlstadt, but assumed a prophetic rôle of his own. Journeying to East Friesland, (1530) he founded a community at Emden (1532), securing a large following of artisans. Despite the warning of John Trypmaker, who prophesied for him “six months” in prison, he returned in the spring of 1533 to Strassburg, where we hear of his wife and child. He gathered from the Apocalypse a vision of “resurrections” of apostolic Christianity, first under John Hus, and now under himself. The year 1533 was to inaugurate the new era; Strassburg was to be the seat of the New Jerusalem. In May 1533 he and others were arrested. Under examination, he denied that he had made common cause with the anabaptists and claimed to be no prophet, a mere witness of the Most High, but refused the articles of faith proposed to him by the provincial synod. Hofmann and Claus Frey, an anabaptist, were detained in prison, a measure due to the terror excited by the Münster episode of 1533-1534. The synod, in 1539, made further effort to reclaim him. The last notice of his imprisonment is on the 19th of November 1543; he probably died soon after.
Two of his publications, with similar titles, in 1530, are noteworthy as having influenced Menno Simons and David Joris (Weissagung vsz heiliger götlicher geschrifft, and Prophecey oder Weissagung vsz warer heiliger götlicher schrifft). Bock treats him as an antitrinitarian, on grounds which Wallace rightly deems inconclusive. With better reason Trechsel includes him among pioneers of some of the positions of Servetus. His Christology was Valentinian. While all are elected to salvation, only the regenerate may receive baptism, and those who sin after regeneration sin against the Holy Ghost, and cannot be saved. His followers were known as Hofmannites or Melchiorites.
See G. Herrmann, Essai sur la vie et les écrits de M. Hofmann (1852); F. O. zur Linden, M. Hofmann, ein Prophet der Wiedertäufer (1885); H. Holtzmann, in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (1880); Hegler in Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1900); Bock, Hist. Antitrin. (1776), ii.; Wallace, Antitrin. Biography (1850) iii., app. iii.; Trechsel, Prot. Antitrin. vor F. Socin (1839) i.; Barclay, Inner Life of Rel. Societies (1876). An alleged portrait, from an engraving of 1608, is reproduced in the appendix to A. Ross, Pansebeia (1655).
HOFMEISTER, WILHELM FRIEDRICH BENEDICT (1824-1877), German botanist, was born at Leipzig on the 18th of May 1824. He came of a family engaged in trade, and after being educated at the Realschule of Leipzig he entered business as a music-dealer. Much of his botanical work was done while he was so employed, till in 1863 he was nominated, without intermediate academic steps, to the chair in Heidelberg; thence he was transferred in 1872 to Tübingen, in succession to H. von Mohl. His first work was on the distribution of the Coniferae in the Himalaya, but his attention was very soon devoted to studying the sexuality and origin of the embryo of Phanerogams. His contributions on this subject extended from 1847 till 1860, and they finally settled the question of the origin of the embryo from an ovum, as against the prevalent pollen-tube theory of M. J. Schleiden, for he showed that the pollen-tube does not itself produce the embryo, but only stimulates the ovum already present in the ovule. He soon turned his attention to the embryology of Bryophytes and Pteridophytes, and gave continuous accounts of the germination of the spores and fertilization in Pilularia, Salvinia, Selaginella. Some of the main facts of the life of ferns and mosses were already known; these, together with his own wider observations, were worked into that great general pronouncement published in 1851 under the title, Vergleichende Untersuchungen der Keimung, Entfaltung und Fruchtbildung köherer Kryptogamen und der Samenbildung der Coniferen. 565 This work will always stand in the first rank of botanical books. It antedated the Origin of Species by eight years, but contained facts and comparisons which could only become intelligible on some theory of descent. The plan of life-story common to them all, involving two alternating generations, was demonstrated for Liverworts, Mosses, Ferns, Equiseta, Rhizocarps, Lycopodiaceae, and even Gymnosperms, with a completeness and certainty which must still surprise those who know the botanical literature of the author’s time. The conclusions of Hofmeister remain in their broad outlines unshaken, but rather strengthened by later-acquired details. In the light of the theory of descent the common plan of life-history in plants apparently so diverse as those named acquires a special significance; but it is one of the remarkable features of this great work that the writer himself does not theorize—with an unerring insight he points out his comparisons and states his homologies, but does not indulge in explanatory surmises. It is the typical work of an heroic age of plant-morphology. From 1857 till 1862 Hofmeister wrote occasionally on physiological subjects, such as the ascent of sap, and curvatures of growing parts, but it was in morphology that he found his natural sphere. In 1861, in conjunction with other botanists, a plan was drawn up of a handbook of physiological botany, of which Hofmeister was to be editor. Though the original scheme was never completed, the editor himself contributed two notable parts, Die Lehre von der Pflanzenzelle (1867) and Allgemeine Morphologie der Gewächse (1868). The former gives an excellent summary of the structure and relations of the vegetable cell as then known, but it did not greatly modify current views. The latter was notable for its refutation of the spiral theory of leaf arrangement in plants, founded by C. F. Schimper and A. Braun. Hofmeister transferred the discussion from the mere study of mature form to the observation of the development of the parts, and substituted for the “spiral tendency” a mechanical theory based upon the observed fact that new branchings appear over the widest gaps which exist between next older branchings of like nature. With this important work Hofmeister’s period of active production closed; he fell into ill-health, and retired from his academic duties some time before his death at Lindenau, near Leipzig, on the 12th of January 1877.
HOFMEYR, JAN HENDRIK (1845-1909), South African politician, was born at Cape Town on the 4th of July 1845. He was educated at the South African College, and at an early age turned his attention to politics, first as a journalist. He was editor of the Zuid Afrikaan till its incorporation with Ons Land, and of the Zuid Afrikaansche Tijdschrift. By birth, education and sympathies a typical Dutch Afrikander, he set himself to organize the political power of his fellow-countrymen. This he did very effectively, and when in 1879 he entered the Cape parliament as member for Stellenbosch, he became the real leader of the Dutch party. Yet he only held office for six months—as minister without portfolio in the Scanlen ministry from May to November 1881. He held no subsequent official post in the colony, though he shared with Sir Thomas Upington and Sir Charles Mills the honour of representing the Cape at the intercolonial conference of 1887. Here he supported the proposal for entrusting the defence of Simon’s Town to Cape Colony, leaving only the armament to be provided by the imperial government, opposed trans-oceanic penny postage, and moved a resolution in favour of an imperial customs union. At the colonial conference of 1894 at Ottawa he was again one of the Cape representatives. In 1888 and in 1889 he was a member of the South African customs conference.
His chief importance as a public man was, however, derived from his power over the Dutch in Cape Colony, and his control of the Afrikander Bond. In 1878 he had himself founded the “Farmers’ Association,” and as the Cape farmers were almost entirely Dutch the Association became a centre of Dutch influence. When the Bond was formed in 1882, with purely political aims, Hofmeyr made haste to obtain control of it, and in 1883 amalgamated the Farmers’ Association with it. Under his direction the constitution of the Bond was modified by the elimination of the provisions inconsistent with loyalty to the British crown. But it remained an organization for obtaining the political supremacy of the Cape Dutch. (See Cape Colony: History.) His control over the Bond enabled him for many years, while free from the responsibilities of office, to make and unmake ministers at his will, and earned for him the name of “Cabinet-maker of South Africa.” Although officially the term “Afrikander” was explained by Hofmeyr to include white men of whatever race, yet in practice the influence of the Bond was always exerted in favour of the Dutch, and its power was drawn from the Dutch districts of Cape Colony. The sympathies of the Bond were thus always strongly with the Transvaal, as the chief centre of Dutch influence in South Africa; and Hofmeyr’s position might in many respects be compared with that of Parnell at the head of the Irish Nationalist party in Great Britain. In the Bechuanaland difficulty of 1884 Hofmeyr threw all the influence of the Bond into the scale in favour of the Transvaal. But in the course of the next few years he began to drift away from President Kruger. He resented the reckless disregard of Cape interests involved in Kruger’s fiscal policy; he feared that the Transvaal, after its sudden leap into prosperity upon the gold discoveries of 1886, might overshadow all other Dutch influences in South Africa; above all he was convinced, as he showed by his action at the London conference, that the protection of the British navy was indispensable to South Africa, and he set his face against Kruger’s intrigues with Germany, and his avowed intention of acquiring an outlet to the sea in order to get into touch with foreign powers.
In 1890 Hofmeyr joined forces with Cecil Rhodes, who became premier of Cape Colony with the support of the Bond. Hofmeyr’s influence was a powerful factor in the conclusion of the Swaziland convention of 1890, as well as in stopping the “trek” to Banyailand (Rhodesia) in 1891—a notable reversal of the policy he had pursued seven years before. But the reactionary elements in the Bond grew alarmed at Rhodes’s imperialism, and in 1895 Hofmeyr resigned his seat in parliament and the presidency of the Bond. Then came the Jameson Raid, and in its wake there rolled over South Africa a wave of Dutch and anti-British feeling such as had not been known since the days of Majuba. (The proclamation issued by Sir Hercules Robinson disavowing Jameson was suggested by Hofmeyr, who helped to draw up its terms.) Once more Hofmeyr became president of the Bond. By an alteration of the provincial constitution, all power in the Cape branch of the Bond was vested in the hands of a vigilance committee of three, of whom Hofmeyr and his brother were two. As the recognized leader of the Cape Dutch, he protested against such abuses as the dynamite monopoly in the Transvaal, and urged Kruger even at the eleventh hour to grant reasonable concessions rather than plunge into a war that might involve Cape Afrikanderdom and the Transvaal in a common ruin. In July 1899 he journeyed to Pretoria, and vainly supported the proposal of a satisfactory franchise law, combined with a limited representation of the Uitlanders in the Volksraad, and in September urged the Transvaal to accede to the proposed joint inquiry. During the negotiations of 1899, and after the outbreak of war, the official organ of the Bond, Ons Land, was conspicuous for its anti-British attitude, and its violence forced Lord Roberts to suppress it in the Cape Colony district under martial law. Hofmeyr never associated himself publicly with the opinions expressed by Ons Land, but neither did he repudiate them. The tide of race sympathy among his Dutch supporters made his position one of great difficulty, and shortly after the outbreak of war he withdrew to Europe, and refused to act as a member of the “Conciliation Committee” which came to England in 1901 in the interests of the Boer republics.
Towards the close of the war Hofmeyr returned to South Africa and organized the Bond forces for the general election held in Cape Colony at the beginning of 1904, which resulted in the defeat of the Bond party. Hofmeyr retained his ascendancy over the Cape Dutch, but now began to find himself somewhat out of sympathy with the larger outlook on South African 566 affairs taken by the younger leaders of the Boers in the Transvaal. During 1906 he gave offence to the extreme section of the Bond by some criticisms of the taal and his use of English in public speeches. At the general election in 1908 the Bond, still largely under his direction, gained a victory at the polls, but Hofmeyr himself was not a candidate. In the renewed movement for the closer union of the South African colonies he advocated federation as opposed to unification. When, however, the unification proposals were ratified by the Cape parliament, Hofmeyr procured his nomination as one of the Cape delegates to England in the summer of 1909 to submit the draft act of union to the imperial government. He attended the conferences with the officials of the Colonial Office for the preparation of the draft act, and after the bill had become law went to Germany for a “cure.” He returned to London in October 1909, where he died on the 16th of that month. His body was taken to Cape Town for burial.
HOFSTEDE DE GROOT, PETRUS (1802-1886), Dutch theologian, was born at Leer in East Friesland, Prussia, on the 8th of October 1802, and was educated at the Gymnasium and university of Groningen. For three years (1826-1829) he was pastor of the Reformed Church at Ulrum, and then entered upon his lifelong duties as professor of theology at Groningen. With his colleagues L. G. Pareau, J. F. van Vordt, and W. Muurling he edited from 1837 to 1872 the Waarheid in Liefde. In this review and in his numerous books he vigorously upheld the orthodox faith against the Dutch “modern theology” movement. Many of his works were written in Latin, including Disputatio, qua ep. ad Hebraeos cum Paulin. epistolis comparatur (1826), Institutiones historiae ecclesiae (1835), Institutio theologiae naturalis (1842), Encyclopaedia theologi christiani (1844). Others, in Dutch, were: The Divine Education of Humanity up to the Coming of Jesus Christ (3 vols., 1846), The Nature of the Gospel Ministry (1858), The “Modern Theology” of the Netherlands (1869), The Old Catholic Movement (1877). He became professor emeritus in 1872, and died at Groningen on the 5th of December 1886.
HOGARTH, WILLIAM (1697-1764), the great English painter and pictorial satirist, was born at Bartholomew Close in London on the 10th of November 1697, and baptized on the 28th in the church of St Bartholomew the Great. He had two younger sisters, Mary, born in 1699, and Ann, born in 1701. His father, Richard Hogarth, who died in 1718, was a schoolmaster and literary hack, who had come to the metropolis to seek that fortune which had been denied to him in his native Westmorland. The son seems to have been early distinguished by a talent for drawing and an active perceptive faculty rather than by any close attention to the learning which he was soon shrewd enough to see had not made his parent prosper. “Shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant,” he says, “and mimicry, common to all children, was remarkable in me.... My exercises when at school were more remarkable for the ornaments which adorned them than for the exercise itself.” This being the case, it is no wonder that, by his own desire, he was apprenticed to a silver-plate engraver, Mr Ellis Gamble, at the sign of the “Golden Angel” in Cranbourne Street or Alley, Leicester Fields. For this master he engraved a shop-card which is still extant. When his apprenticeship began is not recorded; but it must have been concluded before the beginning of 1720, for in April of that year he appears to have set up as engraver on his own account. His desires, however, were not limited to silver-plate engraving. “Engraving on copper was, at twenty years of age, my utmost ambition.” For this he lacked the needful skill as a draughtsman; and his account of the means which he took to supply this want, without too much interfering with his pleasure, is thoroughly characteristic, though it can scarcely be recommended as an example. “Laying it down,” he says, “first as an axiom, that he who could by any means acquire and retain in his memory, perfect ideas of the subjects he meant to draw, would have as clear a knowledge of the figure as a man who can write freely hath of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet and their infinite combinations (each of these being composed of lines), and would consequently be an accurate designer, ... I therefore endeavoured to habituate myself to the exercise of a sort of technical memory, and by repeating in my own mind, the parts of which objects were composed, I could by degrees combine and put them down with my pencil.” This account, it is possible, has something of the complacency of the old age in which it was written; but there is little doubt that his marvellous power of seizing expression owed less to patient academical study than to his unexampled eye-memory and tenacity of minor detail. But he was not entirely without technical training, since, by his own showing, he occasionally “took the life” to correct his memories, and is known to have studied at Sir James Thornhill’s then recently opened art school.
“His first employment” (i.e. after he set up for himself) “seems,” says John Nichols, in his Anecdotes, “to have been the engraving of arms and shop bills.” After this he was employed in designing “plates for booksellers.” Of these early and mostly insignificant works we may pass over “The Lottery, an Emblematic Print on the South Sea Scheme,” and some book illustrations, to pause at “Masquerades and Operas” (1724), the first plate he published on his own account. This is a clever little satire on contemporary follies, such as the masquerades of the Swiss adventurer Heidegger, the popular Italian opera-singers, Rich’s pantomimes at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and last, but by no means least, the exaggerated popularity of Lord Burlington’s protégé, the architect painter William Kent, who is here represented on the summit of Burlington Gate, with Raphael and Michelangelo for supporters. This worthy, Hogarth had doubtless not learned to despise less in the school of his rival Sir James Thornhill. Indeed almost the next of Hogarth’s important prints was aimed at Kent alone, being that memorable burlesque of the unfortunate altarpiece designed by the latter for St Clement Danes, which, in deference to the ridicule of the parishioners, Bishop Gibson took down in 1725. Hogarth’s squib, which appeared subsequently, exhibits it as a very masterpiece of confusion and bad drawing. In 1726 he prepared twelve large engravings for Butler’s Hudibras. These he himself valued highly, and they are the best of his book illustrations. But he was far too individual to be the patient interpreter of other men’s thoughts, and it is not in this direction that his successes are to be sought.
To 1727-1728 belongs one of those rare occurrences which have survived as contributions to his biography. He was engaged by Joshua Morris, a tapestry worker, to prepare a design for the “Element of Earth.” Morris, however, having heard that he was “an engraver, and no painter,” declined the work when completed, and Hogarth accordingly sued him for the money in the Westminster Court, where, on the 28th of May 1728, the case was decided in his (Hogarth’s) favour. It may have been the aspersion thus early cast on his skill as a painter (coupled perhaps with the unsatisfactory state of print-selling, owing to the uncontrolled circulation of piratical copies) that induced him about this time to turn his attention to the production of “small conversation pieces” (i.e. groups in oil of full-length portraits from 12 to 15 in. high), many of which are still preserved in different collections. “This,” he says, “having novelty, succeeded for a few years.” Among his other efforts in oil between 1728 and 1732 were “The Wanstead Conversation,” “The House of Commons examining Bambridge,” an infamous warden of the Fleet, and several pictures of the chief actors in Gay’s popular Beggar’s Opera.
On the 23rd of March 1729 he was married at old Paddington church to Jane Thornhill, the only daughter of Kent’s rival above mentioned. The match was a clandestine one, although Lady Thornhill appears to have favoured it. We next hear of him in “lodgings at South Lambeth,” where he rendered some assistance to the then well-known Jonathan Tyers, who opened Vauxhall in 1732 with an entertainment styled a ridotto al fresco. For these gardens Hogarth painted a poor picture of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, and he also permitted Hayman to make copies of the later series of the “Four Times of the Day.” 567 In return, the grateful Tyers presented him with a gold pass ticket “In perpetuam Beneficii Memoriam.” It was long thought that Hogarth designed this himself. Mr Warwick Wroth (Numismatic Chronicle, vol. xviii.) doubts this, although he thinks it probable that Hogarth designed some of the silver Vauxhall passes which are figured in Wilkinson’s Londina illustrata. The only engravings between 1726 and 1732 which need be referred to are the “Large Masquerade Ticket” (1727), another satire on masquerades, and the print of “Burlington Gate” (1731), evoked by Pope’s Epistle to Lord Burlington, and defending Lord Chandos, who is therein satirized. This print gave great offence, and was, it is said, suppressed.
By 1731 Hogarth must have completed the earliest of the series of moral works which first gave him his position as a great and original genius. This was “A Harlot’s Progress,” the paintings for which, if we may trust the date in the last of the pictures, were finished in that year. Almost immediately afterwards he must have begun to engrave them—a task he had at first intended to leave to others. From an advertisement in the Country Journal; or, the Craftsman, 29th of January 1732, the pictures were then being engraved, and from later announcements it seems clear that they were delivered to the subscribers early in the following April, on the 21st of which month an unauthorized prose description of them was published. We have no record of the particular train of thought which prompted these story-pictures; but it may perhaps be fairly assumed that the necessity for creating some link of interest between the personages of the little “conversation pieces” above referred to, led to the further idea of connecting several groups or scenes so as to form a sequent narrative. “I wished,” says Hogarth, “to compose pictures on canvas, similar to representations on the stage.” “I have endeavoured,” he says again, “to treat my subject as a dramatic writer; my picture is my stage, and men and women my players, who by means of certain actions and gestures are to exhibit a dumb show.” There was never a more eloquent dumb show than this of the “Harlot’s Progress.” In six scenes the miserable career of a woman of the town is traced out remorselessly from its first facile beginning to its shameful and degraded end. Nothing of the detail is softened or abated; the whole is acted out coram populo, with the hard, uncompassionate morality of the age the painter lived in, while the introduction here and there of one or two well-known characters such as Colonel Charteris and Justice Gonson give a vivid reality to the satire. It had an immediate success. To say nothing of the fact that the talent of the paintings completely reconciled Sir James Thornhill to the son-in-law he had hitherto refused to acknowledge, more than twelve hundred names of subscribers to the engravings were entered in the artist’s book. On the appearance of plate iii. the lords of the treasury trooped to the print shop for Sir John Gonson’s portrait which it contained. The story was made into a pantomime by Theophilus Cibber, and by some one else into a ballad opera; and it gave rise to numerous pamphlets and poems. It was painted on fan-mounts and transferred to cups and saucers. Lastly, it was freely pirated. There could be no surer testimony to its popularity.
From the MSS. of George Vertue in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 23069-98) it seems that during the progress of the plates, Hogarth was domiciled with his father-in-law, Sir James Thornhill, in the Middle Piazza, Covent Garden (the “second house eastward from James Street”), and it must have been thence that set out the historical expedition from London to Sheerness of which the original record still exists at the British Museum. This is an oblong MS. volume entitled An Account of what seem’d most Remarkable in the Five Days’ Peregrination of the Five Following Persons, vizt., Messieurs Tothall, Scott, Hogarth, Thornhill and Forrest. Begun on Saturday May 27th 1732 and Finish’d On the 31st of the Same Month. Abi tu et fac similiter. Inscription on Dulwich College Porch. The journal, which is written by Ebenezer, the father of Garrick’s friend Theodosius Forrest, gives a good idea of what a “frisk”—as Johnson called it—was in those days, while the illustrations were by Hogarth and Samuel Scott the landscape painter. John Thornhill, Sir James’s son, made the map. This version (in prose) was subsequently run into rhyme by one of Hogarth’s friends, the Rev. Wm. Gostling of Canterbury, and after the artist’s death both versions were published. In the absence of other biographical detail, they are of considerable interest to the student of Hogarth. In 1733 Hogarth moved into the “Golden Head” in Leicester Fields, which, with occasional absences at Chiswick, he continued to occupy until his death. By December of this year he was already engaged upon the engravings of a second Progress, that of a Rake. It was not as successful as its predecessor. It was in eight plates in lieu of six. The story is unequal; but there is nothing finer than the figure of the desperate hero in the Covent Garden gaming-house, or the admirable scenes in the Fleet prison and Bedlam, where at last his headlong career comes to its tragic termination. The plates abound with allusive suggestion and covert humour; but it is impossible to attempt any detailed description of them here.
“A Rake’s Progress” was dated June 25, 1735, and the engravings bear the words “according to Act of Parliament.” This was an act (8 Geo. II. cap. 13) which Hogarth had been instrumental in obtaining from the legislature, being stirred thereto by the shameless piracies of rival printsellers. Although loosely drawn, it served its purpose; and the painter commemorated his success by a long inscription on the plate entitled “Crowns, Mitres, &c.,” afterwards used as a subscription ticket to the Election series. These subscription tickets to his engravings, let us add, are among the brightest and most vivacious of the artist’s productions. That to the “Harlot’s Progress” was entitled “Boys peeping at Nature,” while the Rake’s Progress was heralded by the delightful etching known as “A Pleased Audience at a Play, or The Laughing Audience.”
We must pass more briefly over the prints which followed the two Progresses, noting first “A Modern Midnight Conversation,” an admirable drinking scene which comes between them in 1733, and the bright little plate of “Southwark Fair,” which, although dated 1733, was published with “A Rake’s Progress” in 1735. Between these and “Marriage à la mode,” upon the pictures of which the painter must have been not long after at work, come the small prints of the “Consultation of Physicians” and “Sleeping Congregation” (1736), the “Scholars at a Lecture” (1737); the “Four Times of the Day” (1738), a series of pictures of 18th century life, the earlier designs for which have been already referred to; the “Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn” (1738), which Walpole held to be, “for wit and imagination, without any other end, the best of all the painter’s works”; and finally the admirable plates of the Distrest Poet painfully composing a poem on “Riches” in a garret, and the Enraged Musician fulminating from his parlour window upon a discordant orchestra of knife-grinders, milk-girls, ballad-singers and the rest upon the pavement outside. These are dated respectively 1736 and 1741. To this period also (i.e. the period preceding the production of the plates of “Marriage à la mode”) belong two of those history pictures to which, in emulation of the Haymans and Thornhills, the artist was continually attracted. “The Pool of Bethesda” and the “Good Samaritan,” “with figures seven feet high,” were painted circa 1736, and presented by the artist to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where they remain. They were not masterpieces; and it is pleasanter to think of his connexion with Captain Coram’s recently established Foundling Hospital (1739), which he aided with his money, his graver and his brush, and for which he painted that admirable portrait of the good old philanthropist which is still, and deservedly, one of its chief ornaments.
In “A Harlot’s Progress” Hogarth had not strayed much beyond the lower walks of society, and although, in “A Rake’s Progress,” his hero was taken from the middle classes, he can scarcely be said to have quitted those fields of observation which are common to every spectator. It is therefore more remarkable, looking to his education and antecedents, that his masterpiece, “Marriage à la mode,” should successfully depict, as the advertisement has it, “a variety of modern occurrences in high life.” 568 Yet, as an accurate delineation of upper class 18th century society, his “Marriage à la mode” has never, we believe, been seriously assailed. The countess’s bedroom, the earl’s apartment with its lavish coronets and old masters, the grand saloon with its marble pillars and grotesque ornaments, are fully as true to nature as the frowsy chamber in the “Turk’s Head Bagnio,” the quack-doctor’s museum in St Martin’s Lane, or the mean opulence of the merchant’s house in the city. And what story could be more vividly, more perspicuously, more powerfully told than this godless alliance of sacs et parchemins—this miserable tragedy of an ill-assorted marriage? There is no defect of invention, no superfluity of detail, no purposeless stroke. It has the merit of a work by a great master of fiction, with the additional advantages which result from the pictorial fashion of the narrative; and it is matter for congratulation that it is still to be seen by all the world in the National Gallery in London, where it can tell its own tale better than pages of commentary. The engravings of “Marriage à la mode” were dated April 1745. Although by this time the painter found a ready market for his engravings, he does not appear to have been equally successful in selling his pictures. The people bought his prints; but the richer and not numerous connoisseurs who purchased pictures were wholly in the hands of the importers and manufacturers of “old masters.” In February 1745 the original oil paintings of the two Progresses, the “Four Times of the Day” and the “Strolling Actresses” were still unsold. On the last day of that month Hogarth disposed of them by an ill-devised kind of auction, the details of which may be read in Nichols’s Anecdotes, for the paltry sum of £427, 7s. No better fate attended “Marriage à la mode,” which six years later became the property of Mr Lane of Hillingdon for 120 guineas, being then in Carlo Maratti frames which had cost the artist four guineas a piece. Something of this was no doubt due to Hogarth’s impracticable arrangements, but the fact shows conclusively how completely blind his contemporaries were to his merits as a painter, and how hopelessly in bondage to the all-powerful picture-dealers. Of these latter the painter himself gave a graphic picture in a letter addressed by him under the pseudonym of “Britophil” to the St James’s Evening Post, in June 1737.
But if Hogarth was not successful with his dramas on canvas, he occasionally shared with his contemporaries in the popularity of portrait painting. For a picture, executed in 1746, of Garrick as Richard III. he was paid £200, “which was more,” says he, “than any English artist ever received for a single portrait.” In the same year a sketch of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, afterwards beheaded on Tower Hill, had an exceptional success.
We must content ourselves with a brief enumeration of the most important of his remaining works. These are “The Stage Coach or Country Inn Yard” (1747); the series of twelve plates entitled “Industry and Idleness” (1747), depicting the career of two London apprentices; the “Gate of Calais” (1749), which had its origin in a rather unfortunate visit paid to France by the painter after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; the “March to Finchley” (1750); “Beer Street,” “Gin Lane” and the “Four Stages of Cruelty” (1751); the admirable representations of election humours in the days of Sir Robert Walpole, entitled “Four Prints of an Election” (1755-1758); and the plate of “Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism, a Medley” (1762), adapted from an earlier unpublished design called “Enthusiasm Delineated.” Besides these must be chronicled three more essays in the “great style of history painting,” viz. “Paul before Felix,” “Moses brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter” and the Altarpiece for St Mary Redcliffe at Bristol. The first two were engraved in 1751-1752, the last in 1794. A subscription ticket to the earlier pictures, entitled “Paul before Felix Burlesqued,” had a popularity far greater than that of the prints themselves.
In 1745 Hogarth painted that admirable portrait of himself with his dog Trump, which is now in the National Gallery. In a corner of this he had drawn on a palette a serpentine curve with the words “The Line of Beauty.” Much inquiry ensued as to the meaning of this hieroglyphic; and in an unpropitious hour the painter resolved to explain himself in writing. The result was the well-known Analysis of Beauty (1753), a treatise to fix “the fluctuating ideas of Taste,” otherwise a desultory essay having for pretext the precept attributed to Michelangelo that a figure should be always “Pyramidall, Serpent like and multiplied by one two and three.” The fate of the book was what might have been expected. By the painter’s adherents it was praised as a final deliverance upon aesthetics; by his enemies and professional rivals, its obscurities, and the minor errors which, notwithstanding the benevolent efforts of literary friends, the work had not escaped, were made the subject of endless ridicule and caricature. It added little to its author’s fame, and it is perhaps to be regretted that he ever undertook it. Moreover, there were further humiliations in store for him. In 1759 the success of a little picture called “The Lady’s Last Stake,” painted for Lord Charlemont, procured him a commission from Sir Richard Grosvenor to paint another picture “upon the same terms.” Unhappily on this occasion he deserted his own field of genre and social satire, to select the story from Boccaccio (or rather Dryden) of Sigismunda weeping over the heart of her murdered lover Guiscardo, being the subject of a picture in Sir Luke Schaub’s collection by Furini which had recently been sold for £400. The picture, over which he spent much time and patience, was not regarded as a success; and Sir Richard rather meanly shuffled out of his bargain upon the plea that “the constantly having it before one’s eyes, would be too often occasioning melancholy ideas to arise in one’s mind.” Sigismunda, therefore, much to the artist’s mortification, and the delight of the malicious, remained upon his hands. As, by her husband’s desire, his widow valued it at £500, it found no purchaser until after her death, when the Boydells bought it for 56 guineas. It was exhibited, with others of Hogarth’s pictures, at the Spring Gardens exhibition of 1761, for the catalogue of which Hogarth engraved a Head-piece and a Tail-piece which are still the delight of collectors; and finally, by the bequest of Mr J. H. Anderdon, it passed in 1879 to the National Gallery, where, in spite of theatrical treatment and a repulsive theme, it still commands admiration for its colour, drawing and expression.
In 1761 Hogarth was sixty-five years of age, and he had but three years more to live. These three years were embittered by an unhappy quarrel with his quondam friends, John Wilkes and Churchill the poet, over which most of his biographers are contented to pass rapidly. Having succeeded John Thornhill in 1757 as serjeant painter (to which post he was reappointed at the accession of George III.), an evil genius prompted him in 1762 to do some “timed” thing in the ministerial interest, and he accordingly published the indifferent satire of “The Times, plate i.” This at once brought him into collision with Wilkes and Churchill, and the immediate result was a violent attack upon him, both as a man and an artist, in the opposition North Briton, No. 17. The alleged decay of his powers, the miscarriage of Sigismunda, the cobbled composition of the Analysis, were all discussed with scurrilous malignity by those who had known his domestic life and learned his weaknesses. The old artist was deeply wounded, and his health was failing. Early in the next year, however, he replied by that portrait of Wilkes which will for ever carry his squinting features to posterity. Churchill retaliated in July by a savage Epistle to William Hogarth, to which the artist rejoined by a print of Churchill as a bear, in torn bands and ruffles, not the most successful of his works. “The pleasure, and pecuniary advantage,” writes Hogarth manfully, “which I derived from these two engravings” (of Wilkes and Churchill), “together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to as much health as can be expected at my time of life.” He produced but one more print, that of “Finis, or The Bathos,” March 1764, a strange jumble of “fag ends,” intended as a tail-piece to his collected prints; and on the 26th October of the same year he died of an aneurism at his house in Leicester Square. His wife, to whom he left his plates as a chief source of income, survived him until 1789. He was buried in Chiswick churchyard, where a tomb was erected to him by his friends in 1771, with an epitaph by Garrick. Not far off, on the road 569 to Chiswick Gardens, still stands the little red-brick Georgian villa in which from September 1749 until his death he spent the summer seasons. After many vicissitudes and changes of ownership it was purchased in 1902 by Lieut.-Colonel Shipway of Chiswick, who turned it into a Hogarth museum and preserved it to the nation.
From such records of him as survive, Hogarth appears to have been much what from his portrait one might suppose him to have been—a blue-eyed, honest, combative little man, thoroughly insular in his prejudices and antipathies, fond of flattery, sensitive like most satirists, a good friend, an intractable enemy, ambitious, as he somewhere says, in all things to be singular, and not always accurately estimating the extent of his powers. With the art connoisseurship of his day he was wholly at war, because, as he believed, it favoured foreign mediocrity at the expense of native talent; and in the heat of argument he would probably, as he admits, often come “to utter blasphemous expressions against the divinity even of Raphael Urbino, Correggio and Michelangelo.” But it was rather against the third-rate copies of third-rate artists—the “ship-loads of dead Christs, Holy Families and Madonnas”—that his indignation was directed; and in speaking of his attitude with regard to the great masters of art, it is well to remember his words to Mrs Piozzi:—“The connoisseurs and I are at war, you know; and because I hate them, they think I hate Titian—and let them!”
But no doubt it was in a measure owing to this hostile attitude of his towards the all-powerful picture-brokers that his contemporaries failed to recognize adequately his merits as a painter, and persisted in regarding him as an ingenious humorist alone. Time has reversed that unjust sentence. He is now held to have been a splendid painter, pure and harmonious in his colouring, wonderfully dexterous and direct in his handling, and in his composition leaving little or nothing to be desired. As an engraver his work is more conspicuous for its vigour, spirit and intelligibility than for finish and beauty of line. He desired that it should tell its own tale plainly, and bear the distinct impress of his individuality, and in this he thoroughly succeeded. As a draughtsman his skill has sometimes been debated, and his work at times undoubtedly bears marks of haste, and even carelessness. If, however, he is judged by his best instead of his worst, he will not be found wanting in this respect. But it is not after all as a draughtsman, an engraver or a painter that he claims his unique position among English artists—it is as a humorist and a satirist upon canvas. Regarded in this light he has never been equalled, whether for his vigour of realism and dramatic power, his fancy and invention in the decoration of his story, or his merciless anatomy and exposure of folly and wickedness. If we regard him—as he loved to regard himself—as “author” rather than “artist,” his place is with the great masters of literature—with the Thackerays and Fieldings, the Cervantes and Molières.
Authorities.—The main body of Hogarth literature is to be found in the autobiographical Memoranda published by John Ireland in 1798, and in the successive Anecdotes of the antiquary John Nichols. Much minute information has also been collected in F. G. Stephens’s Catalogue of the Satirical Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. But a copious bibliography of books, pamphlets, &c., relating to Hogarth, together with detailed catalogues of his paintings and prints, will be found in the Memoir of Hogarth by Austin Dobson. First issued in 1879, this was reprinted and expanded in 1891, 1897, 1902 and finally in 1907. Pictures by Hogarth from private collections are constantly to be found at the annual exhibitions of the Old Masters at Burlington House; but most of the best-known works have permanent homes in public galleries. “Marriage à la mode.” “Sigismunda,” “Lavinia Fenton,” the “Shrimp Girl,” the “Gate of Calais,” the portraits of himself, his sister and his servants, are all in the National Gallery; the “Rake’s Progress” and the Election Series, in the Soane Museum; and the “March to Finchley” and “Captain Coram” in the Foundling. There are also notable pictures in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge and the National Portrait Gallery. At the Print Room in the British Museum there is also a very interesting set of sixteen designs for the series called “Industry and Idleness,” the majority of which formerly belonged to Horace Walpole.
HOGG, JAMES (1770-1835), Scottish poet, known as the “Ettrick Shepherd,” was baptized at Ettrick in Selkirkshire on the 9th of December 1770. His ancestors had been shepherds for centuries. He received hardly any school training, and seems to have had difficulty in getting books to read. After spending his early years herding sheep for different masters, he was engaged as shepherd by Mr Laidlaw, tenant of Blackhouse, in the parish of Yarrow, from 1790 till 1799. He was treated with great kindness, and had access to a large collection of books. When this was exhausted he subscribed to a circulating library in Peebles. While attending to his flock, he spent a great deal of time in reading. He profited by the company of his master’s sons, of whom William Laidlaw is known as the friend of Scott and the author of Lucy’s Flittin’. Hogg’s first printed piece was “The Mistakes of a Night” in the Scots Magazine for October 1794, and in 1801 he published his Scottish Pastorals. In 1802 Hogg became acquainted with Sir Walter Scott, who was then collecting materials for his Border Minstrelsy. On Scott’s recommendation Constable published Hogg’s miscellaneous poems (The Mountain Bard) in 1807. By this work, and by The Shepherd’s Guide, being a Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Sheep, Hogg realized about £300. With this money he unfortunately embarked in farming in Dumfriesshire, and in three years was utterly ruined, having to abandon all his effects to his creditors. He returned to Ettrick, only to find that he could not even obtain employment as a shepherd; so he set off in February 1810 to push his fortune in Edinburgh as a literary adventurer. In the same year he published a collection of songs, The Forest Minstrel, to which he was the largest contributor. This book, being dedicated to the countess of Dalkeith (afterwards duchess of Buccleuch), and recommended to her notice by Scott, was rewarded with a present of 100 guineas. He then began a weekly periodical, The Spy, which he continued from September 1810 till August 1811. The appearance of The Queen’s Wake in 1813 established Hogg’s reputation as a poet; Byron recommended it to John Murray, who brought out an English edition. The scene of the poem is laid in 1561; the queen is Mary Stuart; and the “wake” provides a simple framework for seventeen poems sung by rival bards. It was followed by the Pilgrims of the Sun (1815), and Mador of the Moor (1816). The duchess of Buccleuch, on her death-bed (1814), had asked her husband to do something for the Ettrick bard; and the duke gave him a lease for life of the farm of Altrive in Yarrow, consisting of about 70 acres of moorland, on which the poet built a house and spent the last years of his life. In order to obtain money to stock his farm Hogg asked various poets to contribute to a volume of verse which should be a kind of poetic “benefit” for himself. Failing in his applications he wrote a volume of parodies, published in 1816, as The Poetic Mirror, or the Living Bards of Great Britain. He took possession of his farm in 1817; but his literary exertions were never relaxed. Before 1820 he had written the prose tales of The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818) and two volumes of Winter Evening Tales (1820), besides collecting, editing and writing part of two volumes of The Jacobite Relics of Scotland (1819-1821), and contributing largely to Blackwood’s Magazine. “The Chaldee MS.,” which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine (October 1817), and gave such offence that it was immediately withdrawn, was largely Hogg’s work.
In 1820 he married Margaret Phillips, a lady of a good Annandale family, and found himself possessed of about £1000, a good house and a well-stocked farm. Hogg’s connexion with Blackwood’s Magazine kept him continually before the public; his contributions, which include the best of his prose works, were collected in the Shepherd’s Calendar (1829). The wit and mischief of some of his literary friends made free with his name as the “Shepherd” of the Noctes Ambrosianae, and represented him in ludicrous and grotesque aspects; but the effect of the whole was favourable to his popularity. “Whatever may be the merits of the picture of the Shepherd [in the Noctes Ambrosianae]—and no one will deny its power and genius,” writes Professor Veitch—“it is true, all the same, that this Shepherd was not the Shepherd of Ettrick or the man James Hogg. He was neither a Socrates nor a Falstaff, neither to be credited 570 with the wisdom and lofty idealizings of the one, nor with the characteristic humour and coarseness of the other.” The Three Perils of Woman (1820), and The Three Perils of Man (1822), were followed in 1825 by an epic poem, Queen Hynde, which was unfavourably received. He visited London in 1832, and was much lionized. On his return a public dinner was given to him in Peebles,—Professor Wilson in the chair,—and he acknowledged that he had at last “found fame.” His health, however, was seriously impaired. With his pen in his hand to the last, Hogg in 1834 published a volume of Lay Sermons, and The Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott, a book which Lockhart regarded as an infringement on his rights. In 1835 appeared three volumes of Tales of the Wars of Montrose. Hogg died on the 21st of November 1835, and was buried in the churchyard of his native parish Ettrick. His fame had seemed to fill the whole district, and was brightest at its close; his presence was associated with all the border sports and festivities; and as a man James Hogg was ever frank, joyous and charitable. It is mainly as a great peasant poet that he lives in literature. Some of his lyrics and minor poems—his “Skylark,” “When the Kye comes Hame,” his verses on the “Comet” and “Evening Star,” and his “Address to Lady Ann Scott”—are exquisite. The Queen’s Wake unites his characteristic excellences—his command of the old romantic ballad style, his graceful fairy mythology and his aerial flights of imagination. In the fairy story of Kilmeny in this work Hogg seems completely transformed; he is absorbed in the ideal and supernatural, and writes under direct and immediate inspiration.
See Hogg’s “Memoir of the Author’s Life, written by himself,” prefixed to the 3rd edition (1821) of The Mountain Bard, also Memorials of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, edited by his daughter, Mrs M. G. Garden (enlarged edition with preface by Professor Veitch, 1903), and Sir G. B. S. Douglas, James Hogg (1899) in the “Famous Scots” series; also The Poems of James Hogg, selected by William Wallace (1903). John Wilson (“Christopher North”) had a real affection for Hogg, but for some reason or other made no use of the materials placed in his hands for a biography of the poet. The memoir mentioned on the title-page of the Works (1838-1840) never appeared, and the memoir prefixed to the edition of Hogg’s works published by Blackie & Co. (1865) was written by the Rev. Thomas Thompson. See also Wilson’s Noctes Ambrosianae; Mrs Oliphant’s Annals of a Publishing House, vol. i. chap. vii.; Gilfillan’s First Gallery of Literary Portraits; Cunningham’s Biog. and Crit. Hist. of Lit.; and the general index to Blackwood’s Magazine. A collected edition of Hogg’s Tales appeared in 1837 in 6 vols., and a second in 1851; his Poetical Works were published in 1822, 1838-1840 and 1865-1866. For an admirable account of the social entertainments Hogg used to give in Edinburgh, see Memoir of Robert Chambers (1874), by Dr William Chambers, pp. 263-270.
HOGG, THOMAS JEFFERSON (1792-1862), English man of letters, was born at Norton, Durham, on the 24th of May 1792. He was educated at Durham grammar school and at University College, Oxford. Here he became the intimate friend of the poet Shelley, with whom in 1811 he was expelled from the university for refusing to disclaim connexion with the authorship of the pamphlet The Necessity for Atheism. He was then sent to study law at York, where he remained for six months. Hogg’s behaviour to Harriet Shelley interrupted his relations with her husband for some time, but in 1813 the friendship was renewed in London. In 1817 Hogg was called to the bar, and became later a revising barrister. In 1844 he inherited £2000 under Shelley’s will, and in 1855, in accordance with the wishes of the poet’s family, began to write Shelley’s biography. The first two volumes of it were published in 1858, but they proved to be far more an autobiography than a biography, and Shelley’s representatives refused Hogg further access to the materials necessary for its completion. Hogg died on the 27th of August 1862.
HOGMANAY, the name in Scotland and some parts of the north of England for New Year’s Eve, as also for the cake then given to the children. On the morning of the 31st of December the children in small bands go from door to door singing:
“Hogmanay
Trollolay
Gie’s o’ your white bread and nane o’ your grey”;
and begging for small gifts or alms. These usually take the form of an oaten cake. The derivation of the term has been much disputed. Cotgrave (1611) says: “It is the voice of the country folks begging small presents or New Year’s gifts ... an ancient term of rejoicing derived from the Druids, who were wont the first of each January to go into the woods, where, having sacrificed and banquetted together, they gathered mistletoe, esteeming it excellent to make beasts fruitful and most soverayne against all poyson.” And he connects the word, through such Norman French forms as hoguinané, with the old French aguilanneuf, which he explains as au gui-l’an-neuf, “to the mistletoe! the New Year!”—this being (on his interpretation) the Druidical salutation to the coming year as the revellers issued from the woods armed with boughs of mistletoe. But though this explanation may be accepted as containing the truth in referring the word to a French original, Cotgrave’s detailed etymology is now repudiated by scientific philologists, and the identical French aguilanneuf remains, like it, in obscurity.
HOGSHEAD, a cask for holding liquor or other commodities, such as tobacco, sugar, molasses, &c.; also a liquid measure of capacity, varying with the contents. As a measure for beer, cider, &c., it equals 54 gallons. A statute of Richard III. (1483) fixed the hogshead of wine at 63 wine-gallons, i.e. 52½ imperial gallons. The etymology of the word has been much discussed. According to Skeat, the origin is to be found in the name for a cask or liquid measure appearing in various forms in several Teutonic languages, in Dutch oxhooft (modern okshoofd), Dan. oxehoved, O. Swed. oxhufvod, &c. The word should therefore be “oxhead,” and “hogshead” is a mere corruption. It has been suggested that the name arose from the branding of such a measure with the head of an ox (see Notes and Queries, series iv. 2, 46, note by H. Tiedeman). The New English Dictionary does not attempt any explanation of the term, and takes “hogshead” as the original form, from which the forms in other languages have been corrupted. The earlier Dutch forms hukeshovet and hoekshoot are nearer to the English form, and, further, the Dutch for “ox” is os.
HOHENASPERG, an ancient fortress of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, 10 m. N. of Stuttgart, is situated on a conical hill, 1100 ft. high, overlooking the town of Asperg. It was formerly strongly fortified and was long the state prison of the kingdom of Württemberg. Among the many who have been interned here may be mentioned the notorious Jew financier, Joseph Süss-Oppenheimer (1692-1738) and the poet C. F. D. Schubart (1739-1791). It is now a reformatory. Hohenasperg originally belonged to the counts of Calw; it next passed to the counts palatine of Tübingen and from them was acquired in 1308 by Württemberg. In 1535 the fortifications were extended and strengthened, and in 1635 the town was taken by the Imperialists, who occupied it until 1649.
See Schön, Die Staatsgefangenen von Hohenasperg (Stuttgart, 1899); and Biffart, Geschichte der Württembergischen Feste Hohenasperg (Stuttgart, 1858).
HOHENFRIEDBERG, or Hohenfriedeberg, a village of Silesia, about 6 m. from the small town of Striegau. It gives its name to a battle (also called the battle of Striegau) in the War of the Austrian Succession, fought on the 3rd of June 1745 between the Prussians under Frederick the Great and the Austrians and Saxons commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine. In May the king, whose army had occupied extended winter quarters in Silesia, had drawn it together into a position about Neisse whence he could manœuvre against the Austrians, whether they invaded Silesia by Troppau or Glatz, or joined their allies (who, under the duke of Weissenfels, were on the upper Elbe), and made their advance on Schweidnitz, Breslau or Liegnitz. On the Austrians concentrating towards the Elbe, Frederick gradually drew his army north-westward along the edge of the mountain country until on the 1st of June it was near Schweidnitz. At that date the Austro-Saxons were advancing (very slowly owing to the poorness of the roads and the dilatoriness of the Saxon artillery train) from Waldenburg 571 and Landshut through the mountains, heading for Striegau. After a few minor skirmishes at the end of May, Frederick had made up his mind to offer no opposition to the passage of the Allies, but to fall upon them as they emerged, and the Prussian army was therefore kept concentrated out of sight, while only selected officers and patrols watched the debouches of the mountains. On the other hand the Allies had no intention of delivering battle, but meant only, on emerging from the mountains, to take up a suitable camping position and thence to interpose between Breslau and the king, believing that “the king was at his wits’ end, and, once the army really began its retreat on Breslau, there would be frightful consternation in its ranks.” But in fact, as even the coolest observers noticed, the Prussian army was in excellent spirits and eager for the “decisive affair” promised by the king. On the 3rd of June, watched by the invisible patrols, the Austrians and Saxons emerged from the hills at Hohenfriedberg with bands playing and colours flying. Their advanced guard of infantry and cavalry spread out into the plain, making for a line of hills spreading north-west from Striegau, where the army was to encamp. But the main body moved slowly, and at last Prince Charles and Weissenfels decided to put off the occupation of the line of hills till the morrow. The army bivouacked therefore in two separate wings, the Saxons (with a few Austrian regiments) between Günthersdorf and Pilgramshain, the Austrians near Hausdorf. They were about 70,000 strong, Frederick 65,000.
The king had made his arrangements in good time, aided by the enemy’s slowness, and in the evening he issued simple orders to move. About 9 P.M. the Prussians marched off from Alt-Jauernigk towards Striegau, the guns on the road, the infantry and cavalry, in long open columns of companies and squadrons, over the fields on either side—a night march well remembered by contrast with others as having been executed in perfect order. Meanwhile General Dumoulin, who commanded an advanced detachment between Striegau and Stanowitz, broke camp silently and moved into position below the hill north-west of Striegau, which was found to be occupied by Saxon light infantry outposts. The king’s orders were for Dumoulin and the right wing of the main army to deploy and advance towards Häslicht against the Saxons, and for the left wing infantry to prolong the line from the marsh to Günthersdorf, covered by the left-wing cavalry on the plain near Thomaswaldau. On the side of the Austrians, the outlying hussars are said to have noticed and reported the king’s movement, for the night was clear and starlit, but their report, if made, was ignored.
At 4 A.M. Dumoulin advanced on Pilgramshain, neglecting the fire of the Saxon outpost on the Spitzberg, whereupon this promptly retired in order to avoid being surrounded. Dumoulin then posted artillery on the slope of the hill and deployed his six grenadier battalions facing the village. The leading cavalry of the main army came up and deployed on Dumoulin’s left front in open rolling ground. Meantime the duke of Weissenfels had improvised a line of defence, posting his infantry in the marshy ground and about Pilgramshain, and his cavalry, partly in front of Pilgramshain and partly on the intervening space, opposite that of the Prussians. But before the marshy ground was effectively occupied by the duke’s infantry, his cavalry had been first shaken by the fire of Dumoulin’s guns on the Spitzberg and a heavy battery that was brought up on to the Gräbener Fuchsberg, and then charged by the Prussian right-wing cavalry, and in the mêlée the Allies were gradually driven in confusion off the battlefield. The cavalry battle was ended by 6.30 A.M., by which time Dumoulin’s grenadiers, stiffened by the line regiment Anhalt (the “Old Dessauer’s” own), were vigorously attacking the garden hedges and walls of Pilgramshain, and the Saxon and Austrian infantry in the marsh was being attacked by Prince Dietrich of Dessau with the right wing of the king’s infantry. The line infantry of those days, however, did not work easily in bad ground, and the Saxons were steady and well drilled. After an hour’s fight, well supported by the guns and continually reinforced as the rest of the army closed up, the prince expelled the enemy from the marsh, while Dumoulin drove the light troops out of Pilgramshain. By 7 A.M. the Saxons, forming the left wing of the allied army, were in full retreat.
While his allies were being defeated, Prince Charles of Lorraine had done nothing, believing that the cannonade was merely an outpost affair for the possession of the Spitzberg. His generals indeed had drawn out their respective commands in order of battle, the infantry south of Günthersdorf, the cavalry near Thomaswaldau, but they had no authority to advance without orders, and stood inactive, while, 1 m. away, the Prussian columns were defiling over the Striegau Water. This phase of the king’s advance was the most delicate of all, and the moment that he heard from Prince Dietrich that the marsh was captured he stopped the northward flow of his battalions and swung them westward, the left wing cavalry having to cover their deployment. But when one-third of this cavalry only had crossed at Teichau the bridge broke. For a time the advanced squadrons were in great danger. But they charged boldly, and a disjointed cavalry battle began, during which (Ziethen’s hussars having discovered a ford) the rest of the left-wing cavalry was able to cross. At last 25 intact squadrons under Lieut.-General von Nassau charged and drove the Austrians in disorder towards Hohenfriedberg. This action was the more creditable to the victors in that 45 squadrons in 3 separate fractions defeated a mass of 60 squadrons that stood already deployed to meet them.
Meanwhile the Prussian infantry columns of the centre and left had crossed Striegau Water and deployed to their left, and by 8.30 they were advancing on Günthersdorf and the Austrian infantry south of that place. Frederick’s purpose was to roll up the enemy from their inner flank, and while Prince Dietrich, with most of the troops that had forced the Saxons out of the marsh, pursued Weissenfels, two regiments of his and one of Dumoulin’s were brought over to the left wing and sent against the north side of Günthersdorf. In the course of the general forward movement, which was made in what was for those days a very irregular line, a wide gap opened up between the centre and left, behind which 10 squadrons of the Bayreuth dragoon regiment, with Lieut.-General von Gessler, took up their position. Thus the line advanced. The grenadiers on the extreme left cleared Thomaswaldau, and their fire galled the Austrian squadrons engaged in the cavalry battle to the south. Then Günthersdorf, attacked on three sides, was also evacuated by the enemy. But although Frederick rode back from the front saying “the battle is won,” the Prussian infantry, in spite 572 of its superior fire discipline, failed for some time to master the defence, and suffered heavily from the eight close-range volleys they received, one or two regiments losing 40 and 50% of their strength. The Austrians, however, suffered still more; feeling themselves isolated in the midst of the victorious enemy, they began to waver, and at the psychological moment Gessler and the Bayreuth dragoons charged into their ranks and “broke the equilibrium.” These 1500 sabres scattered twenty battalions of the enemy and brought in 2500 prisoners and 66 Austrian colours, and in this astounding charge they themselves lost no more than 94 men. By nine o’clock the battle was over, and the wrecks of the Austro-Saxon army were retreating to the mountains. The Prussians, who had been marching all night, were too far spent to pursue.
The loss of the allies was in all 15,224, 7985 killed and wounded, and 7239 prisoners, as well as 72 guns and 83 standards and colours. The Prussians lost 4666 killed and wounded, 71 missing.
HOHENHEIM, a village of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, 7 m. S. of Stuttgart by rail. Pop. 300. It came in 1768 from the counts of Hohenheim to the dukes of Württemberg, and in 1785 Duke Karl Eugen built a country house here. This house with grounds is now the seat of the most important agricultural college in Germany; it was founded in 1817, was raised to the position of a high school in 1865, and now ranks as a technical high school with university status.
See Fröhlich, Das Schloss und die Akademie Hohenheim (Stuttgart, 1870).
HOHENLIMBURG, a town of Germany, on the Lenne, in the Prussian prov. of Westphalia, 30 m. by rail S.E. of Dortmund. Pop. (1905) 12,790. It has two Evangelical churches, a Roman Catholic church and a synagogue. The town is the seat of various iron and metal industries, while dyeing, cloth-making and linen-weaving are also carried on here. It is the chief town of the county of Limburg, and formerly belonged to the counts of Limburg, a family which became extinct in 1508. Later it passed to the counts of Bentheim-Tecklenburg. The castle of Hohenlimburg, which overlooks the town, is now the residence of Prince Adolf of Bentheim-Tecklenburg.
HOHENLOHE, a German princely family which took its name from the district of Hohenlohe in Franconia. At first a countship, its two branches were raised to the rank of principalities of the Empire in 1744 and 1764 respectively; in 1806 they lost their independence and their lands now form part of the kingdoms of Bavaria and of Württemberg. At the time of the mediatization the area of Hohenlohe was 680 sq. m. and its estimated population was 108,000. The family is first mentioned in the 12th century as possessing the castle of Hohenloch, or Hohenlohe, near Uffenheim, and its influence was soon perceptible in several of the Franconian valleys, including those of the Kocher, the Jagst and the Tauber. Henry I. (d. 1183) was the first to take the title of count of Hohenlohe, and in 1230 his grandsons, Gottfried and Conrad, supporters of the emperor Frederick II., founded the lines of Hohenlohe-Hohenlohe and Hohenlohe-Brauneck, names taken from their respective castles. The latter became extinct in 1390, its lands passing later to Brandenburg, while the former was divided into several branches, only two of which, however, Hohenlohe-Weikersheim and Hohenlohe-Uffenheim-Speckfeld, need be mentioned here. Hohenlohe-Weikersheim, descended from Count Kraft I. (d. 1313), also underwent several divisions, that which took place after the deaths of Counts Albert and George in 1551 being specially important. At this time the lines of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein and Hohenlohe-Waldenburg were founded by the sons of Count George. Meanwhile, in 1412, the family of Hohenlohe-Uffenheim-Speckfeld had become extinct, and its lands had passed through the marriages of its heiresses into other families.
The existing branches of the Hohenlohe family are descended from the lines of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein and Hohenlohe-Waldenburg, established in 1551. The former of these became Protestant, while the latter remained Catholic. Of the family of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, which underwent several partitions and inherited Gleichen in 1631, the senior line became extinct in 1805, while in 1701 the junior line divided itself into three branches, those of Langenburg, Ingelfingen and Kirchberg. Kirchberg died out in 1861, but members of the families of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen are still alive, the latter being represented by the branches of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and Hohenlohe-Öhringen. The Roman Catholic family of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg was soon divided into three branches, but two of these had died out by 1729. The surviving branch, that of Schillingsfürst, was divided into the lines of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst and Hohenlohe-Bartenstein; other divisions followed, and the four existing lines of this branch of the family are those of Waldenburg, Schillingsfürst, Jagstberg and Bartenstein. The family of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst possesses the duchies of Ratibor and of Corbie inherited in 1824.
The principal members of the family are dealt with below.
I. Friedrich Ludwig, prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1746-1818), Prussian general, was the eldest son of Prince Johann Friedrich (d. 1796) of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, and began his military career as a boy, serving against the Prussians in the last years of the Seven Years’ War. Entering the Prussian army after the peace (1768), he was on account of his rank at once made major, and in 1775 he became lieutenant-colonel; in 1778 he took part in the War of the Bavarian Succession and about the same time was made a colonel. Shortly before the death of Frederick the Great he was promoted to the rank of major-general and appointed chief of a regiment. For some years the prince did garrison duty at Breslau, until in 1791 he was made governor of Berlin. In 1794 he commanded a corps in the Prussian army on the Rhine and distinguished himself greatly in many engagements, particularly in the battle of Kaiserslautern on the 20th of September. He was at this time the most popular soldier in the Prussian army. Blücher wrote of him that “he was a leader of whom the Prussian army might well be proud.” He succeeded his father in the principality, and acquired additional lands by his marriage with a daughter of Count von Hoym. In 1806 Hohenlohe, now a general of infantry, was appointed to command the left-wing army of the Prussian forces opposing Napoleon, having under him Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia; but, feeling that his career had been that of a prince and not that of a scientific soldier, he allowed his quartermaster-general Massenbach to influence him unduly. Disputes soon broke out between Hohenlohe and the commander-in-chief, the duke of Brunswick, the armies marched hither and thither without effective results, and finally Hohenlohe’s army was almost destroyed by Napoleon at Jena (see Napoleonic Campaigns). The prince displayed his usual personal bravery in the battle, and managed to rally a portion of his corps near Erfurt, whence he retired into Prussia. But the pursuers followed him up closely, and, still acting under Massenbach’s advice, he surrendered the remnant of his army at Prenzlau on the 28th of October, a fortnight after Jena and three weeks after the beginning of hostilities. Hohenlohe’s former popularity and influence in the army had now the worst possible effect, for the commandants of garrisons everywhere lost heart and followed his example. After two years spent as a prisoner of war in France Hohenlohe retired to his estates, living in self-imposed obscurity until his death on the 15th of February 1818. He had, in August 1806, just before the outbreak of the French War, resigned the principality to his eldest son, not being willing to become a “mediatized” ruler under Württemberg suzerainty.
II. Ludwig Aloysius, prince of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Bartenstein (1765-1829), marshal and peer of France, was born on the 18th of August 1765. In 1784 he entered the service of the Palatinate, which he quitted in 1792 in order to take the command of a regiment raised by his father for the service of the emigrant princes of France. He greatly distinguished himself under Condé in the campaigns of 1792-1793, especially at the storming of the lines of Weissenburg. Subsequently he entered the service of Holland, and, when almost surrounded by the army of General Pichegru, conducted a masterly retreat from the island of Bommel. From 1794 to 1799 he served as 573 colonel in the Austrian campaigns; in 1799 he was named major-general by the archduke Charles; and after obtaining the rank of lieutenant-general he was appointed by the emperor governor of the two Galicias. Napoleon offered to restore to him his principality on condition that he adhered to the confederation of the Rhine, but as he refused, it was united to Württemberg. After Napoleon’s fall in 1814 he entered the French service, and in 1815 he held the command of a regiment raised by himself, with which he took part in the Spanish campaign of 1823. In 1827 he was created marshal and peer of France. He died at Lunéville on the 30th of May 1829.
III. Alexander Leopold Franz Emmerich, prince of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (1794-1849), priest and reputed miracle-worker, was born at Kupferzell, near Waldenburg, on the 17th of August 1794. By his mother, the daughter of an Hungarian nobleman, he was from infancy destined for the church; and she entrusted his early education to the ex-Jesuit Riel. In 1804 he entered the “Theresianum” at Vienna, in 1808 the academy at Bern, in 1810 the archiepiscopal seminary at Vienna, and afterwards he studied at Tyrnau and Ellwangen. He was ordained priest in 1815, and in the following year he went to Rome, where he entered the society of the “Fathers of the Sacred Heart.” Subsequently, at Munich and Bamberg, he was blamed for Jesuit and obscurantist tendencies, but obtained considerable reputation as a preacher. His first co-called miraculous cure was effected, in conjunction with a peasant, Martin Michel, on a princess of Schwarzenberg who had been for some years paralytic. Immediately he acquired such fame as a performer of miraculous cures that multitudes from various countries flocked to partake of the beneficial influence of his supposed supernatural gifts. Ultimately, on account of the interference of the authorities with his operations, he went in 1821 to Vienna and then to Hungary, where he became canon at Grosswardein and in 1844 titular bishop of Sardica. He died at Vöslau near Vienna on the 17th of November 1849. He was the author of a number of ascetic and controversial writings, which were collected and published in one edition by S. Brunner in 1851.
IV. Kraft, prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1827-1892), soldier and military writer, son of Prince Adolf of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1797-1873), was born at Koschentin in Upper Silesia. He was a nephew of the Prince Hohenlohe noticed above, who commanded the Prussians at Jena. Educated with great rigour, owing to the impoverishment of the family estates during the Napoleonic wars, he was sent into the Prussian army, and commissioned to the artillery at the least expensive arm of the service. He joined the Prussian Guard artillery in 1845, and it was soon discovered that he had unusual aptitudes as an artillery officer. For a time his brother officers resented the presence of a prince, until it was found that he made no attempt to use his social position to secure advancement. After serving as a military attaché in Vienna and on the Transylvanian frontier during the Crimean War, he was made a captain on the general staff, and in 1856 personal aide-de-camp to the king, remaining, however, in close touch with the artillery. In 1864, having become in the meanwhile successively major and lieut.-colonel, he resigned the staff appointments to become commander of the new Guard Field Artillery regiment and in the following year he became colonel. In 1866 he saw his first real active service. In the bold advance of the Guard corps on the Austrian right wing at Königgratz (see Seven Weeks’ War), he led the Guard reserve artillery with the greatest dash and success, and after the short war ended he turned his energies, now fortified by experience, to the better tactical training of the Prussian artillery. In 1868 he was made a major-general and assigned to command the Guard artillery brigade. In this capacity he gained great distinction during the Franco-German war and especially at Gravelotte and Sedan; he was in control of the artillery attack on the fortifications of Paris. In 1873 he was placed in command of an infantry division, and three years later was promoted lieutenant-general. He retired in 1879, was made general of infantry in 1883 and general of artillery in 1889. His military writings were numerous, and amongst them several have become classics. These are Briefe über Artillerie (Eng. trans. Letters on Artillery, 1887); Briefe über Strategie (1877; Eng. trans. Letters on Strategy, 1898); and Gespräche über Reiterei (1887; Eng. trans. Conversations on Cavalry). The Briefe über Infanterie and Briefe über Kavallerie (translated into English, Letters on Infantry, Letters on Cavalry, 1889) are of less importance, though interesting as a reflection of prevailing German ideas. His memoirs (Aus meinem Leben) were prepared in retirement near Dresden, and the first volume (1897) created such a sensation that eight years were allowed to elapse before the publication was continued. Prince Kraft died near Dresden on the 16th of January 1892.
V. Chlodwig Karl Victor, prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1819-1901), statesman, was born on the 31st of March 1819 at Schillingsfürst in Bavaria. His father, Prince Franz Joseph (1787-1841), was a Catholic, his mother, Princess Konstanze of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a Protestant. In accordance with the compromise customary at the time, Prince Chlodwig and his brothers were brought up in the religion of their father, while his sisters followed that of their mother. In spite of the difference of creed the family was very united, and it was to the spirit that rendered this possible that the prince owed his liberal and tolerant point of view, which was to exercise an important influence on his political activity. As the younger son of a cadet line of his house it was necessary for Prince Chlodwig to follow a profession. For a while he thought of obtaining a commission in the British army through the influence of his aunt, Princess Feodora of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (née princess of Leiningen), Queen Victoria’s half-sister. He decided, however, to enter the Prussian diplomatic service. His application to be excused the preliminary steps, which involved several years’ work in subordinate positions in the Prussian civil service, was refused by Frederick William IV., and the prince, with great good sense, decided to sacrifice his pride of rank and to accept the king’s conditions. As auscultator in the courts at Coblenz he acquired a taste for jurisprudence, became a Referendar in September 1843, and after some months of travel in France, Switzerland and Italy went to Potsdam as a civil servant (May 13, 1844). These early years were invaluable, not only as giving him experience of practical affairs but as affording him an insight into the strength and weakness of the Prussian system. The immediate result was to confirm his Liberalism. The Prussian principle of “propagating enlightenment with a stick” did not appeal to him; he “recognized the confusion and want of clear ideas in the highest circles,” the tendency to make agreement with the views of the government the test of loyalty to the state; and he noted in his journal (June 25, 1844) four years before the revolution of ’48, “a slight cause and we shall have a rising.” “The free press,” he notes on another occasion, “is a necessity, progress the condition of the existence of a state.” If he was an ardent advocate of German unity, and saw in Prussia the instrument for its attainment, he was throughout opposed to the “Prussification” of Germany, and ultimately it was he who made the unification of Germany possible by insisting at once on the principle of union with the North German states and at the same time on the preservation of the individuality of the states of the South.
On the 12th of November 1834 the landgrave Viktor Amadeus of Hesse-Rotenburg died, leaving to his nephews, the princes Viktor and Chlodwig Hohenlohe, his allodial estates: the duchy of Ratibor in Silesia, the principality of Corvey in Westphalia, and the lordship of Treffurt in the Prussian governmental district of Erfurt. On the death of Prince Franz Joseph on the 14th of January 1841 it was decided that the principality of Schillingsfürst should pass to the third brother, Philipp Ernst, as the two elder sons, Viktor and Chlodwig, were provided for already under their uncle’s will, the one with the duchy of Ratibor, the other with Corvey and Treffurt. The youngest son, Gustav (b. February 28, 1823), the future cardinal, was destined for the Church. On the death of Prince Philipp Ernst 574 (May 3, 1845) a new arrangement was made: Prince Chlodwig became prince of Schillingsfürst, while Corvey was assigned to the duke of Ratibor; Treffurt was subsequently sold by Prince Chlodwig, who purchased with the price large estates in Posen. This involved a complete change in Prince Chlodwig’s career. His new position as a “reigning” prince and hereditary member of the Bavarian Upper House was incompatible with that of a Prussian official. On the 18th of April 1846 he took his seat as a member of the Bavarian Reichsrath, and on the 26th of June received his formal discharge from the Prussian service.
Save for the interlude of 1848 the political life of Prince Hohenlohe was for the next eighteen years not eventful. During the revolutionary years his sympathies were with the Liberal idea of a united Germany, and he compromised his chances of favour from the king of Bavaria by accepting the task (November 1, 1848) of announcing to the courts of Rome, Florence and Athens the accession to office of the Archduke John of Austria as regent of Germany. But he was too shrewd an observer to hope much from a national parliament which “wasted time in idle babble,” or from a democratic victory which had stunned but not destroyed the German military powers. On the 16th of February 1847 he had married the Princess Marie of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, the heiress to vast estates in Russia.1 This led to a prolonged visit to Werki in Lithuania (1851-1853) in connexion with the management of the property, a visit repeated in 1860. In general this period of Hohenlohe’s life was occupied in the management of his estates, in the sessions of the Bavarian Reichsrath and in travels. In 1856 he visited Rome, during which he noted the baneful influence of the Jesuits. In 1859 he was studying the political situation at Berlin, and in the same year he paid a visit to England. The marriage of his brother Konstantin in 1859 to another princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg led also to frequent visits to Vienna. Thus Prince Hohenlohe was brought into close touch with all the most notable people in Europe. At the same time, during this period (1850-1866) he was endeavouring to get into relations with the Bavarian government, with a view to taking a more active part in affairs. Towards the German question his attitude at this time was tentative. He had little hope of a practical realization of a united Germany, and inclined towards the tripartite divisions under Austria, Prussia and Bavaria—the so-called “Trias.” He attended the Fürstentag at Frankfort in 1863, and in the Schleswig-Holstein question was a supporter of the prince of Augustenburg. It was at this time that, at the request of Queen Victoria, he began to send her regular reports on the political condition of Germany.
Prince Hohenlohe’s importance in history, however, begins with the year 1866. In his opinion the war was a blessing. It had demonstrated the insignificance of the small and middle states, “a misfortune for the dynasties”—with whose feelings a mediatized prince could scarcely be expected to be over-sympathetic—but the best possible good fortune for the German nation. In the Bavarian Reichsrath Hohenlohe now began to make his voice heard in favour of a closer union with Prussia; clearly, if such a union were desirable, he was the man in every way best fitted to prepare the way for it. One of the main obstacles in the way was the temperament of Louis II. of Bavaria, whose ideas of kingship were very remote from those of the Hohenzollerns, whose pride revolted from any concession to Prussian superiority, and who—even during the crisis of 1866—was more absorbed in operas than in affairs of state. Fortunately Richard Wagner was a politician as well as a composer, and equally fortunately Hohenlohe was a man of culture capable of appreciating “the master’s” genius. It was Wagner, apparently, who persuaded the king to place Hohenlohe at the head of his government (Denkwürdigkeiten, i. 178, 211), and on the 31st of December 1866 the prince was duly appointed minister of the royal house and of foreign affairs and president of the council of ministers.
As head of the Bavarian government Hohenlohe’s principal task was to discover some basis for an effective union of the South German states with the North German Confederation, and during the three critical years of his tenure of office he was, next to Bismarck, the most important statesman in Germany. He carried out the reorganization of the Bavarian army on the Prussian model, brought about the military union of the southern states, and took a leading share in the creation of the customs parliament (Zollparlament), of which on the 28th of April 1868 he was elected a vice-president. During the agitation that arose in connexion with the summoning of the Vatican council Hohenlohe took up an attitude of strong opposition to the ultramontane position. In common with his brothers, the duke of Ratibor and the cardinal, he believed that the policy of Pius IX.—inspired by the Jesuits (that “devil’s society,” as he once called it)—of setting the Church in opposition to the modern State would prove ruinous to both, and that the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility, by raising the pronouncements of the Syllabus of 1864 into articles of faith, would commit the Church to this policy irrevocably. This view he embodied into a circular note to the Catholic powers (April 9, 1869), drawn up by Döllinger, inviting them to exercise the right of sending ambassadors to the council and to combine to prevent the definition of the dogma. The greater powers, however, were for one reason or another unwilling to intervene, and the only practical outcome of Hohenlohe’s action was that in Bavaria the powerful ultramontane party combined against him with the Bavarian “patriots” who accused him of bartering away Bavarian independence to Prussia. The combination was too strong for him; a bill which he brought in for curbing the influence of the Church over education was defeated, the elections of 1869 went against him, and in spite of the continued support of the king he was forced to resign (March 7, 1870).
Though out of office, his personal influence continued very great both at Munich and Berlin and had not a little to do with favourable terms of the treaty of the North German Confederation with Bavaria, which embodied his views, and with its acceptance by the Bavarian parliament.2 Elected a member of the German Reichstag, he was on the 23rd of March 1871 chosen one of its vice-presidents, and was instrumental in founding the new groups which took the name of the Liberal Imperial party (Liberale Reichspartei), the objects of which were to support the new empire, to secure its internal development on Liberal lines, and to oppose clerical aggression as represented by the Catholic Centre. Like the duke of Ratibor, Hohenlohe was from the first a strenuous supporter of Bismarck’s anti-papal policy, the main lines of which (prohibition of the Society of Jesus, &c.) he himself suggested. Though sympathizing with the motives of the Old Catholics, however, he realized that they were doomed to sink into a powerless sect, and did not join them, believing that the only hope for a reform of the Church lay in those who desired it remaining in her communion.3 In 1872 Bismarck proposed to appoint Cardinal Hohenlohe Prussian envoy at the Vatican, but his views were too much in harmony with those of his family, and the pope refused to receive him in this capacity.4
In 1873 Bismarck chose Prince Hohenlohe to succeed Count Harry Arnim as ambassador in Paris, where he remained for seven years. In 1878 he attended the congress of Berlin as third German representative, and in 1880, on the death of Bernhardt Ernst von Bülow (October 20), secretary of state for foreign affairs, he was called to Berlin as temporary head of the Foreign Office and representative of Bismarck during his 575 absence through illness. In 1885 he was chosen to succeed Manteuffel as governor of Alsace-Lorraine. In this capacity he had to carry out the coercive measures introduced by the chancellor in 1887-1888, though he largely disapproved of them;5 his conciliatory disposition, however, did much to reconcile the Alsace-Lorrainers to German rule. He remained at Strassburg till October 1894, when, at the urgent request of the emperor, he consented, in spite of his advanced years, to accept the chancellorship in succession to Caprivi. The events of his chancellorship belong to the general history of Germany (q.v.); as regards the inner history of this time the editor of his memoirs has very properly suppressed the greater part of the detailed comments which the prince left behind him. In general, during his term of office, the personality of the chancellor was less conspicuous in public affairs than in the ease of either of his predecessors. His appearances in the Prussian and German parliaments were rare, and great independence was left to the secretaries of state. What influence the tact and experience of Hohenlohe exercised behind the scenes on the masterful will and impulsive character of the emperor cannot as yet be generally known.
Prince Hohenlohe resigned the chancellorship on the 17th of October 1900, and died at Ragaz on the 6th of July 1901. On the 16th of February 1897 he had celebrated his golden wedding; on the 21st of December of the same year the princess died. There were six children of the marriage: Elizabeth (b. 1847); Stephanie (b. 1851); Philipp Ernst, reigning prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (b. 1853), who married Princess Charielée Ypsilanti; Albert (1857-1866); Moritz and Alexander, twins (b. 1862).
All other authorities for the life of Prince Hohenlohe have been superseded by the Denkwürdigkeiten (2 vols., Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1906). With the exception noted above these are singularly full and outspoken, the latter quality causing no little scandal in Germany and bringing down on Prince Alexander, who was responsible for their publication, the disfavour of the emperor. They form not only the record of a singularly full and varied life, but are invaluable to the historian for the wealth of material they contain and for appreciations of men and events by an observer who had the best opportunities for forming a judgment. The prince himself they reveal not only as a capable man of affairs, though falling short of greatness, but as a personality of singular charm, tenacious of his principles, tolerant, broad-minded, and possessed of a large measure of the saving grace of humour.
See generally A. F. Fischer, Geschichte des Hauses Hohenlohe (1866-1871); K. Weller, Hohenlohisches Urkundenbuch, 1153-1350 (Stuttgart, 1899-1901), and Geschichte des Hauses Hohenlohe (Stuttgart, 1904).
1 Through her mother, née Princess Stephanie Radziwill (d. 1832). Before Prince Wittgenstein’s death (1887) a new law had forbidden foreigners to hold land in Russia. Prince Hohenlohe appears, however, to have sold one of his wife’s estates and to have secured certain privileges from the Russian court for the rest.
2 Speech of December 30, 1870, in the Reichsrath. Denkwürdigkeiten, ii. 36.
3 “If I wished to leave the Church because of all the scandalous occurrences in the Catholic Church, I should have had to secede while studying Church history,” op. cit. ii. 92.
4 Dr Johann Friedrich (q.v.), afterwards one of the Old Catholic leaders, was his secretary at the time of the Vatican council, and supplied historical and theological material to the opposition bishops.
5 He protested against the passport system as likely to lead to a war with France, for which he preferred not to be responsible (Letter to Wilmowski, Denkw. ii. 433), but on the chancellor taking full responsibility consented to retain office.
HOHENSTAUFEN, the name of a village and ruined castle near Lorsch in Swabia, now in the kingdom of Württemberg, which gave its name to a celebrated Swabian family, members of which were emperors or German kings from 1138 to 1208, and again from 1214 to 1254. The earliest known ancestor was Frederick, count of Büren (d. 1094), whose son Frederick built a castle at Staufen, or Hohenstaufen, and called himself by this name. He was a firm supporter of the emperor Henry IV., who rewarded his fidelity by granting him the dukedom of Swabia in 1079, and giving him his daughter Agnes in marriage. In 1081 he remained in Germany as Henry’s representative, but only secured possession of Swabia after a struggle lasting twenty years. In 1105 Frederick was succeeded by his son Frederick II., called the One-eyed, who, together with his brother Conrad, afterwards the German king Conrad III., held south-west Germany for their uncle the emperor Henry V. Frederick inherited the estates of Henry V. in 1125, but failed to secure the throne, and took up an attitude of hostility towards the new emperor, Lothair the Saxon, who claimed some of the estates of the late emperor as crown property. A war broke out and ended in the complete submission of Frederick at Bamberg. He retained, however, his dukedom and estates. In 1138 Conrad of Hohenstaufen was elected German king, and was succeeded in 1152, not by his son but by his nephew Frederick Barbarossa, son of his brother Frederick (d. 1147). Conrad’s son Frederick inherited the duchy of Franconia which his father had received in 1115, and this was retained by the Hohenstaufen until the death of Duke Conrad II. in 1196. In 1152 Frederick received the duchy of Swabia from his cousin the German king Frederick I., and on his death in 1167 it passed successively to Frederick’s three sons Frederick, Conrad and Philip. The second Hohenstaufen emperor was Frederick Barbarossa’s son, Henry VI., after whose death a struggle for the throne took place between Henry’s brother Philip, duke of Swabia, and Otto of Brunswick, afterwards the emperor Otto IV. Regained for the Hohenstaufen by Henry’s son, Frederick II., in 1214, the German kingdom passed to his son, Conrad IV., and when Conrad’s son Conradin was beheaded in Italy in 1268, the male line of the Hohenstaufen became extinct. Daughters of Philip of Swabia married Ferdinand III., king of Castile and Leon, and Henry II., duke of Brabant, and a daughter of Conrad, brother of the emperor Frederick I., married into the family of Guelph. The castle of Hohenstaufen was destroyed in the 16th century during the Peasants’ War, and only a few fragments now remain.
See F. von Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen und ihrer Zeit (Leipzig, 1878); B. F. W. Zimmermann, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen (Stuttgart, 1st ed., 1838; 2nd ed., 1865); F. W. Schirrmacher, Die letzten Hohenstaufen (Göttingen, 1871).
HOHENSTEIN (Hohenstein-Ernstthal), a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the slopes of the Erzgebirge, and on the railway Reichenbach-Chemnitz, 12 m. N.E. of Zwickau. Pop. (1905) 13,903. Hohenstein possesses two fine Evangelical churches, a town hall, restored in 1876, and several monuments to famous men. The principal industries are the spinning and weaving of cotton, the manufacture of machines, stockings, gloves and woollen and silk fabrics, cotton printing and dyeing. Many of the inhabitants are also employed in the neighbouring copper and arsenic mines. Not far from Hohenstein there is a mineral spring, connected with which there are various kinds of baths. Hohenstein is the birthplace of the physicist G. H. von Schubert and of C. G. Schröter (1699-1782), one of the inventors of the pianoforte. Hohenstein consists of two towns, Hohenstein and Ernstthal, which were united in 1898.
Another place of the same name is a town in East Prussia. Pop. (1900) 2467. This Hohenstein, which was founded by the Teutonic Order in 1359, has a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, a synagogue and several educational establishments.
HOHENZOLLERN, the name of a castle which stood on the hill of Zollern about 1½ m. south of Hechingen, and gave its name to the family to which the present German emperor belongs. A vague tradition connects the house with the Colonna family of Rome, or the Colalto family of Lombardy; but one more definite unites the Hohenzollerns with the Burkhardingers, who were counts in Raetia during the early part of the 10th century, and two of whom became dukes of Swabia. Tassilo, a member of this family, is said to have built a castle at Zollern early in the 9th century; but the first historical mention of the name is in the Chronicon of a certain Berthold (d. 1088), who refers to Burkhard and Wezil, or Werner, of Zollern, or Zolorin. These men appear to have been counts of Zollern, and to have met their death in 1061. The family of Wezil died out in 1194, and the existing branches of the Hohenzollerns are descended from Burkhard and his son Frederick, whose eldest son, Frederick II., was in great favour with the German kings, Lothair the Saxon and Conrad III. Frederick II. died about 1145, and his son and successor, Frederick III., was a constant supporter of the Hohenstaufen. This count married Sophia, daughter and heiress of Conrad, burgrave of Nuremberg, and about 1192 he succeeded his father-in-law as burgrave, obtaining also some lands in Austria and Franconia. He died about 1200, and his sons, Conrad and Frederick, ruled their lands in common until 1227, when an important division took place. Conrad became burgrave of Nuremberg, and, receiving the lands which 576 had come into the family through his mother, founded the Franconian branch of the family, which became the more important of the two; while Frederick, receiving the county of Zollern and the older possessions of the family, was the ancestor of the Swabian branch.
Early in the 12th century Burkhard, a younger son of Frederick I., secured the county of Hohenberg, and this district remained in the possession of the Hohenzollerns until the death of Count Sigismund in 1486. Its rulers, however, with the exception of Count Albert II. (d. 1298), played an unimportant part in German history. Albert, who was a Minnesinger, was loyal to the declining fortunes of the Hohenstaufen, and afterwards supported his brother-in-law, Rudolph of Habsburg, in his efforts to obtain the German throne. He shared in the campaigns of Rudolph and fell in battle in 1298, during the struggle between Adolph of Nassau and Albert of Habsburg (afterwards King Albert I.). When this family became extinct in 1486 Hohenberg passed to the Habsburgs.
The Franconian branch of the Hohenzollerns was represented in 1227 by Conrad, burgrave of Nuremberg, whom the emperor Frederick II. appointed guardian of his son Henry, and administrator of Austria. After a short apostasy, during which he supported Henry Raspe, landgrave of Thuringia, Conrad returned to the side of the Hohenstaufen and aided Conrad IV. He died in 1261, when his son and successor, the burgrave Frederick III., had already obtained Bayreuth through his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Otto of Meran (d. 1234). Frederick took a leading part in German affairs, and it is interesting to note that he had a considerable share in securing the election of his uncle, Rudolph of Habsburg, as German king in 1273. He died in 1297 and was succeeded by his son, Frederick IV. This burgrave fought for King Albert I. in Thuringia, and supported Henry VII. in his efforts to secure Bohemia for his son John; but in 1314, forsaking his father’s policy, he favoured Louis, afterwards the emperor Louis IV., in his struggle with Frederick, duke of Austria, and by his conduct at the battle of Mühldorf in 1322 and elsewhere earned the designation of “saviour of the empire.” Frederick, however, did not neglect his hereditary lands. He did something for the maintenance of peace and the security of traders, gave corporate privileges to villages, and took the Jews under his protection. His services to Louis were rewarded in various ways, and, using part of his wealth to increase the area of his possessions, he bought the town and district of Ansbach in 1331. Dying in 1332, Frederick was succeeded by his son, John II., who, after one of his brothers had died and two others had entered the church, ruled his lands in common with his brother Albert. About 1338 John bought Culmbach and Plassenburg, and on the strength of a privilege granted to him in 1347 he seized many robber-fortresses and held the surrounding lands as imperial fiefs. In general he continued his father’s policy, and when he died in 1357 was succeeded by his son, Frederick V., who, after the death of his uncle Albert in 1361, became sole ruler of Nuremberg, Ansbach and Bayreuth. Frederick lived in close friendship with the emperor Charles IV., who formally invested him with Ansbach and Bayreuth and made him a prince of the empire in 1363. In spite of the troubled times in which he lived, Frederick was a successful ruler, and introduced a regular system of public finance into his lands. In 1397 he divided his territories between his sons John and Frederick, and died in the following year. His elder son, John III., who had married Margaret, a daughter of the emperor Charles IV., was frequently in the company of his brothers-in-law, the German kings Wenceslaus and Sigismund. He died without sons in 1420.
Since 1397 the office of burgrave of Nuremberg had been held by John’s brother, Frederick, who in 1415 received Brandenburg from King Sigismund, and became margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I. (q.v.). On his brother’s death in 1420 he reunited the lands of his branch of the family, but in 1427 he sold his rights as burgrave to the town of Nuremberg. The subsequent history of this branch of the Hohenzollerns is identified with that of Brandenburg from 1415 to 1701, and with that of Prussia since the latter date, as in this year the elector Frederick III. became king of Prussia. In 1871 William, the seventh king, took the title of German emperor. While the electorate of Brandenburg passed according to the rule of primogeniture, the Franconian possessions of the Hohenzollerns, Ansbach and Bayreuth, were given as appanages to younger sons, an arrangement which was confirmed by the dispositio Achillea of 1473. These principalities were ruled by the sons and descendants of the elector Albert Achilles from 1486 to 1603; and, after reverting to the elector of Brandenburg, by the descendants of the elector John George from 1603 to 1791. In 1791 Prince Charles Alexander (d. 1806), who had inherited both districts, sold his lands to Prussia.
The influence of the Swabian branch of the Hohenzollerns was weakened by several partitions of its lands; but early in the 16th century it rose to some eminence through Count Eitel Frederick II. (d. 1512), a friend and adviser of the emperor Maximilian I. Eitel received from this emperor the district of Haigerloch, and in 1534 his grandson Charles (d. 1576) was granted the counties of Sigmaringen and Vöhringen by the emperor Charles V. In 1576 the sons of Charles divided their lands, and founded three branches of the family, one of which is still flourishing. Eitel Frederick IV. took Hohenzollern with the title of Hohenzollern-Hechingen; Charles II. Sigmaringen and Vöhringen and the title of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; and Christopher took Haigerloch. Christopher’s family died out in 1634, but the remaining lines are of some importance. Count John George of Hohenzollern-Hechingen was made a prince in 1623, and John of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen soon received the same honour. In 1695 these two branches of the family entered conjointly into an agreement with Brandenburg, which provided that, in case of the extinction of either of the Swabian branches, the remaining branch should inherit its lands; and if both branches became extinct the principalities should revert to Brandenburg. During the 17th and 18th centuries and during the period of the Napoleonic wars the history of these lands was very similar to that of the other small estates of Germany. In consequence of the political troubles of 1848 Princes Frederick William of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Charles Anton of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen resigned their principalities, and accordingly these fell to the king of Prussia, who took possession on the 12th of March 1850. By a royal decree of the 20th of May following the title of “highness,” with the prerogatives of younger sons of the royal house, was conferred on the two princes. The proposal to raise Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1835-1905) to the Spanish throne in 1870 was the immediate cause of the war between France and Germany. In 1908 the head of this branch of the Hohenzollerns, the only one existing besides the imperial house, was Leopold’s son William (b. 1864), who, owing to the extinction of the family of Hohenzollern-Hechingen in 1869, was called simply prince of Hohenzollern. In 1866 Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was chosen prince of Rumania, becoming king in 1881.
The modern Prussian province of Hohenzollern is a long, narrow strip of territory bounded on the S.W. by Baden and in other directions by Württemberg. It was divided into two principalities, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern-Hechingen, until 1850, when these were united. They now form the government of Sigmaringen (q.v.).
The castle of Hohenzollern was destroyed in 1423, but it has been restored several times. Some remains of the old building may still be seen adjoining the present castle, which was built by King Frederick William IV.
See Monumenta Zollerana, edited by R. von Stillfried and T. Märker (Berlin, 1852-1890); Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hauses Hohenzollern, edited by E. Berner (Berlin, 1901 fol.); R. von Stillfried, Altertümer und Kunstdenkmale des erlauchten Hauses von Hohenzollern (Berlin, 1852-1867) and Stammtafeln des Gesamthauses Hohenzollern (Berlin, 1869); L. Schmid, Die älteste Geschichte des erlauchten Gesamthauses der königlichen und fürstlichen Hohenzollern (Tübingen, 1884-1888); E. Schwartz, Stammtafel des preussischen Königshauses (Breslau 577 1898); Hohenzollernsche Forschungen, Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Hohenzollern, edited by C. Meyer (Berlin, 1891-1902); Hohenzollern Jahrbuch, Forschungen und Abbildungen zur Geschichte der Hohenzollern in Brandenburg-Freussen, edited by Seidel (Leipzig, 1897-1903), and T. Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great (London, 1872-1873).
HOKKAIDO, the Japanese name for the northern division of the empire (Hoku = north, kai = sea, and do = road), including Yezo, the Kuriles and their adjacent islets.
HOKUSAI (1760-1849), the greatest of all the Japanese painters of the Popular School (Ukiyo-ye), was born at Yedo (Tōkyō) in the 9th month of the 10th year of the period Horeki, i.e. October-November 1760. He came of an artisan family, his father having been a mirror-maker, Nakajima Issai. After some practice as a wood-engraver he, at the age of eighteen, entered the studio of Katsugawa Shunshō, a painter and designer of colour-prints of considerable importance. His disregard for the artistic principles of his master caused his expulsion in 1785; and thereafter—although from time to time Hokusai studied various styles, including especially that of Shiba Gokan, from whom he gained some fragmentary knowledge of European methods—he kept his personal independence. For a time he lived in extreme poverty, and, although he must have gained sums for his work which might have secured him comfort, he remained poor, and to the end of his life proudly described himself as a peasant. He illustrated large numbers of books, of which the world-famous Mangwa, a pictorial encyclopaedia of Japanese life, appeared in fifteen volumes from 1812 to 1875. Of his colour-prints the “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” (the whole set consisting of forty-six prints) were made between 1823 and 1829; “Views of Famous Bridges” (11), “Waterfalls” (8), and “Views of the Lu-chu Islands” (8), are the best known of those issued in series; but Hokusai also designed some superb broadsheets published separately, and his surimono (small prints made for special occasions and ceremonies) are unequalled for delicacy and beauty. The “Hundred Views of Mount Fuji” (1834-1835), 3 vols., in monochrome, are of extraordinary originality and variety. As a painter and draughtsman Hokusai is not held by Japanese critics to be of the first rank, but this verdict has never been accepted by Europeans, who place him among the greatest artists of the world. He possessed great powers of observation and characterization, a singular technical skill, an unfailing gift of good humour, and untiring industry. He was an eager student to the end of his long life, and on his death-bed said, “If Heaven had lent me but five years more, I should have become a great painter.” He died on the 10th of May 1849.
See E. de Goncourt, Hokousaï (1896); M. Revon, Étude sur Hokusaï (1896); E. F. Fenollosa, Catalogue of the Exhibition of Paintings by Hokusai at Tōkyō (1901); E. F. Strange, Hokusai (1906).
HOLBACH, PAUL HEINRICH DIETRICH, Baron d’ (1723-1789), French philosopher and man of letters, of German origin, was born at Heidelsheim in the palatinate in 1723. Of his family little is known; according to J. J. Rousseau his father was a rich parvenu, who brought his son at an early age to Paris, where the latter spent most of his life. Much of Holbach’s fame is due to his intimate connexion with the brilliant coterie of bold thinkers and polished wits whose creed, the new philosophy, is concentrated in the famous Encyclopédie. Possessed of easy means and being of hospitable disposition, he kept open house for Helvétius, D’Alembert, Diderot, Condillac, Turgot, Buffon, Grimm, Hume, Garrick, Wilkes, Sterne, and for a time J. J. Rousseau, guests who, while enjoying the intellectual pleasure of their host’s conversation, were not insensible to his excellent cuisine and costly wines. For the Encyclopédie he compiled and translated a large number of articles on chemistry and mineralogy, chiefly from German sources. He attracted more attention, however, in the department of philosophy. In 1767 Christianisme dévoilé appeared, in which he attacked Christianity and religion as the source of all human evils. This was followed up by other works, and in 1770 by a still more open attack in his most famous book, Le Système de la nature, in which it is probable he was assisted by Diderot. Denying the existence of a deity, and refusing to admit as evidence all a priori arguments, Holbach saw in the universe nothing save matter in spontaneous movement. What men call their souls become extinct when the body dies. Happiness is the end of mankind. “It would be useless and almost unjust to insist upon a man’s being virtuous if he cannot be so without being unhappy. So long as vice renders him happy, he should love vice.” The restraints of religion were to be replaced by an education developing an enlightened self-interest. The study of science was to bring human desires into line with their natural surroundings. Not less direct and trenchant are his attacks on political government, which, interpreted by the light of after events, sound like the first distant mutterings of revolution. Holbach exposed the logical consequences of the theories of the Encyclopaedists. Voltaire hastily seized his pen to refute the philosophy of the Système in the article “Dieu” in his Dictionnaire philosophique, while Frederick the Great also drew up an answer to it. Though vigorous in thought and in some passages clear and eloquent, the style of the Système is diffuse and declamatory, and asserts rather than proves its statements. Its principles are summed up in a more popular form in Bon Sens, ou idées naturelles opposées aux idées surnaturelles (Amsterdam, 1772). In the Système social (1773), the Politique naturelle (1773-1774) and the Morale universelle (1776) Holbach attempts to rear a system of morality in place of the one he had so fiercely attacked, but these later writings had not a tithe of the popularity and influence of his earlier work. He published his books either anonymously or under borrowed names, and was forced to have them printed out of France. The uprightness and sincerity of his character won the friendship of many to whom his philosophy was repugnant. J. J. Rousseau is supposed to have drawn his portrait in the virtuous atheist Wolmar of the Nouvelle Héloïse. He died on the 21st of January 1789.
Holbach is also the author of the following and other works: Esprit du clergé (1767); De l’imposture sacerdotale (1767); Prêtres démasqués (1768); Examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de St Paul (1770); Histoire critique de Jésus-Christ (1770), and Ethocratie (1776). For further particulars as to his life and doctrines see Grimm’s Correspondance littéraire, &c. (1813); Rousseau’s Confessions; Morellet’s Mémoires (1821); Madame de Genlis, Les Dîners du Baron Holbach; Madame d’Épinay’s Mémoires; Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du Baron d’Holbach (1875), and Morley’s Diderot (1878).
HOLBEACH, a market town in the Holland or Spalding parliamentary division of Lincolnshire, England, on the Midland and Great Northern joint railway, 23½ m. N.E. of Peterborough. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4755. All Saints’ Church, with a lofty spire, is a fine specimen of late Decorated work. The grammar school, founded in 1669, occupies a building erected in 1877. Other public buildings are the assembly rooms and a market house. Roman and Saxon remains have been found, and the market dates from the 13th century.
HOLBEIN, HANS, the elder (c. 1460-1524), belonged to a celebrated family of painters in practice at Augsburg and Basel from the close of the 15th to the middle of the 16th century. Though closely connected with Venice by her commercial relations, and geographically nearer to Italy than to Flanders, Augsburg at the time of Maximilian cultivated art after the fashion of the Flemings, and felt the influence of the schools of Bruges and Brussels, which had branches at Cologne and in many cities about the headwaters of the Rhine. It was not till after the opening of the 16th century, and between that and the era of the Reformation, that Italian example mitigated to some extent the asperity of South German painting. Flemish and German art was first tempered with Italian elements at Augsburg by Hans Holbein the elder. Hans first appears at Augsburg as partner to his brother Sigismund, who survived him and died in 1540 at Berne. Sigismund is described as a painter, but his works have not come down to us. Hans had the lead of the partnership at Augsburg, and signed all the pictures which it produced. In common with Herlen, Schöngauer, and other masters of South Germany, he first cultivated a style 578 akin to that of Memlinc and other followers of the schools of Brussels and Bruges, but he probably modified the systems of those schools by studying the works of the masters of Cologne. As these early impressions waned, they were replaced by others less favourable to the expansion of the master’s fame; and as his custom increased between 1499 and 1506, we find him relying less upon the teaching of the schools than upon a mere observation and reproduction of the quaintnesses of local passion plays. Most of his early works indeed are taken from the Passion, and in these he obviously marshalled his figures with the shallow stage effect of the plays, copying their artificial system of grouping, careless to some extent of proportion in the human shape, heedless of any but the coarser forms of expression, and technically satisfied with the simplest methods of execution. If in any branch of his art he can be said to have had a conscience at this period, we should say that he showed it in his portrait drawings. It is seldom that we find a painted likeness worthy of the name. The drawings of which numbers are still preserved in the galleries of Basel, Berlin and Copenhagen show extraordinary quickness and delicacy of hand, and a wonderful facility for seizing character; and this happily is one of the features which Holbein bequeathed to his more famous son, Hans the younger. It is between 1512 and 1522 that Holbein tempered the German quality of his style with some North Italian elements. A purer taste and more pleasing realism mark his work, which in drapery, dress and tone is as much more agreeable to the eye as in respect of modelling and finish it is smoother and more carefully rounded. Costume, architecture, ornament and colour are applied with some knowledge of the higher canons of art. Here, too, advantage accrued to Hans the younger, whose independent career about this time began.
The date of the elder Holbein’s birth is unknown. But his name appears in the books of the tax-gatherers of Augsburg in 1494, superseding that of Michael Holbein, who is supposed to have been his father. Previous to that date, and as early as 1493, he was a painter of name, and he executed in that year, it is said, for the abbey at Weingarten, the wings of an altarpiece representing Joachim’s Offering, the Nativity of the Virgin, Mary’s Presentation in the Temple, and the Presentation of Christ, which now hang in separate panels in the cathedral of Augsburg. In these pieces and others of the same period, for instance in two Madonnas in the Moritz chapel and castle of Nuremberg, we mark the clear impress of the schools of Van der Weyden and Memlinc; whilst in later works, such as the Basilica of St Paul (1504) in the gallery of Augsburg, the wane of Flemish influence is apparent. But this altarpiece, with its quaint illustrations of St Paul’s life and martyrdom, is not alone of interest because its execution is characteristic of old Holbein. It is equally so because it contains portraits of the master himself, accompanied by his two sons, the painters Ambrose (c. 1494-c. 1519) and Hans the younger. Later pictures, such as the Passion series in the Fürstenberg gallery at Donaueschingen, or the Martyrdom of St Sebastian in the Munich Pinakothek, contain similar portraits, the original drawings of which are found in old Holbein’s sketch-book at Berlin, or in stray leaves like those possessed by the duke of Aumale in Paris. Not one of these fails to give us an insight into the character, or a reflex of the features, of the members of this celebrated family. Old Holbein seems to ape Leonardo, allowing his hair and beard to grow wildly, except on the upper lip. Hans the younger is a plain-looking boy. But his father points to him with his finger, and hints that though but a child he is clearly a prodigy.
After 1516 Hans Holbein the elder appears as a defaulter in the registers of the tax-gatherers at Augsburg; but he willingly accepts commissions abroad. At Issenheim in Alsace, where Grünewald was employed in 1516, old Holbein also finds patrons, and contracts to complete an altarpiece. But misfortune or a bailiff pursues him, and he leaves Issenheim, abandoning his work and tools. According to Sandrart, he wanders to Basel and takes the freedom of its gild. His brother Sigismund and others are found suing him for debt before the courts of Augsburg. Where he lived when he executed the altarpiece, of which two wings with the date of 1522 are in the gallery of Carlsruhe, is uncertain; where he died two years later is unknown. He slinks from ken at the close of a long life, and disappears at last heeded by none but his own son, who claims his brushes and paints from the monks of Issenheim without much chance of obtaining them. His name is struck off the books of the Augsburg gild in 1524.
The elder Holbein was a prolific artist, who left many pictures behind him. Earlier than the Basilica of St Paul, already mentioned, is the Basilica of St Mary Maggiore, and a Passion in eleven pieces, in the Augsburg gallery, both executed in 1499. Another Passion, with the root of Jesse and a tree of the Dominicans, is that preserved in the Staedel, Saalhof, and church of St Leonard at Frankfort. It was executed in 1501. The Passion of Donaueschingen was finished after 1502, in which year was completed the Passion of Kaisheim, a conglomerate of twenty-seven panels, now divided amongst the galleries of Munich, Nuremberg, Augsburg and Schleissheim. An altarpiece of the same class, commissioned for the monastery of St Moritz at Augsburg in 1504-1508, has been dispersed and lost. 1512 is the date of a Conception in the Augsburg gallery, long assigned, in consequence of a forged inscription, to Hans Holbein the younger. A diptych, with a Virgin and Child, and a portrait of an old man, dated 1513, came in separate parts into the collections of Mr Posonyi and Count Lanckoronski at Vienna. The sketch-books of Berlin, Copenhagen and Augsburg give a lively picture of the forms and dress of Augsburg residents at the beginning of the 16th century. They comprise portraits of the emperor Maximilian, the future Charles V., Kunz von der Rosen, the fool of Maximilian, the Fuggers, friars, merchants, and at rare intervals ladies.
See also the biography by Stödtner (Berlin, 1896).
HOLBEIN, HANS, the younger (1497-1543), German painter, favourite son of Hans Holbein the elder, was probably born at Augsburg about the year 1497. Though Sandrart and Van Mander declare that they do not know who gave him the first lessons, he doubtless received an artist’s education from his father. About 1515 he left Augsburg with Ambrose, his elder brother, to seek employment as an illustrator of books at Basel. His first patron is said to have been Erasmus, for whom, shortly after his arrival, he illustrated with pen-and-ink sketches an edition of the Encomium Moriae, now in the museum of Basel. But his chief occupation was that of drawing titlepage-blocks and initials for new editions of the Bible and classics issued from the presses of Froben and other publishers. His leisure hours, it is supposed, were devoted to the production of rough painter’s work, a schoolmaster’s sign in the Basel collection, a table with pictures of St Nobody in the library of the university at Zürich. In contrast with these coarse productions, the portraits of Jacob Meyer and his wife in the Basel museum, one of which purports to have been finished in 1516, are miracles of workmanship. It has always seemed difficult indeed to ascribe such excellent creations to Holbein’s nineteenth year; and it is hardly credible that he should have been asked to do things of this kind so early, especially when it is remembered that neither he nor his brother Ambrose were then allowed to matriculate in the guild of Basel. Not till 1517 did Ambrose, whose life otherwise remains obscure, join that corporation; Hans, not overburdened with practice, wandered into Switzerland, where (1517) he was employed to paint in the house of Jacob Hertenstein at Lucerne. In 1519 Holbein reappeared at Basel, where he matriculated and, there is every reason to think, married. Whether, previous to this time, he took advantage of his vicinity to the Italian border to cross the Alps is uncertain. Van Mander says that he never was in Italy; yet the large wall-paintings which he executed after 1519 at Basel, and the series of his sketches and pictures which is still extant, might lead to the belief that Van Mander was misinformed. The spirit of Holbein’s compositions for the Basel town hall, the scenery and architecture of his numerous drawings, and the cast of form in some of his imaginative portraits, make it more likely that he should have felt the direct influence of North Italian painting than that he should have taken Italian elements from imported works or prints. The Swiss at this period wandered in thousands to swell the ranks of the French or imperial armies fighting on Italian soil, and the road they took may have been followed by Hans on a more peaceful mission. He shows himself at all events familiar with Italian examples 579 at various periods of his career; and if we accept as early works the “Flagellation,” and the “Last Supper” at Basel, coarse as they are, they show some acquaintance with Lombard methods of painting, whilst in other pieces, such as the series of the Passion in oil in the same collection, the modes of Hans Holbein the elder are agreeably commingled with a more modern, it may be said Italian, polish. Again, looking at the “Virgin” and “Man of Sorrows” in the Basel museum, we shall be struck by a searching metallic style akin to that of the Ferrarese; and the “Lais” or the “Venus and Amor” of the same collection reminds us of the Leonardesques of the school of Milan. When Holbein settled down to an extensive practice at Basel in 1519, he decorated the walls of the house “Zum Tanz” with simulated architectural features of a florid character after the fashion of the Veronese; and his wall paintings in the town-hall, if we can truly judge of them by copies, reveal an artist not unfamiliar with North Italian composition, distribution, action, gesture and expression. In his drawings too, particularly in a set representing the Passion at Basel, the arrangement, and also the perspective, form and decorative ornament, are in the spirit of the school of Mantegna. Contemporary with these, however, and almost inexplicably in contrast with them as regards handling, are portrait-drawings such as the likenesses of Jacob Meyer, and his wife, which are finished with German delicacy, and with a power and subtlety of hand seldom rivalled in any school. Curiously enough, the same contrast may be observed between painted compositions and painted portraits. The “Bonifacius Amerbach” of 1519 at Basel is acknowledged to be one of the most complete examples of smooth and transparent handling that Holbein ever executed. His versatility at this period is shown by a dead Christ (1521), a corpse in profile on a dissecting table, and a set of figures in couples; the “Madonna and St Pantalus,” and “Kaiser Henry with the Empress Kunigunde” (1522), originally composed for the organ loft of the Basel cathedral, now in the Basel museum. Equally remarkable, but more attractive, though injured, is the “Virgin and Child between St Ursus and St Nicholas” (not St Martin) giving alms to a beggar, in the gallery of Solothurn. This remarkable picture is dated 1522, and seems to have been ordered for an altar in the minster of St Ursus of Solothurn by Nicholas Conrad, a captain and statesman of the 16th century, whose family allowed the precious heirloom to fall into decay in a chapel of the neighbouring village of Grenchen. Numerous drawings in the spirit of this picture, and probably of the same period in his career, might have led Holbein’s contemporaries to believe that he would make his mark in the annals of Basel as a model for painters of altarpieces as well as a model for pictorial composition and portrait. The promise which he gave at this time was immense. He was gaining a freedom in draughtsmanship that gave him facility to deal with any subject. Though a realist, he was sensible of the dignity and severity of religious painting. His colour had almost all the richness and sweetness of the Venetians. But he had fallen on evil times, as the next few years undoubtedly showed. Amongst the portraits which he executed in these years are those of Froben, the publisher, known only by copies at Basel and Hampton Court, and Erasmus, who sat in 1523, as he likewise did in 1530, in various positions, showing his face threequarters as at Longford, Basel, Turin, Parma, the Hague and Vienna, and in profile as in the Louvre or at Hampton Court. Besides these, Holbein made designs for glass windows, and for woodcuts, including subjects of every sort, from the Virgin and Child with saints of the old time to the Dance of Death, from gospel incidents extracted from Luther’s Bible to satirical pieces illustrating the sale of indulgences and other abuses denounced by Reformers. Holbein, in this way, was carried irresistibly with the stream of the Reformation, in which, it must now be admitted, the old traditions of religious painting were wrecked, leaving nothing behind but unpictorial elements which Cranach and his school vainly used for pictorial purposes.
Once only, after 1526, and after he had produced the “Lais” and “Venus and Amor,” did Holbein with impartial spirit give his services and pencil to the Roman Catholic cause. The burgomaster Meyer, whose patronage he had already enjoyed, now asked him to represent himself and his wives and children in prayer before the Virgin; and Holbein produced the celebrated altarpiece now in the palace of Prince William of Hesse at Darmstadt, the shape and composition of which are known to all the world by its copy in the Dresden museum. The drawings for this masterpiece are amongst the most precious relics in the museum of Basel. The time now came when art began to suffer from unavoidable depression in all countries north of the Alps. Holbein, at Basel, was reduced to accept the smallest commissions—even for scutcheons. Then he saw that his chances were dwindling to nothing, and taking a bold resolution, armed with letters of introduction from Erasmus to More, he crossed the Channel to England, where in the one-sided branch of portrait painting he found an endless circle of clients. Eighty-seven drawings by Holbein in Windsor Castle, containing an equal number of portraits, of persons chiefly of high quality, testify to his industry in the years which divide 1528 from 1543. They are all originals of pictures that are still extant, or sketches for pictures that were lost or never carried out. Sir Thomas More, with whom he seems to have had a very friendly connexion, sat to him for likenesses of various kinds. The drawing of his head is at Windsor. A pen-and-ink sketch, in which we see More surrounded by all the members of his family, is now in the gallery of Basel, and numerous copies of a picture from it prove how popular the lost original must once have been. At the same period were executed the portraits of Warham (Lambeth and Louvre), Wyatt (Louvre), Sir Henry Guildford and his wife (Windsor), all finished in 1527, the astronomer Nicholas Kratzer (Louvre), Thomas Godsalve (Dresden), and Sir Bryan Tuke (Munich) in 1528. In this year, 1528, Holbein returned to Basel, taking to Erasmus the sketch of More’s family. With money which he brought from London he purchased a house at Basel wherein to lodge his wife and children, whose portraits he now painted with all the care of a husband and father (1528). He then witnessed the flight of Erasmus and the fury of the iconoclasts, who destroyed in one day almost all the religious pictures at Basel. The municipality, unwilling that he should suffer again from the depression caused by evil times, asked him to finish the frescoes of the town-hall, and the sketches from these lost pictures are still before us to show that he had not lost the spirit of his earlier days, and was still capable as a composer. His “Rehoboam receiving the Israelite Envoys,” and “Saul at the Head of his Array meeting Samuel,” testify to Holbein’s power and his will, also proved at a later period by the “Triumphs of Riches and Poverty,” executed for the Steelyard in London (but now lost), to prefer the fame of a painter of history to that of a painter of portraits. But the reforming times still remained unfavourable to art. With the exception of a portrait of Melanchthon (Hanover) which he now completed, Holbein found little to do at Basel. The year 1530, therefore, saw him again on the move, and he landed in England for the second time with the prospect of bettering his fortunes. Here indeed political changes had robbed him of his earlier patrons. The circle of More and Warham was gone. But that of the merchants of the Steelyard took its place, for whom Holbein executed the long and important series of portraits that lie scattered throughout the galleries and collections of England and the Continent, and bear date after 1532. Then came again the chance of practice in more fashionable circles. In 1533 the “Ambassadors” (National Gallery), and the “Triumphs of Wealth and Poverty” were executed, then the portraits of Leland and Wyatt (Longford), and (1534) the portrait of Thomas Cromwell. Through Cromwell Holbein probably became attached to the court, in the pay of which he appears permanently after 1537. From that time onwards he was connected with all that was highest in the society of London. Henry VIII. invited him to make a family picture of himself, his father and family, which obtained a post of honour at Whitehall. The beautiful cartoon of a part of this fine piece at Hardwicke Hall enables us to gauge its beauty before the fire which destroyed it in the 17th century. Then Holbein painted Jane Seymour in state (Vienna), employing 580 some English hand perhaps to make the replicas at the Hague, Sion House and Woburn; he finished the Southwell of the Uffizi (copy at the Louvre), the jeweller Morett at Dresden, and last, not least, Christine of Denmark, who gave sittings at Brussels in 1538. During the journey which this work involved Holbein took the opportunity of revisiting Basel, where he made his appearance in silk and satin, and pro forma only accepted the office of town painter. He had been living long and continuously away from home, not indeed observing due fidelity to his wife, who still resided at Basel, but fairly performing the duties of keeping her in comfort. His return to London in autumn enabled him to do homage to the king in the way familiar to artists. He presented to Henry at Christmas a portrait of Prince Edward. Again abroad in the summer of 1539, he painted with great fidelity the princess Anne of Cleves, at Düren near Cologne, whose form we still see depicted in the great picture of the Louvre. That he could render the features of his sitter without flattery is plain from this one example. Indeed, habitual flattery was contrary to his habits. His portraits up to this time all display that uncommon facility for seizing character which his father enjoyed before him, and which he had inherited in an expanded form. No amount of labour, no laboriousness of finish—and of both he was ever prodigal—betrayed him into loss of resemblance or expression. No painter was ever quicker at noting peculiarities of physiognomy, and it may be observed that in none of his faces, as indeed in none of the faces one sees in nature, are the two sides alike. Yet he was not a child of the 16th century, as the Venetians were, in substituting touch for line. We must not look in his works for modulations of surface or subtle contrasts of colour in juxtaposition. His method was to the very last delicate, finished and smooth, as became a painter of the old school.
Amongst the more important creations of Holbein’s later time we should note his “Duke of Norfolk” at Windsor, the hands of which are so perfectly preserved as to compensate for the shrivel that now disfigures the head. Two other portraits of 1541 (Berlin and Vienna), the Falconer at the Hague, and John Chambers at Vienna (1542), are noble specimens of portrait art; most interesting and of the same year are the likenesses of Holbein himself, of which several examples are extant—one particularly good at Fähna, the seat of the Stackelberg family near Riga, and another at the Uffizi in Florence. Here Holbein appears to us as a man of regular features, with hair just turning grey, but healthy in colour and shape, and evidently well to do in the world. Yet a few months only separated him then from his death-bed. He was busy painting a picture of Henry the VIII. confirming the Privileges of the Barber Surgeons (Lincoln’s Inn Fields), when he sickened of the plague and died after making a will about November 1543. His loss must have been seriously felt in England. Had he lived his last years in Germany, he would not have changed the current which decided the fate of painting in that country; he would but have shared the fate of Dürer and others who merely prolonged the agony of art amidst the troubles of the Reformation.
The early authorities are Karel Van Mander’s Het Schilder Boek (1604), and J. von Sandrart, Accademia Todesca (1675). See also R. N. Wornum, Life and Work of Holbein (1867); H. Knackfuss, Holbein (1899); G. S. Davies, Holbein (1903); A. F. G. A. Woltmann, Holbein und seine Zeit (1876).
HOLBERG, LUDVIG HOLBERG, Baron (1684-1754), the great Scandinavian writer, was born at Bergen, in Norway, on the 3rd of December 1684. Both Holberg’s parents died in his childhood, his father first, leaving a considerable property; and in his eleventh year he lost his mother also. Before the latter event, however, the family had been seriously impoverished by a great fire, which destroyed several valuable buildings, but notwithstanding this, the mother left to each of her six children some little fortune. In 1695 the boy Holberg was taken into the house of his uncle, Peder Lem, who sent him to the Latin school, and prepared him for the profession of a soldier; but soon after this he was adopted by his cousin Otto Munthe, and went to him up in the mountains. His great desire for instruction, however, at last induced his family to send him back to Bergen, to his uncle, and there he remained, eagerly studying, until the destruction of that city by fire in 1702, when he was sent to the university of Copenhagen. But he soon exhausted his resources, and, having nothing to live upon, was glad to hurry back to Norway, where he accepted the position of tutor in the house of a rural dean at Voss. He soon returned to Copenhagen, where in 1704 he took his degree, and worked hard at French, English and Italian. But he had to gain his living, and accordingly he accepted the post of tutor once more, this time in the house of Dr Smith, vice-bishop of Bergen. The good doctor had travelled much, and the reading of his itineraries and note-books awakened such a longing for travel in the young Holberg that at last, at the close of 1704, having scraped together 60 dollars, he went on board a ship bound for Holland. He proceeded as far as Aix-la-Chapelle, where he fell sick of a fever, and suffered so much from weakness and poverty, that he made his way on foot to Amsterdam, and came back to Norway. Ashamed to be seen so soon in Bergen, he stopped at Christianssand, where he lived through the winter, supporting himself by giving lessons in French. In the spring of 1706 he travelled, in company with a student named Brix, through London to Oxford, where he studied for two years, gaining his livelihood by giving lessons on the violin and the flute. He mentions, with gratitude, the valuable libraries of Oxford, and it is pleasant to record that it was while he was there that it first occurred to him, as he says, “how splendid and glorious a thing it would be to take a place among the authors.” Through London and Elsinore he reached Copenhagen a third time, and began to lecture at the university; his lectures were attended, but he got no money. He was asked in 1709 to conduct a rich young gentleman to Dresden, and on his return journey he lectured at Leipzig, Halle and Hamburg. Once more in Copenhagen, he undertook to teach the children of Admiral Gedde. Weary with this work, he took a post at Borch College in 1710, where he wrote, and printed in 1711, his first work, An Introduction to the History of the Nations of Europe, and was permitted to present to King Frederick IV. two manuscript essays on Christian IV. and Frederick III. The king soon after presented him with the title of Professor, and with the Rosenkrantz grant of 100 dollars for four years, the holder of which was expected to travel. Holberg accordingly started in 1714, and visited, chiefly on foot, a great portion of Europe. From Amsterdam he walked through Rotterdam to Antwerp, took a boat to Brussels, and on foot again reached Paris. Walking and skating, he proceeded in the depth of winter to Marseilles, and on by sea to Genoa. On the last-mentioned voyage he caught a fever, and nearly died in that city. On his recovery he pushed on to Civita Vecchia and Rome. When the spring had come, being still very poor and in feeble health, he started homewards on foot by Florence, across the Apennines, through Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Turin, over the Alps, through Savoy and Dauphiné to Lyons, and finally to Paris, where he arrived in excellent health. After spending a month in Paris, he walked on to Amsterdam, took sail to Hamburg, and so went back to Denmark in 1716. He spent the next two years in extreme poverty, and published his Introduction to Natural and Popular Law. But at last, in 1718, his talents were recognized by his appointment as professor of metaphysics at the university of Copenhagen; and in 1720 he was promoted to the lucrative chair of public eloquence, which gave him a seat in the consistory. His pecuniary troubles were now at an end. Hitherto he had written only on law, history and philology, although in a Latin controversy with the jurist Andreas Hojer of Flensborg his satirical genius had flashed out. But now, and until 1728, he created an entirely new class of humorous literature under the pseudonym of Hans Mikkelsen. The serio-comic epic of Peder Paars, the earliest of the great classics of the Danish language, appeared In 1719. This poem was a brilliant satire on contemporary manners, and enjoyed an extraordinary success. But the author had offended in it several powerful persons who threatened his life, and if Count Danneskjold had not personally interested the king in 581 him, Holberg’s career might have had an untimely close. During the next two years he published five shorter satires, all of which were well received by the public. The great event of 1721 was the erection of the first Danish theatre in Grönnegade, Copenhagen; Holberg took the direction of this house, in which was played, in September 1722, a Danish translation of L’Avare. Until this time no plays had been acted in Denmark except in French and German, but Holberg now determined to use his talent in the construction of Danish comedy. The first of his original pieces performed was Den politiske Kandestöber (The Pewterer turned Politician); he wrote other comedies with miraculous rapidity, and before 1722 was closed, there had been performed in succession, and with immense success, Den Vaegelsindede (The Waverer), Jean de France, Jeppe paa Bjerget, and Gert the Westphalian. Of these five plays, four at least are masterpieces; and they were almost immediately followed by others. Holberg took no rest, and before the end of 1723 the comedies of Barselstuen (The Lying-in Room), The Eleventh of July, Jakob von Thyboe, Den Bundeslöse (The Fidget), Erasmus Montanus, Don Ranudo, Ulysses of Ithaca, Without Head or Tail, Witchcraft and Melampe had all been written, and some of them acted. In 1724 the most famous comedy that Holberg produced was Henrik and Pernille. But in spite of this unprecedented blaze of dramatic genius the theatre fell into pecuniary difficulties, and had to be closed, Holberg composing for the last night’s performance, in February 1727, a Funeral of Danish Comedy. All this excessive labour for the stage had undermined the great poet’s health, and in 1725 he had determined to take the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle; but instead of going thither he wandered through Belgium to Paris, and spent the winter there. In the spring he returned to Copenhagen with recovered health and spirits, and worked quietly at his protean literary labours until the great fire of 1728. In the period of national poverty and depression that followed this event, a puritanical spirit came into vogue which was little in sympathy with Holberg’s dramatic or satiric genius. He therefore closed his career as a dramatic poet by publishing in 1731 his acted comedies, with the addition of five which he had no opportunity of putting on the stage. With characteristic versatility, he adopted the serious tone of the new age, and busied himself for the next twenty years with historical, philosophical and statistical writings. During this period he published his poetical satire called Metamorphosis (1726), his Epistolae ad virum perillustrem (1727), his Description of Denmark and Norway (1729), History of Denmark, Universal Church History, Biographies of Famous Men, Moral Reflections, Description of Bergen (1737), A History of the Jews, and other learned and laborious compilations. The only poem he published at this time was the famous Nicolai Klimii iter subterraneum (1741), afterwards translated into Danish by Baggesen. When Christian VI. died in 1747, pietism lost its sway; the theatre was reopened and Holberg was appointed director, but he soon resigned this arduous post. The six comedies he wrote in his old age did not add to his reputation. His last published work was his Epistles, in 5 vols. the last of them posthumous (1754). In 1747 he was created by the new king Baron of Holberg. In August 1753 he took to his bed, and he died at Copenhagen on the 28th of January 1754, in the seventieth year of his age. He was buried at Sorö, in Zealand. He had never married, and he bequeathed all his property, which was considerable, to Sorö College.
Holberg was not only the founder of Danish literature and the greatest of Danish authors, but he was, with the exception of Voltaire, the first writer in Europe during his own generation. Neither Pope nor Swift, who perhaps excelled him in particular branches of literary production, approached him in range of genius, or in encyclopaedic versatility. Holberg found Denmark provided with no books, and he wrote a library for her. When he arrived in the country, the Danish language was never heard in a gentleman’s house. Polite Danes were wont to say that a man wrote Latin to his friends, talked French to the ladies, called his dogs in German, and only used Danish to swear at his servants. The single genius of Holberg revolutionized this system. He wrote poems of all kinds in a language hitherto employed only for ballads and hymns; he instituted a theatre, and composed a rich collection of comedies for it; he filled the shelves of the citizens with works in their own tongue on history, law, politics, science, philology and philosophy, all written in a true and manly style, and representing the extreme attainment of European culture at the moment. Perhaps no author who ever lived has had so vast an influence over his countrymen, an influence that is still at work after 200 years.
The editions of Holberg’s works are legion. Complete editions of the Comedies are too numerous to be quoted; the best is that brought out in 3 vols. by F. I. Lichtenberg, in 1870. Of Peder Paars there exist at least twenty-three editions, besides translations in Dutch, German and Swedish. The Iter subterraneum has been three several times translated into Danish, ten times into German, thrice into Swedish, thrice into Dutch, thrice into English, twice into French, twice into Russian and once into Hungarian. The life of Holberg was written by Welhaven in 1858 and by Georg Brandes in 1884. Among works on his genius by foreigners may be mentioned an exhaustive study by Robert Prutz (1857), and Holberg considéré comme imitateur de Molière, by A. Legrelle (Paris, 1864).
HOLBORN, a central metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N.W. by St Pancras, N.E. by Finsbury, S.E. by the City of London, S. and W. by the City of Westminster and St Marylebone. Pop. (1901), 59,405. Area 405.1 acres. Its main thoroughfare is that running E. and W. under the names of Holborn Viaduct, High Holborn and New Oxford Street.
The name of Holborn was formerly derived from Old Bourne, a tributary of the Fleet, the valley of which is clearly seen where Holborn Viaduct crosses Farringdon Street. Of the existence of this tributary, however, there is no evidence, and the origin of the name is found in Hole-bourne, the stream in the hollow, in allusion to the Fleet itself. The fall and rise of the road across the valley before the construction of the viaduct (1869) was abrupt and inconvenient. In earlier times a bridge here crossed the Fleet, leading from Newgate, while a quarter of a mile west of the viaduct is the site of Holborn Bars, at the entrance to the City, where tolls were levied. The better residential district of Holborn, which extends northward to Euston Road in the borough of St Pancras, is mainly within the parish of St George, Bloomsbury. The name of Bloomsbury is commonly derived from William Blemund, a lord of the manor in the 15th century. A dyke called Blemund’s Ditch, of unknown origin, bounded it on the south, where the land was marshy. During the 18th century Bloomsbury was a fashionable and wealthy residential quarter. The reputation of the district immediately to the south, embraced in the parish of St Giles in the Fields, was far different. From the 17th century until modern times this was notorious as a home of crime and poverty. Here occurred some of the earliest cases of the plague which spread over London in 1664-1665. The opening of the thoroughfares of New Oxford Street (1840) and Shaftesbury Avenue (1855) by no means wholly destroyed the character of the district. The circus of Seven Dials, east of Shaftesbury Avenue, affords a typical name in connexion with the lowest aspect of life in London. A similar notoriety attached to Saffron Hill on the eastern confines of the borough. By a singular contrast, the neighbouring thoroughfare of Hatton Garden, leading north from Holborn Circus, is a centre of the diamond trade.
Of the ecclesiastical buildings of Holborn that of first interest is the chapel of St Etheldreda in Ely Place, opening from Holborn Circus. Ely Place takes its name from a palace of the bishops of Ely, who held land here as early as the 13th century. Here died John of Gaunt in 1399. The property was acquired by Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor under Queen Elizabeth, after whom Hatton Garden is named; though the bishopric kept some hold upon it until the 18th century. The chapel, the only remnant of the palace, is a beautiful Decorated structure with a vaulted crypt, itself above ground-level. Both are used for worship by Roman Catholics, by whom the chapel was acquired in 1874 and opened five years later after careful restoration. The present parish church of St Giles in the Fields, between Shaftesbury Avenue and New 582 Oxford Street, dates from 1734, but here was situated a leper’s hospital founded by Matilda, wife of Henry I., in 1101. Its chapel became the parish church on the suppression of the monasteries. The church of St Andrew, the parish of which extends into the City, stands near Holborn Viaduct. It is by Wren, but there are traces of the previous Gothic edifice in the tower. Sacheverell was among its rectors (1713-1724), and Thomas Chatterton (1770) was interred in the adjacent burial ground, no longer extant, of Shoe Lane Workhouse; the register recording his Christian name as William. Close to this church Is the City Temple (Congregational).
Two of the four Inns of Court, Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn, lie within the borough. Of the first the Tudor gateway opens upon Chancery Lane. The chapel, hall and residential buildings surrounding the squares within, are picturesque, but of later date. To the west lie the fine square, with public gardens, still called, from its original character, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Gray’s Inn, between High Holborn and Theobald’s Road, and west of Gray’s Inn Road, is of similar arrangement. The fabric of the small chapel is apparently of the 14th century, and may have been attached to the manor house of Portpool, held at that period by the Lords Grey of Wilton. Of the former Inns of Chancery attached to these Inns of Court the most noteworthy buildings remaining are those of Staple Inn, of which the timbered and gabled Elizabethan front upon High Holborn is a unique survival of its character in a London thoroughfare; and of Barnard’s Inn, occupied by the Mercer’s School. Both these were attached to Gray’s Inn. Of Furnival’s and Thavies Inns, attached to Lincoln’s Inn, only the names remain. The site of the first is covered by the fine red brick buildings of the Prudential Assurance Company, Holborn Viaduct. Among other institutions in Holborn, the British Museum, north of New Oxford Street, is pre-eminent. The varied collections of Sir John Soane, accumulated at his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, are open to view as the Soane Museum. There may also be mentioned the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with museum; the Royal Colleges of Organists, and of Veterinary Surgeons, the College of Preceptors, the Jews’ College, and the Metropolitan School of Shorthand. Among hospitals are the Italian, the Homoeopathic, the National for the paralysed and epileptic, the Alexandra for children with hip disease, and the Hospital for sick children. The Foundling Hospital, Guilford Street, was founded by Thomas Coram in 1739.
HOLCROFT, THOMAS (1745-1809), English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born on the 10th of December 1745 (old style) in Orange Court, Leicester Fields, London. His father, besides having a shoemaker’s shop, kept riding horses for hire; but having fallen into difficulties was reduced ultimately to the necessity of hawking pedlary. The son accompanied his parents in their tramps, and succeeded in procuring the situation of stable boy at Newmarket, where he spent his evenings chiefly in miscellaneous reading and the study of music. Gradually he obtained a knowledge of French, German and Italian. At the end of his term of engagement as stable boy he returned to assist his father, who had again resumed his trade of shoemaker in London; but after marrying in 1765, he became a teacher in a small school in Liverpool. He failed in an attempt to set up a private school, and became prompter in a Dublin theatre. He acted in various strolling companies until 1778, when he produced The Crisis; or, Love and Famine, at Drury Lane. Duplicity followed in 1781. Two years later he went to Paris as correspondent of the Morning Herald. Here he attended the performances of Beaumarchais’s Mariage de Figaro until he had memorized the whole. The translation of it, with the title The Follies of the Day, was produced at Drury Lane in 1784. The Road to Ruin, his most successful melodrama, was produced in 1792. A revival in 1873 ran for 118 nights. Holcroft died on the 23rd of March 1809. He was a member of the Society for Constitutional Information, and on that account was, in 1794, indicted of high treason, but was discharged without a trial. Among his novels may be mentioned Alwyn (1780), an account, largely autobiographical, of a strolling comedian, and Hugh Trevor (1794-1797). He also was the author of Travels from Hamburg through Westphalia, Holland and the Netherlands to Paris, of some volumes of verse and of translations from the French and German.
His Memoirs written by Himself and continued down to the Time of his Death, from his Diary, Notes and other Papers, by William Hazlitt, appeared in 1816, and was reprinted, in a slightly abridged form, in 1852.
HOLDEN, HUBERT ASHTON (1822-1896), English classical scholar, came of an old Staffordshire family. He was educated at King Edward’s school, Birmingham, and Trinity College, Cambridge (senior classic, 1845; fellow, 1847). He was vice-principal of Cheltenham College (1853-1858), and headmaster of Queen Elizabeth’s school, Ipswich (1858-1883). He died in London on the 1st of December 1896. In addition to several school editions of portions of Cicero, Thucydides, Xenophon and Plutarch, he published an expurgated text of Aristophanes with a useful onomasticon (re-issued separately, 1902) and larger editions of Cicero’s De officiis (revised ed., 1898) and of the Octavius of Minucius Felix (1853). His chief works, however, were his Foliorum silvula (1852), a collection of English extracts for translation into Greek and Latin verse; Folia silvulae (translations of the same); and Foliorum centuriae, a companion volume of extracts for Latin prose translation. In English schools these books have been widely used for the teaching of Latin and Greek composition.
HOLDEN, SIR ISAAC, Bart. (1807-1897), English inventor and manufacturer, was the son of Isaac Holden, a native of Cumberland, and was born at Hurlet, a village between Paisley and Glasgow, on the 7th of May 1807. His early life was passed in very straitened circumstances, but his father spared no pains to give him as much elementary education as possible. At the age of ten he began to work as weaver’s draw-boy, and afterwards was employed in a cotton mill. Meanwhile his education was continued at the night schools, and from time to time, as funds allowed, he was taken from work and sent to the grammar-school, to which he at last went regularly for a year or two until he was fifteen, when his father removed to Paisley and apprenticed him to an uncle, a shawl-weaver there. This proving too much for his strength, in 1823 he became assistant teacher in a school at Paisley, and in 1828 he was appointed mathematical teacher in the Queen’s Square Academy, Leeds. At the end of six months he was transferred to Lingard’s grammar school, near Huddersfield, and shortly afterwards became classical master at Castle Street Academy, Reading. It was here that in 1829 he invented a lucifer match by adopting sulphur as the medium between the explosive material and the wood, but he refused to patent the invention. In 1830 his health again failed, and he returned to Scotland, where a Glasgow friend set up a school for him. After six months, however, he was recommended for the post of bookkeeper to Messrs. Townend Brothers, worsted manufacturers, of Cullingworth, where his interest in machinery soon led to his transfer from the counting-house to the mill. There his experiments led him to the invention of his square motion wool-comber and of a process for making genappe yarns, a patent for which was taken out by him in conjunction with S. C. Lister (Lord Masham) in 1847. The firm of Lister & Holden, which established a factory near Paris in 1848, carried on a successful business, and in 1859, when Lister retired, was succeeded by Isaac Holden and Sons, which became the largest wool-combing business in the world, employing upwards of 4000 workpeople. In 1865 Holden’s medical advisers insisted on complete change of occupation, and he entered parliament as Liberal member for Knaresborough. From 1868 to 1882 he was without a seat, but in the latter year he was elected for the northern division of the West Riding, and in 1885 for Keighley. He was created a baronet in 1893, and died suddenly at Oakworth House, near Keighley, on the 13th of August 1897.
His son and heir, Sir Angus Holden, was in 1908 created a peer with the title of Baron Holden of Alston.
HÖLDERLIN, JOHANN CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH (1770-1843), German poet, was born on the 20th of March 1770, at Lauffen on the Neckar. His mother removing, after a second marriage, to Nürtingen, he began his education at the classical school there. He was destined by his relations for the church, and with this view was later admitted to the seminaries at Denkendorf and Maulbronn. At the age of eighteen he entered as a student of theology the university of Tübingen, where he remained till 1793. He was already the writer of occasional verses, and had begun to sketch his novel Hyperion, when he was introduced in this year to Schiller, and obtained through him the post of tutor to the young son of Charlotte von Kalb. A year later he left this situation to attend Fichte’s lectures, and to be near Schiller in Jena. The latter recognized in the young poet something of his own genius, and encouraged him by publishing some of his early writings in his periodicals Die neue Thalia and Die Horen. In 1796 Hölderlin obtained the post of tutor in the family of the banker J. F. Gontard in Frankfort-on-Main. For Gontard’s beautiful and gifted wife, Susette, the “Diotima” of his Hyperion, he conceived a violent passion; and she became at once his inspiration and his ruin. At the end of two years, during which time the first volume of Hyperion was published (1797), a crisis appears to have occurred in their relations, for the young poet suddenly left Frankfort. In spite of ill-health, he now completed Hyperion, the second volume of which appeared in 1799, and began a tragedy, Der Tod des Empedokles, a fragment of which is published among his works. His friends became alarmed at the alternate depression and nervous irritability from which he suffered, and he was induced to go to Switzerland, as tutor in a family at Hauptwill. There his health improved; and several of his poems, among which are Der blinde Sänger, An die Hoffnung and Dichtermut, were written at this time. In 1801 he returned home to arrange for the publication of a volume of his poems; but, on the failure of this enterprise, he was obliged to accept a tutorship at Bordeaux. “Diotima” died a year later, in June 1802, and the news is supposed to have reached Hölderlin shortly afterwards, for in the following month he suddenly left Bordeaux, and travelled homewards on foot through France, arriving at Nürtingen destitute and insane. Kind treatment gradually alleviated his condition, and in lucid intervals he occupied himself by writing verses and translating Greek plays. Two of these translations—the Antigone and Oedipus rex of Sophocles—appeared in 1804, and several of his short poems were published by Franz K. L. von Seckendorff in his Musenalmanach, 1807 and 1808. In 1804 Hölderlin obtained the sinecure post of librarian to the landgrave Frederick V. of Hesse-Homburg, and went to live in Homburg under the supervision of friends; but two years later becoming irremediably but harmlessly insane, he was taken in the summer of 1807 to Tübingen, where he remained till his death on the 7th of June 1843.
Hölderlin’s writings are the production of a beautiful and sensitive mind; but they are intensely, almost morbidly, subjective, and they lack real human strength. Perhaps his strongest characteristic was his passion for Greece, the result of which was that he almost entirely discarded rhyme in favour of the ancient verse measures. His poems are all short pieces; of his tragedy only a fragment was written. Hyperion, oder der Eremit in Griechenland (1797-1799), is a romance in letters, in which the stormy fervour of the “Sturm und Drang” is combined with a romantic enthusiasm for Greek antiquity. The interest centres not in the story, for the novel has little or none—Hyperion is a young Greek who takes part in the rising of his people against the Turks in 1770—but in its lyric subjectivity and the dithyrambic beauty of its language.
Hölderlin’s lyrics, Lyrische Gedichte, were edited by L. Uhland and G. Schwab in 1826. A complete edition of his works, Sämtliche Werke, with a biography by C. T. Schwab, appeared in 1846; also Dichtungen by K. Köstlin (Tübingen, 1884), and (the best edition) Gesammelte Dichtungen by B. Litzmann (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1897). For biography and criticism, see C. C. T. Litzmann, F. Hölderlins Leben (Berlin, 1890), A. Wilbrandt, Hölderlin (2nd ed., Berlin, 1891), and C. Müller, Friedrich Hölderlin, sein Leben und sein Dichten (Bremen, 1894).
HOLDERNESSE, EARL OF, an English title borne by Sir John Ramsay and later by the family of Darcy. John Ramsay (c. 1580-1626), a member of the Scottish family of Ramsay of Dalhousie, was knighted for his share in rescuing James VI. from the hands of John Ruthven, earl of Gowrie, in August 1600. In 1606 the king created him Viscount Haddington and Lord Ramsay of Barns, and in 1621 made him an English peer as earl of Holdernesse. Ramsay died without surviving issue in February 1626, when his titles became extinct. In 1644 Charles I. created his nephew, Prince Rupert, earl of Holdernesse, but when the prince died unmarried in November 1682 the earldom again became extinct. Conyers Darcy (1599-1689), who was made earl of Holdernesse in 1682 only a few days after the death of Rupert, was the son and heir of Conyers Darcy, Lord Darcy and Conyers (c. 1571-1654), and succeeded his father in these baronies in March 1654. He was succeeded as 2nd earl by his only son Conyers (c. 1620-1692), who was member of parliament for Yorkshire during the reign of Charles II. In his turn he was succeeded by his grandson Robert (1681-1722). Robert’s only son, Robert Darcy, 4th earl of Holdernesse (1718-1778), was a diplomatist and a politician. From 1744 to 1746 he was ambassador at Venice and from 1749 to 1751 he represented his country at the Hague. In 1751 he became one of the secretaries of state, and he remained in office until March 1761, when he was dismissed by George III. From 1771 to 1776 he acted as governor to two of the king’s sons, a “solemn phantom” as Horace Walpole calls him. He left no sons, and all his titles became extinct except the barony of Conyers, which had been created by writ in 1509 in favour of his ancestor Sir William Conyers (d. 1525). This descended to his only daughter Amelia (1754-1784), the wife of Francis Osborne, afterwards 5th duke of Leeds, and when the 7th duke of Leeds died in 1859 it passed to his nephew, Sackville George Lane-Fox (1827-1888), falling into abeyance on his death. Hornby castle in Yorkshire, now the principal seat of the dukes of Leeds, came to them through marriage of the 5th duke with the heiress of the families of Conyers and of Darcy.
HOLDHEIM, SAMUEL (1806-1860), Jewish rabbi, a leader of reform in the German Synagogue, was born in Posen in 1806 and died in Berlin in 1860. In 1836 he was appointed rabbi at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in 1840 he was transferred to the rabbinate of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He then became prominent as an advocate on the one hand of religious freedom (much trammelled at the time by Prussian state laws) and on the other of reform within the Jewish community. Various rabbinical conferences were held, at Brunswick (1844), Frankfort-on-the-Main (1845) and Breslau (1846). At all of these Holdheim was a strong supporter of the policy of modifying ritual (especially with regard to Sabbath observance, marriage laws and liturgical customs). In 1846 he was chosen Rabbi of the new Berlin congregation and there exercised considerable influence on the course of Jewish reform.
See I. H. Ritter in the Jewish Quarterly Review, i. 202. The same authority has written the life of Holdheim in vol. iii. of his Geschichte der jüdischen Reformation (Berlin, 1865). Graetz in his History passes an unfavourable judgment on Holdheim, and there were admittedly grounds for opposition to Holdheim’s attitude. A moderate criticism is contained in Dr D. Philipson’s History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (London, 1906).
HOLGUÍN, a town of the high plateau country in the interior of Oriente province, Cuba, about 65 m. N.W. of Santiago de Cuba. Pop. (1907) 7592. The town is near the Marañon and Jigüé rivers, on a plain from which hills rise on all sides except the E., on which side it is open to the winds of the plateau. Holguín was long the principal acclimatization station for Spanish troops. The oldest public buildings are two churches built in 1800 and 1809 respectively. Holguín has trade in cabinet woods, tobacco, Indian corn and cattle products, which it exports through its port Gibara, about 25 m. N.N.E., with which it is connected by railway. Holguín was settled about 1720 and became a ciudad (city) in 1751. In the Ten Years’ War of 1868-78 and in the revolution of 1895-98 Holguín was an insurgent centre.
HOLIDAY, originally the “holy day,” a festival set apart for religious observances as a memorial of some sacred event or sacred person; hence a day on which the ordinary work or business ceases. For the religious sense see Feasts and Festivals, and Sunday. Apart from the use of the term for a single day of rest or enjoyment, it is commonly used in the plural for a recognized and regular period (as at schools, &c.) of absence from work. It is unnecessary here to deal with what may be regarded as private holidays, which are matters of agreement between employer and employed or between the authorities of this or that institution and those who attend it. In recent years there has been a notable tendency in most occupations to shorten the hours of labour, and make holidays more regular. It will suffice to deal here with public holidays, the observance of which is prescribed by the state. In one respect these have been diminished, in so far as saints’ days are no longer regarded as entailing non-attendance at the government offices in England, as was the case at the beginning of the 19th century. But while the influence of religion in determining such holidays has waned, the importance of making some compulsory provision for social recreation has made itself felt. In England four days, known as Bank Holidays (q.v.), are set apart by statute to be observed as general holidays, while the sovereign may by proclamation appoint any day to be similarly observed. Endeavours have been made from time to time to get additional days recognized as general holidays, such as Empire Day (May 24th), Arbor Day, &c. In the British colonies there is no uniform practice. In Canada eight days are generally observed as public holidays: New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, the birthday of the sovereign, Victoria Day, Dominion Day and Labour Day. Some of the provinces have followed the American example by adding an Arbor Day. Alberta and Saskatchewan observe Ash Wednesday. In Quebec, where the majority of the population is Roman Catholic, the holy days are also holidays, namely, the Festival of the Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, the Ascension, All Saint’s Day, Conception Day, Christmas Day. In 1897 Labour Day was added. In New South Wales, the 1st of January, Good Friday, Easter Eve, Easter Monday, the birthday of the sovereign, the 1st of August, the birthday of the prince of Wales, Christmas Day and the 26th of December, are observed as holidays. In Victoria there are thirteen public holidays during the year, and in Queensland fourteen. In New Zealand the public holidays are confined to four, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Good Friday and Labour Day. In most of the other British colonies the usual number of public holidays is from six to eight.
In the United States there is no legal holiday in the sense of the English bank holidays. A legal holiday is dependent upon state and territorial legislation. It is usual for the president to proclaim the last Thursday in November as a day of thanksgiving; this makes it only a legal holiday in the District of Columbia, and in the territories, but most states make it a general holiday. Independence Day (July 4th) and Labour Day (first Monday in September) are legal holidays in most states. There are other days which, in connexion with particular events or in remembrance of particular persons, have been made legal holidays by particular states. For example, Lincoln’s birthday, Washington’s birthday, Memorial Day (May 30th), Patriots’ Day (April 19th, Maine and Mass.), R. E. Lee’s birthday (Jan. 19th, Ala., Fla., Ga., Va.), Pioneers’ Day (July 24th, Utah), Colorado Day (Aug. 1st), Battle of New Orleans (Jan. 8th, La.), Bennington Battle Day (Aug. 16th, Vt.), Defender’s Day (Sept, 12th, Md.), Arbor Day (April 22nd, Nebraska; second Friday in May R.I., &c.), Admission Day (September 9th, Cal.; Oct. 31st, Nev.), Confederate Memorial Day (April 26th, Ala., Fla., Ga., Miss., May 10th, N. & S. Car., June 3rd, La., Miss., Texas), &c.
See M‘Curdy, Bibliography of Articles relating to Holidays (Boston, 1905).
HOLINSHED (or Hollingshead), RAPHAEL (d. c. 1580), English chronicler, belonged probably to a Cheshire family, and according to Anthony Wood was educated at one of the English universities, afterwards becoming a “minister of God’s Word.” The authenticity of these facts is doubtful, although it is possible that Raphael was the Holinshed who matriculated from Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1544. About 1560 he came to London and was employed as a translator by Reginald or Reyner Wolfe, to whom he says he was “singularly beholden.” Wolfe was already engaged in the preparation of a universal history, and Holinshed worked for some years on this undertaking; but after Wolfe’s death in 1573 the scope of the work was abridged, and it appeared in 1578 as the Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The work was in two volumes, which were illustrated, and although Holinshed did a great deal of the work he received valuable assistance from William Harrison (1534-1593) and others, while the part dealing with the history of Scotland is mainly a translation of Hector Boece’s Scotorum historiae. Afterwards, as is shown by his will, Holinshed served as steward to Thomas Burdet of Bramcott, Warwickshire, and died about 1580.
A second edition of the Chronicles, enlarged and improved but without illustrations, which appeared in 1587, contained statements which were offensive to Queen Elizabeth and her advisers, and immediately after publication some of the pages were excised by order of the privy council. These excisions were published separately in 1723. An edition of the Chronicles, in accordance with the original text, was published in six volumes in 1808. The work contains a large amount of information, and shows that its compilers were men of great industry; but its chief interest lies in the fact that it was largely used by Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists; Shakespeare, who probably used the edition of 1587, obtaining from the Chronicles material for most of his historical plays, and also for Macbeth, King Lear and part of Cymbeline. A single manuscript by Holinshed is known to be extant. This is a translation of Florence of Worcester, and is in the British Museum. See W. G. Boswell-Stone, Shakspere’s Holinshed. The Chronicle and the historical plays compared (London, 1896).
HOLKAR, the family name of the Mahratta ruler of Indore (q.v.), which has been adopted as a dynastic title. The termination -kar implies that the founder of the family came from the village of Hol near Poona.
HOLL, FRANK (1845-1888), English painter, was born in London on the 4th of July 1845, and was educated chiefly at University College School. He was a grandson of William Holl, an engraver of note, and the son of Francis Holl, A.R.A., another engraver, whose profession he originally intended to follow. Entering the Royal Academy schools as a probationer in painting in 1860, he rapidly progressed, winning silver and gold medals, and making his début as an exhibitor in 1864 with “A Portrait,” and “Turned out of Church,” a subject picture. “A Fern Gatherer” (1865); “The Ordeal” (1866); “Convalescent” (the somewhat grim pathos of which attracted much attention), and “Faces in the Fire” (1867), succeeded. Holl gained the travelling studentship in 1868; the successful work was characteristic of the young painter’s mood, being “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.” His insatiable zeal for work of all kinds began early to undermine the artist’s health, but his position was assured by the studentship picture, which created a sort of furore, although, as with most of his works, the blackness of its coloration, probably due to his training as an engraver, was even more decidedly against it than the sadness of its theme. Otherwise, this painting exhibited nearly all the best technical qualities to which he ever attained, except high finish and clearness, and a very sincere vein of pathos. Holl was much below Millais In portraiture, and far inferior In all the higher ways of design; in technical resources, relatively speaking, he was but scantily provided. The range of his studies and the manner of his painting were narrower than those of Josef Israels, with whom, except as a portrait-painter, he may better be compared than with Millais. In 1870 he painted “Better is a Dinner of Herbs where Love is, than a Stalled Ox and Hatred therewith”; “No Tidings from the Sea,” a scene in a fisherman’s cottage, in 1871—a story told with breath-catching pathos and power; “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (1872); “Leaving Home” (1873), “Deserted” (1874), both of which had great success; “Her First-born,” girls carrying a baby to the grave (1876); and “Going Home” (1877). In 1877 he painted the two pictures “Hush” and 585 “Hushed.” “Newgate, Committed for Trial,” a very sad and telling piece, first attested the breaking down of the painter’s health in 1878. In this year he was elected A.R.A., and exhibited “The Gifts of the Fairies,” “The Daughter of the House,” “Absconded,” and a very fine portrait of Samuel Cousins, the mezzotint engraver. This last canvas is a masterpiece, and deserved the success which attended the print engraved from it. Holl was overwhelmed with commissions, which he would not decline. The consequences of this strain upon a constitution which was never strong were more or less, though unequally, manifest in “Ordered to the Front,” a soldier’s departure (1880); “Home Again,” its sequel, in 1883 (after which he was made R.A.). In 1886 he produced a portrait of Millais as his diploma work, but his health rapidly declined and he died at Hampstead, on the 31st of July 1888. Holl’s better portraits, being of men of rare importance, attest the commanding position he occupied in the branch of art he so unflinchingly followed. They include likenesses of Lord Roberts, painted for queen Victoria (1882); the prince of Wales, Lord Dufferin, the duke of Cleveland (1885); Lord Overstone, Mr Bright, Mr Gladstone, Mr Chamberlain, Sir J. Tenniel, Earl Spencer, Viscount Cranbrook, and a score of other important subjects.
HOLLAND, CHARLES (1733-1769), English actor, was born in Chiswick, the son of a baker. He made his first appearance on the stage in the title rôle of Oroonoko at Drury Lane in 1755, John Palmer, Richard Yates and Mrs Cibber being in the cast. He played under Garrick, and was the original Florizel in the latter’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale. Garrick thought highly of him, and wrote a eulogistic epitaph for his monument in Chiswick church.
His nephew, Charles Holland (1768-1849) was also an actor, who played with Mrs Siddons and Kean.
HOLLAND, SIR HENRY, Bart. (1788-1873), English physician and author, was born at Knutsford, Cheshire, on the 27th of October 1788. His maternal grandmother was the sister of Josiah Wedgwood, whose grandson was Charles Darwin; and his paternal aunt was the mother of Mrs Gaskell. After spending some years at a private school at Knutsford, he was sent to a school at Newcastle-on-Tyne, whence after four years he was transferred to Dr J. P. Estlin’s school near Bristol. There he at once took the position of head boy, in succession to John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton, an honour which required to be maintained by physical prowess. On leaving school he became articled clerk to a mercantile firm in Liverpool, but, as the privilege was reserved to him of passing two sessions at Glasgow university, he at the close of his second session sought relief from his articles, and in 1806 began the study of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1811. After several years spent in foreign travel, he began practice in 1816 as a physician in London—according to his own statement, “with a fair augury of success speedily and completely fulfilled.” This “success,” he adds, “was materially aided by visits for four successive years to Spa, at the close of that which is called the London season.” It must also, however, be in a great degree attributed to his happy temperament and his gifts as a conversationalist—qualities the influence of which, in the majority of cases belonging to his class of practice, is often of more importance than direct medical treatment. In 1816 he was elected F.R.S., and in 1828 F.R.C.S. He became physician in ordinary to Prince Albert in 1840, and was appointed in 1852 physician in ordinary to the queen. In April 1853 he was created a baronet. He was also a D.C.L. of Oxford and a member of the principal learned societies of Europe. He was twice married, his second wife being a daughter of Sydney Smith, a lady of considerable literary talent, who published a biography of her father. Sir Henry Holland at an early period of his practice resolved to devote to his professional duties no more of his time than was necessary to secure an income of £5000 a year, and also to spend two months of every year solely in foreign travel. By the former resolution he secured leisure for a wide acquaintance with general literature, and for a more than superficial cultivation of several branches of science; and the latter enabled him, besides visiting, “and most of them repeatedly, every country of Europe,” to make extensive tours in the other three continents, journeying often to places little frequented by European travellers. As, moreover, he procured an introduction to nearly all the eminent personages in his line of travel, and knew many of them in his capacity of physician, his acquaintance with “men and cities” was of a species without a parallel. The London Medical Record, in noticing his death, which took place on his eighty-fifth birthday, October 27, 1873, remarked that it “had occurred under circumstances highly characteristic of his remarkable career.” On his return from a journey in Russia he was present, on Friday, October 24th, at the trial of Marshal Bazaine in Paris, dining with some of the judges in the evening. He reached London on the Saturday, took ill the following day, and died quietly on the Monday afternoon.
Sir Henry Holland was the author of General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire (1807); Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly and Greece (1812-1813, 2nd ed., 1819); Medical Notes and Reflections (1839); Chapters on Mental Physiology (1852); Essays on Scientific and other Subjects contributed to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews (1862); and Recollections of Past Life (1872).
HOLLAND, HENRY FOX, 1st Baron (1705-1774), English statesman, second son of Sir Stephen Fox, was born on the 28th of September 1705. Inheriting a large share of the riches which his father had accumulated, he squandered it soon after attaining his majority, and went to the Continent to escape from his creditors. There he made the acquaintance of a countrywoman of fortune, who became his patroness and was so lavish with her purse that, after several years’ absence, he was in a position to return home and, in 1735, to enter parliament as member for Hindon in Wiltshire. He became the favourite pupil and devoted supporter of Sir Robert Walpole, achieving unequalled and unenviable proficiency in the worst political arts of his master and model. As a speaker he was fluent and self-possessed, imperturbable under attack, audacious in exposition or retort, and able to hold his own against Pitt himself. Thus he made himself a power in the House of Commons and an indispensable member of several administrations. He was surveyor-general of works from 1737 to 1742, was member for Windsor from 1741 to 1761; lord of the treasury in 1743, secretary at war and member of the privy council in 1746, and in 1755 became leader of the House of Commons, secretary of state and a member of the cabinet under the duke of Newcastle. In 1757, in the rearrangements of the government, Fox was ultimately excluded from the cabinet, and given the post of paymaster of the forces. During the war, which Pitt conducted with extraordinary vigour, and in which the nation was intoxicated with glory, Fox devoted himself mainly to accumulating a vast fortune. In 1762 he again accepted the leadership of the House, with a seat in the cabinet, under the earl of Bute, and exercised his skill in cajolery and corruption to induce the House of Commons to approve of the treaty of Paris of 1763; as a recompense, he was raised to the House of Lords with the title of Baron Holland of Foxley, Wiltshire, on the 16th of April 1763. In 1765 he was forced to resign the paymaster generalship, and four years later a petition of the livery of the city of London against the ministers referred to him as “the public defaulter of unaccounted millions.” The proceedings brought against him in the court of exchequer were stayed by a royal warrant; and in a statement published by him he proved that in the delays in making up the accounts of his office he had transgressed neither the law nor the custom of the time. From the interest on the outstanding balances he had, none the less, amassed a princely fortune. He strove, but in vain, to obtain promotion to the dignity of an earl, a dignity upon which he had set his heart, and he died at Holland House, Kensington, on the 1st of July 1774, a sorely disappointed man, with a reputation for cunning and unscrupulousness which cannot easily be matched, and with an unpopularity which justifies the conclusion that he was the most thoroughly hated statesman of his day. Lord Holland married in 1744 586 Lady Georgina Caroline Lennox, daughter of the duke of Richmond, who was created Baroness Holland, of Holland, Lincolnshire, in 1762. There were four sons of the marriage: Stephen, 2nd Lord Holland (d. 1774); Henry (d. an infant); Charles James (the celebrated statesman); and Henry Edward (1755-1811), soldier and diplomatist.
See Walpole’s and other memoirs of the time, also the article Fox, Charles James.
HOLLAND, HENRY RICH, 1st Earl of (1590-1649), 2nd son of Robert, 1st earl of Warwick, and of Penelope, Sir Philip Sidney’s “Stella,” daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st earl of Essex, was baptized on the 19th of August 1590, educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, knighted on the 3rd of June 1610, and returned to parliament for Leicester in 1610 and 1614. In 1610 he was present at the siege of Juliers. Favours were showered upon him by James I. He was made gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles, prince of Wales, and captain of the yeomen of the guard; and on the 8th of March 1623 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Kensington. In 1624 he was sent to Paris to negotiate the marriage treaty between Charles and Henrietta Maria. On the 15th of September he was created earl of Holland, and in 1625 was sent on two further missions, first to Paris to arrange a treaty between Louis XIII. and the Huguenots, and later to the Netherlands in company with Buckingham. In October 1627 he was given command of the troops sent to reinforce Buckingham at Rhé, but through delay in starting only met the defeated troops on their return. He succeeded Buckingham as chancellor of Cambridge University; was master of the horse in 1628, and was appointed constable of Windsor and high steward to the queen in 1629. He interested himself, like his elder brother, Lord Warwick, in the plantations; and was the first governor of the Providence company in 1630, and one of the proprietors of Newfoundland in 1637. In 1631 he was made chief-justice-in-eyre south of the Trent, and in this capacity was responsible for the unpopular revival of the obsolete forest laws. He intrigued at court against Portland and against Strafford, who expressed for him the greatest contempt. In 1636 he was disappointed at not obtaining the great office of lord high admiral, but was made instead groom of the stole. In 1639 he was appointed general of the horse, and drew ridicule upon himself by the fiasco at Kelso. In the second war against the Scots he was superseded in favour of Conway. He opposed the dissolution of the Short Parliament, joined the peers who supported the parliamentary cause, and gave evidence against Strafford. He was, however, won back to the king’s side by the queen, and on the 16th of April 1641 made captain general north of the Trent. Dissatisfied, however, with Charles’s refusal to grant him the nomination of a new baron, he again abandoned him, refused the summons to York, and was deprived of his office as groom of the stole at the instance of the queen, who greatly resented his ingratitude. He was chosen by the parliament in March and July 1642 to communicate its votes to Charles, who received him, much to his indignation, with studied coldness. He was appointed one of the committee of safety in July; made zealous speeches on behalf of the parliamentary cause to the London citizens; and joined Essex’s army at Twickenham, where, it is said, he persuaded him to avoid a battle. In 1643 he appeared as a peacemaker, and after failing to bring over Essex, he returned to the king. His reception, however, was not a cordial one, and he was not reinstated in his office of groom of the stole. After, therefore, accompanying the king to Gloucester and taking part in the first battle of Newbury, he once more returned to the parliament, declaring that the court was too much bent on continuing hostilities, and the influence of the “papists” too strong for his patriotism. He was restored to his estates, but the Commons obliged the Lords to exclude him from the upper house, and his petition in 1645 for compensation for his losses and for a pension was refused. His hopes being in this quarter also disappointed, he once again renewed his allegiance to the king’s cause; and after endeavouring to promote the negotiations for peace in 1645 and 1647 he took up arms in the second Civil War, received a commission as general, and put himself at the head of 600 men at Kingston. He was defeated on the 7th of July 1647, captured at St Neots shortly afterwards, and imprisoned at Warwick Castle. He was tried before a “high court of justice” on the 3rd of February 1649, and in spite of his plea that he had received quarter was sentenced to death. He was executed together with Hamilton and Capel on the 9th of March. Clarendon styles him “a very well-bred man and a fine gentleman in good times.”1 He was evidently a man of shallow character, devoid of ability, raised far above his merits and hopelessly unfit for the great times in which he lived. Lord Holland married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Walter Cope of Kensington, and, besides several daughters, had four sons, of whom the eldest, Robert, succeeded him as 2nd earl of Holland, and inherited the earldom of Warwick in 1673.
1 Hist. of the Rebellion, xi. 263.
HOLLAND, HENRY RICHARD VASSALL FOX, 3rd Baron (1773-1840), was the son of Stephen Fox, 2nd Baron Holland, his mother, Lady Mary Fitzpatrick, being the daughter of the earl of Upper Ossory. He was born at Winterslow House in Wiltshire, on the 21st of November 1773, and his father died in the following year. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became the friend of Canning, of Hookham Frere, and of other wits of the time. Lord Holland did not take the same political side as his friends in the conflicts of the revolutionary epoch. He was from his boyhood deeply attached to his uncle, C. J. Fox, and remained steadily loyal to the Whig party. In 1791 he visited Paris and became acquainted with Lafayette and Talleyrand, and in 1793 he again went abroad to travel in France and Italy. At Florence he met with Lady Webster, wife of Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart., who left her husband for him. She was by birth Elizabeth Vassall (1770-1845), daughter of Richard Vassall, a planter in Jamaica. A son was born of their irregular union, a Charles Richard Fox (1796-1873), who after some service in the navy entered the Grenadiers, and was known in later life as a collector of Greek coins. His collection was bought for the royal museum of Berlin when he died in 1873. He married Lady Mary Fitzclarence, a daughter of William IV. by Mrs Jordan. Sir Godfrey Webster having obtained a divorce, Lord Holland was enabled to marry on the 6th of July 1797. He had taken his seat in the House of Lords on the 5th of October 1796. During several years he may be said almost to have constituted the Whig party in the Upper House. His protests against the measures of the Tory ministers were collected and published, as the Opinions of Lord Holland (1841), by Dr Moylan of Lincoln’s Inn. In 1800 he was authorized to take the name of Vassall, and after 1807 he signed himself Vassall Holland, though the name was no part of his title. In 1800 Lord and Lady Holland went abroad and remained in France and Spain till 1805, visiting Paris during the Peace of Amiens, and being well received by Napoleon. Lady Holland always professed a profound admiration of Napoleon, of which she made a theatrical display after his fall, and he left her a gold snuff-box by his will. In public life Lord Holland took a share proportionate to his birth and opportunities. He was appointed to negotiate with the American envoys, Monroe and W. Pinkney, was admitted to the privy council on the 27th of August 1806, and on the 15th of October entered the cabinet “of all the talents” as lord privy seal, retiring with the rest of his colleagues in March 1807. He led the opposition to the Regency bill in 1811, and he attacked the “orders in council” and other strong measures of the government taken to counteract Napoleon’s Berlin decrees. He was in fact in politics a consistent Whig, and in that character he denounced the treaty of 1813 with Sweden which bound England to consent to the forcible union of Norway, and he resisted the bill of 1816 for confining Napoleon in St Helena. His loyalty as a Whig secured recognition when his party triumphed in the struggle for parliamentary reform, by his appointment as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in the cabinet of Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, and he was still in office when he died on the 22nd of October 1840. Lord Holland is notable, not for his somewhat 587 insignificant political career, but as a patron of literature, as a writer on his own account, and because his house was the centre and the headquarters of the Whig political and literary world of the time; and Lady Holland (who died on the 16th of November 1845) succeeded in taking the sort of place in London which had been filled in Paris during the 18th century by the society ladies who kept “salons.” Lord Holland’s Foreign Reminiscences (1850) contain much amusing gossip from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era. His Memoirs of the Whig Party (1852) is an important contemporary authority. His small work on Lope de Vega (1806) is still of some value. Holland had two legitimate sons, Stephen, who died in 1800, and Henry Edward, who became 4th Lord Holland. When this peer died in December 1859 the title became extinct.
See The Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland, edited by the earl of Ilchester (1908); and Lloyd Sanders, The Holland House Circle (1908).
HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT (1819-1881), American author and editor, was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, on the 24th of July 1819. He graduated in 1843 at the Berkshire Medical College (no longer in existence) at Pittsfield, Mass., and after practising medicine in 1844-1847, and making an unsuccessful attempt, with Charles Robinson (1818-1894), later first governor of the state of Kansas, to establish a hospital for women, he taught for a brief period in Richmond, Virginia, and in 1848 was superintendent of schools in Vicksburg, Mississippi. In 1849 he became assistant editor under Samuel Bowles, and three years later one of the owners, of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, with which he retained his connexion until 1867. He then travelled for some time in Europe, and in 1870 removed to New York, where he helped to establish and became editor and one-third owner of Scribner’s Monthly (the title of which was changed in 1881 to The Century), which absorbed the periodicals Hours at Home, Putnam’s Magazine and the Riverside Magazine. He remained editor of this magazine until his death. Dr Holland’s books long enjoyed a wide popularity. The earlier ones were published over the pseudonym “Timothy Titcomb.” His writings fall into four classes: history and biography, represented by a History of Western Massachusetts (1855), and a Life of Abraham Lincoln (1865); fiction, of which Miss Gilbert’s Career (1860) and The Story of Sevenoaks (1875) remain faithful pictures of village life in eastern United States; poetry, of which Bitter-Sweet (1858) and Kathrina, Her Life and Mine (1867) were widely read; and a series of homely essays on the art of living, of which the most characteristic were Letters to Young People, Single and Married (1858), Gold Foil, hammered from Popular Proverbs (1859), Letters to the Jonses (1863), and Every-Day Topics (2 series, 1876 and 1882). While a resident of New York, where he died on the 12th of October 1881, he identified himself with measures for good government and school reform, and in 1872 became a member and for a short time in 1873 was president of the Board of Education.
See Mrs H. M. Plunkett’s Josiah Gilbert Holland (New York, 1894).
HOLLAND, PHILEMON (1552-1637), English scholar, “the translator-general in his age,” was born at Chelmsford in Essex. He was the son of a clergyman, John Holland, who had been obliged to take refuge in Germany and Denmark with Miles Coverdale during the Marian persecution. Having become a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and taken the degree of M.A., he was incorporated at Oxford (July 11th, 1585). Having subsequently studied medicine, about 1595 he settled as a doctor in Coventry, but chiefly occupied himself with translations. In 1628 he was appointed headmaster of the free school, but, owing probably to advancing age, he held office for only eleven months. His latter days were oppressed by poverty, partly relieved by the generosity of the common council of Coventry, which in 1632 assigned him £3, 6s. 8d. for three years, “if he should live so long.” He died on the 9th of February, 1636-1637. His fame is due solely to his translations, which included Livy, Pliny’s Natural History, Plutarch’s Morals, Suetonius, Ammianus Marcellinus and Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. He published also an English version, with additions, of Camden’s Britannia. His Latin translation of Brice Bauderon’s Pharmacopaea and his Regimen sanitatis Salerni were published after his death by his son, Henry Holland (1583-?1650), who became a London bookseller, and is known to bibliographers for his Baziliωlogia; a Booke of Kings, beeing the true and liuely Effigies of all our English Kings from the Conquest (1618), and his Herωologia Anglica (1620).
HOLLAND, RICHARD, or Richard de Holande (fl. 1450), Scottish writer, author of the Buke of the Howlat, was secretary or chaplain to the earl of Moray (1450) and rector of Halkirk, near Thurso. He was afterwards rector of Abbreochy, Loch Ness, and later held a chantry in the cathedral of Norway. He was an ardent partisan of the Douglases, and on their overthrow retired to Orkney and later to Shetland. He was employed by Edward IV. in his attempt to rouse the Western Isles through Douglas agency, and in 1482 was excluded from the general pardon granted by James III. to those who would renounce their fealty to the Douglases.
The poem, entitled the Buke of the Howlat, written about 1450, shows his devotion to the house of Douglas:—
“On ilk beugh till embrace Writtin in a bill was O Dowglass, O Dowglass Tender and trewe!” |
and is dedicated to the wife of a Douglas—
“Thus for ane Dow of Dunbar drew I this Dyte, Dowit with ane Dowglass, and boith war thei dowis.” |
but all theories of its being a political allegory in favour of that house may be discarded. Sir Walter Scott’s judgment that the Buke is “a poetical apologue ... without any view whatever to local or natural politics” is certainly the most reasonable. The poem, which extends to 1001 lines written in the irregular alliterative rhymed stanza, is a bird-allegory, of the type familiar in the Parlement of Foules. It has the incidental interest of showing (especially in stanzas 62 and 63) the antipathy of the “Inglis-speaking Scot” to the “Scots-speaking Gael” of the west, as is also shown in Dunbar’s Flyting with Kennedy.
The text of the poem is preserved in the Asloan and Bannatyne MSS. Fragments of an early 16th century black-letter edition, discovered by D. Laing, are reproduced in the Adversaria of the Bannatyne Club. The poem has been frequently reprinted, by Pinkerton, in his Scottish Poems (1792); by D. Laing (Bannatyne Club 1823; reprinted in “New Club” series, Paisley, 1882); by the Hunterian Club in their edition of the Bannatyne MS., and by A. Diebler (Chemnitz, 1893). The latest edition is that by F. J. Amours in Scottish Alliterative Poems (Scottish Text Society, 1897), pp. 47-81. (See also Introduction pp. xx.-xxxiv.)
HOLLAND, officially the kingdom of the Netherlands (Koningrijk der Nederlanden), a maritime country in the north-west of Europe. The name Holland is that of the former countship, which forms part of the political, as well as the geographical centre of the kingdom (see the next article).
Topography.—Holland is bounded on the E. by Germany, on the S. by Belgium, on the W. and N. by the North Sea, and at the N.E. corner by the Dollart. From Stevensweert southward to the extreme corner of Limburg the boundary line is formed by the river Maas or Meuse.1 On the east a natural geographical boundary was formed by the long line of marshy fens extending along the borders of Overysel, Drente and Groningen. The kingdom extends from 53° 32′ 21″ (Groningen Cape on Rottum Island) to 50° 45′ 49″ N. (Mesch in the province of Limburg), and from 3° 23′ 27″ (Sluis in the province of Zeeland) to 7° 12′ 20″ E. (Langakkerschans in the province of Groningen). The greatest length from north to south, viz. that from Rottum Island to Eisden near Maastricht is 164 m., and the greatest breadth from south-west to north-east, or from Zwin near Sluis to Losser in Overysel, 144 m. The area is subject 588 to perpetual variation owing, on the one hand, to the erosion of the coasts, and, on the other, to reclamation of land by means of endiking and drainage operations. In 1889 the total area was calculated at 12,558 sq. m., and, including the Zuider Zee and the Wadden (2050 sq. m.) and the Dutch portion of the Dollart (23 sq. m.), 14,613 sq. m. In no country in Europe has the character of the territory exercised so great an influence on the inhabitants as in the Netherlands; and, on the other hand, no people has so extensively modified the condition of its territory as the Dutch. The greatest importance attaches therefore to the physical conformation of the country.
The coast-line extends in a double curve from south-west to north-east, and is formed by a row of sand dunes, 171 m. in length, fringed by a broad sandy beach descending very gradually into the sea. In the north and south, however, this line is Coast. broken by the inlets of the sea which form the Frisian and the South Holland and Zeeland islands respectively; but the dunes themselves are found continued along the seaward side of these islands, thus indicating the original continuity of the coast-line. The breadth of the dunes naturally varies greatly, the maximum width of about 4375 yds. being found at Schoorl, north-west of Alkmaar. The average height of the individual dune-tops is not above 33 ft., but attains a maximum of 197 ft. at the High Blinkert, near Haarlem. The steepness of the dunes on the side towards the sea is caused by the continual erosion, probably traceable, in part at least, to the channel current (which at mean tide has a velocity of 14 or 15 in. per second), and to the strong west or north-west winds which carry off large quantities of material. This alteration of coast-line appears at Loosduinen, where the moor or fenland formerly developed behind the dunes now crops out on the shore amid the sand, being pressed to the compactness of lignite by the weight of the sand drifted over it. Again, the remains of the Roman camp Brittenburg or Huis te Britten, which originally lay within the dunes and, after being covered by them, emerged again in 1520, were, in 1694, 1600 paces out to sea, opposite Katwijk; while, besides Katwijk itself, several other villages of the west coast, as Domburg, Scheveningen, Egmond, have been removed further inland. The tendency of the dunes to drift off on the landward side is prevented by the planting of bent-grass (Arundo arenaria), whose long roots serve to bind the sand together. It must be further remarked that both the “dune-pans,” or depressions, which are naturally marshy through their defective drainage, and the geest grounds—that is, the grounds along the foot of the downs—have been in various places either planted with wood or turned into arable and pasture land; while the numerous springs at the base of the dunes are of the utmost value to the great cities situated on the marshy soil inland, the example set by Amsterdam in 1853 in supplying itself with this water having been readily followed by Leiden, the Hague, Flushing, &c.
As already remarked, the coast-line of Holland breaks up into a series of islands at its northern and southern extremities. The principal sea-inlets in the north are the Texel Gat or Marsdiep and the Vlie, which lead past the chain of the Frisian Islands into the large inland sea or gulf called the Zuider Zee, and the Wadden or “shallows,” which extend along the shores of Friesland and Groningen as far as the Dollart and the mouth of the Ems. The inland sea-board thus formed consists of low coasts of sea-clay protected by dikes, and of some high diluvial strata which rise far enough above the level of the sea to make dikes unnecessary, as in the case of the Gooi hills between Naarden and the Eem, the Veluwe hills between Nykerk and Elburg, and the steep cliffs of the Gaasterland between Oude Mirdum and Stavoren. The Dollart was formed in 1277 by the inundation of the Ems basin, more than thirty villages being destroyed at once. The Zuider Zee and the bay in the Frisian coast known as the Lauwers Zee also gradually came into existence in the 13th century. The extensive sea-arms forming the South Holland and Zeeland archipelago are the Hont or West Scheldt, the East Scheldt, the Grevelingen (communicating with Krammer and the Volkerak) and the Haringvliet, which after being joined by the Volkerak is known as the Hollandsch Diep. These inlets were formerly of much greater extent than now, but are gradually closing up owing to the accumulation of mud deposits, and no longer have the same freedom of communication with one another. At the head of the Hollandsch Diep is the celebrated railway bridge of the Moerdyk (1868-1871) 1607 yds. in length; and above this bridge lies the Biesbosch (“reed forest”), a group of marshy islands formed by a disastrous inundation in 1421, when seventy-two villages and upwards of 100,000 lives were destroyed.
Besides the dunes the only hilly regions of Holland are the southern half of the province of Limburg, the neighbourhood of Nijmwegen, the hills of Utrecht, including the Gooi hills, the Veluwe region in Gelderland, the isolated hills in the middle and Relief and levels. east of Overysel and the Hondsrug range in Drente. The remainder of the country is flat, and shows a regular downward slope from south-east to north-west, in which direction the rivers mainly flow. The elevation of the surface of the country ranges between the extreme height of 1057 ft. near Vaals in the farthest corner of Limburg, and 16-20 ft. below the Amsterdam zero2 in some of the drained lands in the western half of the country. In fact, one quarter of the whole kingdom, consisting of the provinces of North and South Holland, the western portion of Utrecht as far as the Vaart Rhine, Zeeland, except the southern part of Zeeland-Flanders, and the north-west part of North Brabant, lies below the Amsterdam zero; and altogether 38% of the country, or all that part lying west of a line drawn through Groningen, Utrecht and Antwerp, lies within one metre above the Amsterdam zero and would be submerged if the sea broke down the barrier of dunes and dikes. This difference between the eastern and western divisions of Holland has its counterpart in the landscape and the nature of the soil. The western division consists of low fen or clay soil and presents a monotonous expanse of rich meadow-land, carefully drained in regular lines of canals bordered by stunted willows, and dotted over with windmills, the sails of canal craft and the clumps of elm and poplar which surround each isolated farm-house. The landscape of the eastern division is considered less typical. Here the soil consists mainly of sand and gravel, and the prevailing scenery is formed of waste heaths and patches of wood, while here and there fertile meadows extend along the banks of the streams, and the land is laid out in the highly regular manner characteristic of fen reclamation (see Drente).
The entire drainage of Holland is into the North Sea. The three principal rivers are the Rhine, the Maas (Meuse) and the Scheldt (Schelde), and all three have their origin outside the country, whilst the Scheldt has its mouth only in Holland, Rivers. giving its name to the two broad inlets of the sea which bound the Zeeland islands. The Rhine in its course through Holland is merely the parent stream of several important branches, splitting up into Rhine and Waal, Rhine and Ysel, Crooked Rhine and Lek (which takes two-thirds of the waters), and at Utrecht into Old Rhine and Vecht, finally reaching the sea through the sluices at Katwijk as little more than a drainage canal. The Ysel and the Vecht flow to the Zuider Zee; the other branches to the North Sea. The Maas, whose course is almost parallel to that of the Rhine, follows in a wide curve the general slope of the country, receiving the Roer, the Mark and the Aa. Towards its mouth its waters find their way into all the channels intersecting the South Holland archipelago. The main stream joining the Waal at Gorinchem flows on to Dordrecht as the Merwede, and is continued thence to the sea by the Old Maas, the North, and the New Maas, the New Maas being formed by the junction of the Lek and the North. From Gorinchem the New Merwede (constructed in the second half of the 19th century) extends between dykes through the marshes of the Biesbosch to the Hollandsch Diep. These great rivers render very important service as waterways. The mean velocity of their flow seldom exceeds 4.9 ft., but rises to 6.4 ft. when the river is high. In the lower reaches of the streams the velocity and slope are of course affected by the tides. In the Waal ordinary high water is perceptible as far up as Zalt Bommel in Gelderland, in the Lek the maximum limits or ordinary and spring tides are at Vianen and Kuilenburg respectively, in the Ysel above the Katerveer at the junction of the Willemsvaart and past Wyhe midway between Zwolle and Deventer; and in the Maas near Heusden and at Well in Limburg. Into the Zuider Zee there also flow the Kuinder, the Zwarte Water, with its tributary the Vecht, and the Eem. The total length of navigable channels is about 1150 m., but sand banks and shallows not infrequently impede the shipping traffic at low water during the summer. The smaller streams are often of great importance. Except where they rise in the fens they call into life a strip of fertile grassland in the midst of the barren sand, and are responsible for the existence of many villages along their banks. Following the example of the great Kampen irrigation canal in Belgium, artificial irrigation is also practised by means of some of the smaller streams, especially in North Brabant, Drente and Overysel, and in the absence of streams, canals and sluices are sometimes specially constructed to perform the same service. The low-lying spaces at the confluences of the rivers, being readily laid under water, have been not infrequently chosen as sites for fortresses. As a matter of course, the streams are also turned to account in connexion with the canal system—the Dommel, Berkel, Vecht, Regge, Holland Ysel, Gouwe, Rotte, Schie, Spaarne, Zaan, Amstel, Dieze, Amer, Mark, Zwarte Water, Kuinder and the numerous Aas in Drente and Groningen being the most important in this respect.
It is unnecessary to mention the names of the numerous marshy lakes which exist, especially in Friesland and Groningen, and are connected with rivers or streamlets. Those of Friesland are of note for the abundance of their fish and their beauty Lakes. of situation, on which last account the Uddelermeer in Gelderland is also celebrated. The Rockanje Lake near Brielle is remarkable for the strong salty solution which covers even the growing reeds with a 589 hard crust. Many of the lakes are nothing more than deep pits or marshes from which the peat has been extracted.
Dikes.—The circumstance that so much of Holland is below the sea-level necessarily exercises a very important influence on the drainage, the climate and the sanitary conditions of the country, as well as on its defence by means of inundation. The endiking of low lands against the sea which had been quietly proceeding during the first eleven centuries of the Christian era, received a fresh impetus in the 12th and 13th centuries from the fact that the level of the sea then became higher in relation to that of the land. This fact is illustrated by the broadening of river mouths and estuaries at this time, and the beginning of the formation of the Zuider Zee. A new feature in diking was the construction of dams or sluices across the mouths of rivers, sometimes with important consequences for the villages situated on the spot. Thus the dam on the Amstel (1257) was the origin of Amsterdam, and the dam on the Ye gave rise to Edam. But Holland’s chief protection against inundation is its long line of sand dunes, in which only two real breaches have been effected during the centuries of erosion. These are represented by the famous sea dikes called the Westkapelle dike and the Hondsbossche Zeewering, or sea-defence, which were begun respectively in the first and second halves of the 15th century. The first extends for a distance of over 4000 yds. between the villages of Westkapelle and Domburg in the island of Walcheren; the second is about 4900 yds. long, and extends from Kamperduin to near Petten, whence it is continued for another 1100 yds. by the Pettemer dike. These two sea dikes were reconstructed by the state at great expense between the year 1860 and 1884, having consisted before that time of little more than a protected sand dike. The earthen dikes are protected by stone-slopes and by piles, and at the more dangerous points also by zinkstukken (sinking pieces), artificial structures of brushwood laden with stones, and measuring some 400 yds. in circuit, by means of which the current is to some extent turned aside. The Westkapelle dike, 12,468 ft. long, has a seaward slope of 300 ft., and is protected by rows of piles and basalt blocks. On its ridge, 39 ft. broad, there is not only a roadway but a service railway. The cost of its upkeep is more than £6000 a year, and of the Hondsbossche Zeewering £2000 a year. When it is remembered that the woodwork is infested by the pile worm (Teredo navalis), the ravages of which were discovered in 1731, the labour and expense incurred in the construction and maintenance of the sea dikes now existing may be imagined. In other parts of the coast the dunes, though not pierced through, have become so wasted by erosion as to require artificial strengthening. This is afforded, either by means of a so-called sleeping dike (slaperdyk) behind the weak spot, as, for instance, between Kadzand and Breskens in Zeeland-Flanders, and again between ’s Gravenzande and Loosduinen; or by means of piers or breakwaters (hoofden, heads) projecting at intervals into the sea and composed of piles, or brushwood and stones. The first of such breakwaters was that constructed in 1857 at the north end of the island of Goeree, and extends over 100 yds. into the sea at low water. Similar constructions are to be found on the seaward side of the islands of Walcheren, Schouwen and Voorne, and between ’s Gravenzande and Scheveningen, and Katwijk and Noordwijk. Owing to the obstruction which they offer to drifting sands, artificial dunes are in course of time formed about them, and in this way they become at once more effective and less costly to maintain. The firm and regular dunes which now run from Petten to Kallantsoog (formerly an island), and thence northwards to Huisduinen, were thus formed about the Zyper (1617) and Koegras (1610) dikes respectively. From Huisduinen to Nieuwediep the dunes are replaced by the famous Helder sea-wall. The shores of the Zuider Zee and the Wadden, and the Frisian and Zuider Zee islands, are also partially protected by dikes. In more than one quarter the dikes have been repeatedly extended so as to enclose land conquered from the sea, the work of reclamation being aided by a natural process. Layer upon layer of clay is deposited by the sea in front of the dikes, until a new fringe has been added to the coast-line on which sea-grasses grasses begin to grow. Upon these clay-lands (kwelders) horses, cattle and sheep are at last able to pasture at low tide, and in course of time they are in turn endiked.
River dikes are as necessary as sea dikes, elevated banks being found only in a few places, as on the Lower Rhine. Owing to the unsuitability of the foundations, Dutch dikes are usually marked by a great width, which at the crown varies between 13 and 26 ft. The height of the dike ranges to 40 in. above high water-level. Between the dikes and the stream lie “forelands” (interwaarden), which are usually submerged in winter, and frequently lie 1 or 2 yds, higher than the country within the dikes. These forelands also offer in course of time an opportunity for endiking and reclamation. In this way the towns of Rotterdam, Schiedam, Vlaardingen and Maasluis have all gradually extended over the Maas dike in order to keep in touch with the river, and the small town of Delftshaven is built altogether on the outer side of the same dike.
Impoldering.—The first step in the reclamation of land is to “impolder” it, or convert it into a “polder” (i.e. a section of artificially drained land), by surrounding it with dikes or quays for the two-fold purpose of protecting it from all further inundation from outside and of controlling the amount of water inside. Impoldering for its own sake or on a large scale was impossible as long as the means of drainage were restricted. But in the beginning of the 15th century new possibilities were revealed by the adaptation of the windmill to the purpose of pumping water. It was gradually recognized that the masses of water which collected wherever peat-digging had been carried on were an unnecessary menace to the neighbouring lands, and also that a more enduring source of profit lay in the bed of the fertile sea-clay under the peat. It became usual, therefore, to make the subsequent drainage of the land a condition of the extraction of peat from it, this condition being established by proclamation in 1595.
Drainage.—It has been shown that the western provinces of Holland may be broadly defined as lying below sea-level. In fact the surface of the sea-clay in these provinces is from 11½ to 16½ ft. below the Amsterdam zero. The ground-water is, therefore, relatively very high and the capacity of the soil for further absorption proportionately low. To increase the reservoir capacity of the polder, as well as to conduct the water to the windmills or engines, it is intersected by a network of ditches cut at right angles to each other, the amount of ditching required being usually one-twelfth of the area to be drained. In modern times pumping engines have replaced windmills, and the typical old Dutch landscape with its countless hooded heads and swinging arms has been greatly transformed by the advent of the chimney stacks of the pumping-stations. The power of the pumping-engines is taken on the basis of 12 h.p. per 1000 hectares for every metre that the water has to be raised, or stated in another form, the engines must be capable of raising nearly 9 ℔ of water through 1 yd. per acre per minute. The main ditches, or canals, afterwards also serve as a means of navigation. The level at which it is desired to keep the water in these ditches constitutes the unit of water measurement for the polder, and is called the polder’s zomer peil (Z.P.) or summer water-level. In pasture-polders (koepolders) Z.P. is 1 to 1½ ft. below the level of the polder, and in agricultural polders 2½ to 3½ ft. below. Owing to the shrinkage of the soil in reclaimed lands, however, that is, lands which have been drained after fen or other reclamation, the sides of the polder are often higher than the middle, and it is necessary by means of small dams or sluices to make separate water-tight compartments (afpolderingen), each having its own unit of measurement. Some polders also have a winter peil as a precaution against the increased fall of water in that season. The summer water-level of the pasture polders south of the former Y is about 4 to 8 ft. below the Amsterdam zero, but in the Noorderkwartier to the north, it reaches 10½ ft. below A. P. in the Beschotel polder, and in reclaimed lands (droogmakerijen) may be still lower, thus in the Reeuwyk polder north of Gouda it is 21¼ ft. below.
The drainage of the country is effected by natural or artificial means, according to the slope of the ground. Nearly all the polders of Zeeland and South Holland are able to discharge naturally into the sea at average low water, self-regulating sluices being used. But in North Holland and Utrecht on the contrary the polder water has generally to be raised. In some deep polders and drained lands where the water cannot be brought to the required height at once, windmills are found at two or even three different levels. The final removal of polder water, however, is only truly effected upon its discharge into the “outer waters” of the country, that is, the sea itself or the large rivers freely communicating with it; and this happens with but a small proportion of Dutch polders, such as those of Zeeland, the Holland Ysel and the Noorderkwartier.
As the system of impoldering extended, the small sluggish rivers were gradually cut off by dikes from the marshy lands through which they flowed, and by sluices from the waters with which they communicated. Their level ranges from about 1½ to 4 ft. above that of the pasture polders. In addition, various kinds of canals 590 and endiked or embanked lakes had come into existence, forming altogether a vast network of more or less stagnant waters. These waters are utilized as the temporary reservoirs of the superfluous polder water, each system of reservoirs being termed a boezem (bosom or basin), and all lands watering into the same boezem being considered as belonging to it. The largest boezem is that of Friesland, which embraces nearly the whole province. It sometimes happens that a polder is not in direct contact with the boezem to which it belongs, but first drains into an adjacent polder, from which the water is afterwards removed. In the same way, some boezems discharge first into others, which then discharge into the sea or rivers. This is usually the case where there is a great difference in height between the surface of the boezem and the outer waters, and may be illustrated by the Alblasserwaard and the Rotte boezems in the provinces of South and North Holland respectively. In time of drought the water in the canals and boezems is allowed to run back into the polders, and so serve a double purpose as water-reservoirs. Boezems, like polders, have a standard water-level which may hot be exceeded, and as in the polder this level may vary in the different parts of an extended boezem. The height of the boezem peil ranges between 11⁄3 ft. above to 15⁄6 ft. below the Amsterdam zero, though the average is about 1 to 12⁄3 ft. below. Some boezems, again, which are less easily controlled, have a “danger water-level” at which they refuse to receive any more water from the surrounding polders. The Schie or Delflands boezem of South Holland is of this kind, and such a boezem is termed besloten or “sequestered,” in contradistinction to a “free” boezem. A third kind of boezem is the reserve or berg-boezem, which in summer may be made dry and used for agriculture, while in winter it serves as a special reserve. The centuries of labour and self-sacrifice involved in the making of this complete and harmonious system of combined defence and reclamation are better imagined than described, and even at the present day the evidences of the struggle are far less apparent than real.
Geology.—Except in Limburg, where, in the neighbourhood of Maastricht, the upper layers of the chalk are exposed and followed by Oligocene and Miocene beds, the whole of Holland is covered by recent deposits of considerable thickness, beneath which deep borings have revealed the existence of Pliocene beds similar to the “Crags” of East Anglia. They are divided into the Diestien, corresponding in part with the English Coralline Crag, the Scaldisien and Poederlien corresponding with the Walton Crag, and the Amstelien corresponding with the Red Crag of Suffolk. In the south of Holland the total thickness of the Pliocene series is only about 200 ft., and they are covered by about 100 ft. of Quaternary deposits; but towards the north the beds sink down and at the same time increase considerably in thickness, so that at Utrecht a deep boring reached the top of the Pliocene at a depth of 513 ft. and at 1198 ft. it had not touched the bottom. At Amsterdam the top of the Pliocene lay 625 ft. below the surface, but the boring, 1098 ft. deep, did not reach the base of the uppermost division of the Pliocene, viz. the Amstelien. Eastward and westward of Amsterdam, as well as southward, the Pliocene beds rise slowly to the surface, and gradually decrease in thickness. They were laid down in a broad bay which covered the east of England and nearly the whole of the Netherlands, and was open to the North Sea. There is evidence that the sea gradually retreated northwards during the deposition of these beds, until at length the Rhine flowed over to England and entered the sea north of Cromer. The appearance of northern shells in the upper divisions of the Pliocene series indicates the approach of the Glacial period, and glacial drift containing Scandinavian boulders now covers much of the country east of the Zuider Zee. The more modern deposits of Holland consist of alluvium, wind-blown sands and peat.3
Climate.—Situated in the temperate zone between 50° and 53° N. the climate of Holland shows a difference in the lengths of day and night extending in the north to nine hours, and there is a correspondingly wide range of temperature; it also belongs to the region of variable winds. On an average of fifty years the mean annual temperature was 49.8° Fahr.; the maximum, 93.9° Fahr.; the minimum, -5.8° Fahr. The mean annual barometric height is 29.93 in.; the mean annual moisture, 81%; the mean annual rainfall, 27.99 in. The mean annual number of days with rain is 204, with snow 19, and with thunder-storms 18. The increased rainfall from July to December (the summer and autumn rains), and the increased evaporation in spring and summer (5.2 in. more than the rainfall), are of importance as regards “poldering” and draining operations. The prevalence of south-west winds during nine months of the year and of north-west during three (April-June) has a strong influence on the temperature and rainfall, tides, river mouths and outlets, and also, geologically, on dunes and sand drifts, and on fens and the accumulation of clay on the coast. The west winds of course increase the moisture, and moderate both the winter cold and the summer heat, while the east winds blowing over the continent have an opposite influence. It cannot be said that the climate is particularly good, owing to the changeableness of the weather, which may alter completely within a single day. The heavy atmosphere likewise, and the necessity of living within doors or in confined localities, cannot but exercise an influence on the character and temperament of the inhabitants. Only of certain districts, however, can it be said that they are positively unhealthy; to this category belong some parts of the Holland provinces, Zeeland, and Friesland, where the inhabitants are exposed to the exhalations from the marshy ground, and the atmosphere is often burdened with sea-fogs.
Fauna.—In the densely populated Netherlands, with no extensive forests, the fauna does not present any unusual varieties. The otter, martin and badger may be mentioned among the rarer wild animals, and the weasel, ermine and pole-cat among the more common. In the 18th century wolves still roamed the country in such large numbers that hunting parties were organized against them; now they are unknown. Roebuck and deer are found in a wild state in Gelderland and Overysel, foxes are plentiful in the dry wooded regions on the borders of the country, and hares and rabbits in the dunes and other sandy stretches. Among birds may be reckoned about two hundred and forty different kinds which are regular inhabitants, although nearly two hundred of these are migratory. The woodcock, partridge, hawk, water-ousel, magpie, jay, raven, various kinds of owls, wood-pigeon, golden-crested wren, tufted lark and titmouse are among the birds which breed here. Birds of passage include the buzzard, kite, quail, wild fowl of various kinds, golden thrush, wagtail, linnet, finch and nightingale. Storks are plentiful in summer and might almost be considered the most characteristic feature of the prevailing landscape.
Flora.—The flora may be most conveniently dealt with in the four physiographical divisions to which it belongs. These are, namely, the heath-lands, pasture-lands, dunes and coasts. Heath (Erica tetralix) and ling (Calluna vulgaris) cover all the waste sandy regions in the eastern division of the country. The vegetation of the meadow-lands is monotonous. In the more damp and marshy places the bottom is covered with marsh trefoil, carex, smooth equisetum, and rush. In the ditches and pools common yellow and white water-lilies are seen, as well as water-soldier (Stratiotes aloides), great and lesser reed-mace, sweet flag and bur-reed. The plant forms of the dunes are stunted and meagre as compared with the same forms elsewhere. The most common plant here is the stiff sand-reed (Arundo arenaria), called sand-oats in Drente and Overysel, where it is much used for making mats. Like the sand-reed, the dewberry bramble and the shrub of the buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) perform a useful service in helping to bind the sand together. Furze and the common juniper are regular dune plants, and may also be found on the heaths of Drente, Overysel and Gelderland. Thyme and the small white dune-rose (Rosa pimpinellifolia) also grow in the dunes, and wall-pepper (Sedum acre), field fever-wort, reindeer moss, common asparagus, sheep’s fescue grass, the pretty Solomon-seal (Polygonatum officinale), and the broad-leaved or marsh orchis (Orchis latifolia). The sea-plants which flourish on the sand and mud-banks along the coasts greatly assist the process of littoral deposits and are specially cultivated in places. Sea-aster flourishes in the Wadden of Friesland and Groningen, the Dollart and the Zeeland estuaries, giving place nearer the shore to sandspurry (Spergularia), or sea-poa or floating meadow grass (Glyceria maritima), which grows up to the dikes, and affords pasture for cattle and sheep. Along the coast of Overysel and in the Biesbosch lake club-rush, or scirpus, is planted in considerable quantities for the hat-making industry, and common sea-wrack (Zostera marina) is found in large patches in the northern half of the Zuider Zee, where it is gathered for trade purposes during the months of June, July and August. Except for the willow-plots found along the rivers on the clay lands, nearly all the wood is confined to the sand and gravel soils, where copses of birch and alder are common.
Population.—The following table shows the area and population in the eleven provinces of the Netherlands:—
Province | Area in sq. m. | Population 1890. | Population 1900. | Density per sq. m. in 1900. |
North Brabant | 1,980 | 509,628 | 553,842 | 280 |
Gelderland | 1,965 | 512,202 | 566,549 | 288 |
South Holland | 1,166 | 949,641 | 1,144,448 | 981 |
North Holland | 1,070 | 829,489 | 968,131 | 905 |
Zeeland | 690 | 199,234 | 216,295 | 313 |
Utrecht | 534 | 221,007 | 251,034 | 470 |
Friesland | 1,282 | 335,558 | 340,262 | 265 |
Overysel | 1,291 | 295,445 | 333,338 | 258 |
Groningen | 790 | 272,786 | 299,602 | 379 |
Drente | 1,030 | 130,704 | 148,544 | 144 |
Limburg | 850 | 255,721 | 281,934 | 332 |
Total | 12,648 | 4,511,415 | 5,104,137* | 404 |
* This total includes 158 persons assigned to no province. |
The extremes of density of population are found in the provinces of North Holland and South Holland on the one hand, and Drente on the other. This divergence is partly explained by the difference of soil—which in Drente comprises the maximum of waste lands, and in South Holland the minimum—and partly also by the greater facilities which the seaward provinces enjoy of earning a subsistence, and the greater variety of their industries. The largest towns are Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Utrecht, Groningen, Haarlem, Arnhem, Leiden, Nijmwegen, Tilburg. Other considerable towns are Dordrecht, Maastricht, Leeuwarden, Zwolle, Delft, ’s Hertogenbosch, Schiedam, Deventer, Breda, Apeldoorn, Helder, Enschedé, Gouda, Zaandam, Kampen, Hilversum, Flushing, Amersfoort, Middelburg, Zutphen and Alkmaar. Many of the smaller towns, such as Assen, Enschedé, Helmond, Hengelo, Tiel, Venlo, Vlaardingen, Zaandam, Yerseke, show a great development, and it is a noteworthy fact that the rural districts, taken as a whole, have borne an equal share in the general increase of population. This, taken in conjunction with the advance in trade and shipping, the diminution in emigration, and the prosperity of the savings banks, points to a favourable state in the condition of the people.
Communications.—The roads are divided into national or royal roads, placed directly under the control of the water-staat and supported by the state; provincial roads, under the direct Roads. control of the states of the provinces, and almost all supported by the provincial treasuries; communal and polder roads, maintained by the communal authorities and the polder boards; and finally, private roads. The system of national roads, mainly constructed between 1821 and 1827, but still in process of extension, brings into connexion nearly all the towns.
The canal system of Holland is peculiarly complete and extends into every part of the country, giving to many inland towns almost a maritime appearance. The united length of the canals exceeds 1500 m. As a matter of course the smaller Canals. streams have been largely utilized in their formation, while the necessity for a comprehensive drainage system has also contributed in no small degree. During the years 1815-1830 a large part of the extensive scheme of construction inaugurated by King William I. was carried out, the following canals, among others, coming into existence in that period: the North Holland ship canal (depth, 16½ ft.) from Amsterdam to den Helder, the Grift canal between Apeldoorn and Hattem, the Willemsvaart connecting Zwolle with the Ysel, the Zuid Willemsvaart, or South William’s canal (6½ ft.), from ’s Hertogenbosch to Maastricht, and the Ternuzen-Ghent ship canal. After 1849 the canal programme was again taken up by the state, which alone or in conjunction with the provincial authorities constructed the Apeldoorn-Dieren canal (1859-1869), the drainage canals of the “Peel” marsh in North Brabant, and of the eastern provinces, namely, the Deurne canal (1876-1892) from the Maas to Helenaveen, the Almelo (1851-1858) and Overysel (1884-1888) canals from Zwolle, Deventer and Almelo to Koevorden, and the Stieltjes (1880-1884), and Orange (1853-1858 and 1881-1889) canals in Drente, the North Williams canal (1856-1862) between Assen and Groningen, the Ems (1866-1876) ship canal from Groningen to Delfzyl, and the New Merwede, and enlarged the canal from Harlingen by way of Leeuwarden to the Lauwars Zee. The large ship canals to Rotterdam and Amsterdam, called the New Waterway and the North Sea canal respectively, were constructed in 1866-1872 and 1865-1876 at a cost of 2½ and 3 million pounds sterling, the former by widening the channel of the Scheur north of Rozenburg, and cutting across the Hook of Holland, the latter by utilizing the bed of the Y and cutting through the dunes at Ymuiden. In 1876 an agreement was arrived at with Germany for connecting the important drainage canals in Overysel, Drente and Groningen with the Ems canal system, as a result of which the Almelo-Noordhorn (1884-1888) and other canals came into existence.
The canals differ in character in the different provinces. In Zeeland they connect the towns of the interior with the sea or the river mouths; for example, the one from Middelburg to Veere and Flushing (1866-1878), from Goes to the East Scheldt, and from Zierikzee also to the East Scheldt. The South Beveland (1862-1866) canal connects the East and West Scheldt; similarly in South Holland the Voorne canal unites the Haringvliet with the New Maas, which does not allow the passage of large vessels above Brielle; whilst owing lo the banks and shallows in front of Hellevoetsluis the New Waterway was cut to Rotterdam. Of another character is the Zederik canal, which unites the principal river of central Holland, the Lek, at Vianen by means of the Linge with the Merwede at Gorkum. Amsterdam is connected with the Lek and the Zederik canal via Utrecht by the Vecht and the Vaart Rhine (1881-1893; depth 10.2 ft.). Again, a totally different character belongs to the canals in North Brabant, and the east and north-east of Holland where, in the absence of great rivers, they form the only waterways which render possible the drainage of the fens and the export of peat; and unite the lesser streams with each other. Thus in Overysel, in addition to the canals already mentioned, the Dedemsvaart connects the Vecht with the Zwarte Water near Hasselt; in Drente the Smildervaart and Drentsche Hoofdvaart unites Assen with Meppel, and receives on the eastern side the drainage canals of the Drente fens, namely, the Orange canal and the Hoogeveen Vaart (1850-1860; 1880-1893). Groningen communicates with the Lauwers Zee by the Reitdiep (1873-1876), while the canal to Winschoten and the Stadskanaal, or State canal (1877-1880), bring it into connexion with the flourishing fen colonies in the east of the province and in Drente. In Friesland, finally, besides the ship canal from Harlingen to the Lauwers Zee there are canals from Leeuwarden to the Lemmer, whence there is a busy traffic with Amsterdam; and the Caspar Robles or Kolonels Diep, and the Hoendiep connect it with Groningen.
The construction of railways was long deferred and slowly accomplished. The first line was that between Amsterdam and Haarlem, opened in 1839 by the Holland railway company (Hollandsch Yzeren Spoorweg Maatschappij). In 1845 the state undertook Railways. to develop the railway system, and a company of private individuals was formed to administer it under the title of the Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Staatspoorwegen. In 1860, however, the total length of railways was only 208 m., and in that year a parliamentary bill embodying a comprehensive scheme of construction was adopted. By 1872 this programme was nearly completed, and 542 m. of new railway had been added. In 1873 and 1875 a second and a third bill provided for the extension of the railway system at the cost of the state, and, in 1876, 1882 and 1890 laws were introduced readjusting the control of the various lines, some of which were transferred to the Holland railway. The state railway system was completed in 1892, and since that time the utmost that the state has done has been to subsidize new undertakings. These include various local lines such as the line Alkmaar-Hoorn (1898), Ede-Barneveld-Nykerk, Enschedé-Ahaus in Germany (1902), Leeuwarden to Franeker, Harlingen and Dokkum, and the line Zwolle-Almelo (junction at Marienberg) Koevorden-Stadskanal-Veendam-Delfzyl, connecting all the fen countries on the eastern borders. The electric railway Amsterdam-Zandvoort was opened in 1904. The frame upon which the whole network of the Dutch railways may be said to depend is formed of two main lines from north and south and four transverse lines from west to east. The two longitudinal lines are the railway den Helder via Haarlem (1862-1867),4 Rotterdam (1839-1847), and Zwaluwe (1869-1877) to Antwerp (1852-1855), belonging to the Holland railway company, and the State railway from Leeuwarden and Groningen (1870) (junction at Meppel, 1867) Zwolle (1866)—Arnhem (1865)—Nijmwegen (1879)—Venlo (1883)—Maastricht (1865). The four transverse lines belong to the State and Holland railways alternately and are, beginning with the State railway: (1) the line Flushing (1872)—Rozendaal (1860)—Tilburg (1863)—Bokstel (whence there is a branch line belonging to the North Brabant and Germany railway company via Vechel to Goch in Germany, opened in 1873)—Eindhoven—Venlo and across Prussian border (1866); (2) the line Hook of Holland—Rotterdam (1893)—Dordrecht (1872-1877)—Elst (1882-1885)—Nijmwegen (1879)—Cleves, Germany (1865); (3) the line Rotterdam—Utrecht (1866-1869) and Amsterdam—Utrecht—Arnhem (1843-1845) to Emmerich in Germany (1856): this line formerly belonged to the Netherlands-Rhine railway company, but was bought by the state in 1890; and finally (4) the line Amsterdam—Hilversum—Amersfoort—Apeldoorn (1875), whence it is continued (a) via Deventer, Almelo and Hengelo to Salzbergen, Germany (1865); (b) via Zutphen, Hengelo (1865), Enschedé (1866) to Gronau, Germany; (c) via Zutphen (1876) and Ruurlo to Winterswyk (1878). Of these (1) and (2) form the main transcontinental routes in connexion with the steamboat service to England (ports of Queenborough and Harwich respectively). Two other lines of railway, both belonging to the state, also traverse the country west to east, namely, the line Rozendaal—’s Hertogenbosch (1890)—Nijmwegen, and in the extreme north, the line from Harlingen through Leeuwarden (1863) and Groningen (1866) to the border at Nieuwe Schans (1869), whence it was connected with the German railways in 1876. The northern and southern provinces are further connected by the lines Amsterdam—Zaandam (1878)—Enkhuizen (1885), whence there is a steam ferry across the Zuider Zee to Stavoren, from where the railway is continued to Leeuwarden (1883-1885); the Netherlands Central railway, Utrecht—Amersfoort—Zwoole—Kampen (1863); and the line Utrecht—’s Hertogenbosch (1868-1869) which is continued southward into Belgium by the lines bought in 1898 from the Grand Central Beige railway, namely, via Tilburg to Turnhout (1867), and via Eindhoven (1866) to Hasselt. In 1892 Greenwich mean time was adopted on the railways and in the post-offices, making a difference of twenty minutes with mean Amsterdam time.
Since 1877 railway communication has been largely supplemented by steam-tramways, which either run along the main roads or across the country on special embankments, while one of them is 592 carried across the river Ysel at Doesburg on a pontoon bridge. Tramways. The state first began to encourage the construction of these local light railways by means of subsidies in 1893, since when some of the most prominent lines have come into existence, such as Purmerend—Alkmaar (1898), Zutphen—Emmerich (1902), along the Dedemsvaart in Overysel (1902), from ’s Hertogenbosch via Utrecht and Eindhoven to Turnhout in Belgium (1898), and especially those connecting the South Holland and Zeeland islands with the railway, namely, between Rotterdam and Numansdorp on the Hollandsch Diep (1898), and from Breda or Bergen-op-Zoom, via Steenbergen to St Philipsland, Zierikzee and Brouwershaven (1900). An electric tramway connects Haarlem and Zandvoort. The number of passengers carried by the steam-tramways is relatively higher than that of the railways. The value of the goods traffic is not so high, owing, principally, to the want of intercommunication between the various lines on account of differences in the width of the gauge.
Agriculture.—Waste lands are chiefly composed of the barren stretches of heaths found in Drente, Overysel, Gelderland and North Brabant. They formerly served to support large flocks of sheep and some cattle, but are gradually transformed by the planting of woods, as well as by strenuous efforts at cultivation. Zeeland and Groningen are the two principal agricultural provinces, and after them follow Limburg, North Brabant, Gelderland and South Holland. The chief products of cultivation on the heavy clay soil are oats, barley and wheat, and on the sand-grounds rye, buckwheat and potatoes. Flax and beetroot are also cultivated on the clay lands. Tobacco, hemp, hops, colza and chicory form special cultures. With the possible exception of oats, the cereals do not suffice for home consumption, and maize is imported in large quantities for cattle-feeding, and barley for the distilleries and breweries. Horticulture and market-gardening are of a high order, and flourish especially on the low fen soil and geest grounds along the foot of the dunes in the provinces of North and South Holland. The principal market products are cauliflower, cabbage, onions, asparagus, gherkins, cucumbers, beans, peas, &c. The principal flowers are hyacinths, tulips, crocuses, narcissus and other bulbous plants, the total export of which is estimated at over £200,000. Fruit is everywhere grown, and there is a special cultivation of grapes and figs in the Westland of South Holland. The woods, or rather the plantations, covering 6%, consist of (1) the so-called forest timber (opgaandhout; Fr. arbres de haute futaie), including the beech, oak, elm, poplar, birch, ash, willow and coniferous trees; and (2) the copse wood (akkermaal or hakhout), embracing the elder, willow, beech, oak, &c. This forms no unimportant branch of the national wealth.
With nearly 35% of the total surface of the country under permanent pasture, cattle-breeding forms one of the most characteristic industries of the country. The provinces of Friesland, North and South Holland, and Utrecht take Livestock. the lead as regards both quality and numbers. A smaller, hardier kind of cattle and large numbers of sheep are kept upon the heath-lands in the eastern provinces, which also favour the rearing of pigs and bee-culture. Horse-breeding is most important in Friesland, which produces the well-known black breed of horse commonly used in funeral processions. Goats are most numerous in Gelderland and North Brabant. Poultry, especially fowls, are generally kept. Stock-breeding, like agriculture, has considerably improved under the care of the government (state and provincial), which grants subsidies for breeding, irrigation of pasture-lands, the importation of finer breeds of cattle and horses, the erection of factories for dairy produce, schools, &c.
Fisheries.—The fishing industry of the Netherlands may be said to have been in existence already in the 13th century, and in the following century received a considerable impetus from the discovery how to cure herring by William Beukelszoon, a Zeeland fisherman. It steadily declined during the 17th and 18th centuries, however, but again began to revive in the last half of the 19th century. The fisheries are commonly divided into four particular fishing areas, namely, the “deep-sea” fishery of the North Sea, and the “inner” (binnengaatsch) fisheries of the Wadden, the Zuider Zee, and the South Holland and Zeeland waters. The deep-sea fishery may be farther divided into the so-called “great” or “salt-herring” fishery, mainly carried on from Vlaardingen and Maasluis during the summer and autumn, and the “fresh-herring” fishery, chiefly pursued at Scheveningen, Katwijk and Noordwijk. The value of the herring fisheries is enhanced by the careful methods of smoking and salting, the export of salted fish being considerable. In the winter the largest boats are laid up and the remainder take to line-fishing. Middelharnis, Pernis and Zwartewaal are the centres of this branch of fishery, which yields halibut, cod, ling and haddock. The trawl fisheries of the coast yield sole, plaice, turbot, brill, skate, &c., of which a large part is brought alive to the market. In the Zuider Zee small herring, flat fish, anchovies and shrimps are caught, the chief fishing centres being the islands of Texel, Urk and Wieringen, and the coast towns of Helder, Bunschoten, Huizen, Enkhuizen, Vollendam, Kampen, Harderwyk, Vollenhove. The anchovy fishing which takes place in May, June and July sometimes yields very productive results. Oysters and mussels are obtained on the East Scheldt, and anchovies at Bergen-op-Zoom; while salmon, perch and pike are caught in the Maas, the Lek and the New Merwede. The oyster-beds and salmon fisheries are largely in the hands of the state, which lets them to the highest bidder. Large quantities of eels are caught in the Frisian lakes. The fisheries not only supply the great local demand, but allow of large exports.
Manufacturing Industries.—The mineral resources of Holland give no encouragement to industrial activity, with the exception of the coal-mining in Limburg, the smelting of iron ore in a few furnaces in Overysel and Gelderland, the use of stone and gravel in the making of dikes and roads, and of clay in brickworks and potteries, the quarrying of stone at St Pietersberg, &c. Nevertheless the industry of the country has developed in a remarkable manner since the separation from Belgium. The greatest activity is shown in the cotton industry, which flourishes especially in the Twente district of Overysel, where jute is also worked into sacks. In the manufacture of woollen and linen goods Tilburg ranks first, followed by Leiden, Utrecht and Eindhoven; that of half-woollens is best developed at Roermond and Helmond. Other branches of industry include carpet-weaving at Deventer, the distillation of brandy, gin and liqueurs at Schiedam, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and beer-brewing in most of the principal towns; shoe-making and leather-tanning in the Langstraat district of North Brabant; paper-making at Apeldoorn, on the Zaan, and in Limburg; the manufacture of earthenware and faïence at Maastricht, the Hague and Delft, as well as at Utrecht, Purmerend and Makkum; clay pipes and stearine candles at Gouda; margarine at Osch; chocolate at Weesp and on the Zaan; mat-plaiting and broom-making at Genemuiden and Blokzyl; diamond-cutting and the manufacture of quinine at Amsterdam; and the making of cigars and snuff at Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Kampen, &c. Shipbuilding is of no small importance in Holland, not only in the greater, but also in the smaller towns along the rivers and canals. The principal shipbuilding yards are at Amsterdam, Kinderdijk, Rotterdam and at Flushing, where there is a government dockyard for building warships.
Trade and Shipping.—To obtain a correct idea of the trade of Holland, greater attention than would be requisite in the case of other countries must be paid to the inland traffic. It is impossible to state the value of this in definite figures, but an estimate may be formed of its extent from the number of ships which it employs in the rivers and canals, and from the quantity of produce brought to the public market. In connexion with this traffic there is a large fleet of tug boats; but steam- or petroleum-propelled barges are becoming more common. Some of the lighters used in the Rhine transport trade have a capacity of 3000 tons. A great part of the commercial business at Rotterdam belongs to the commission and transit trade. The other principal ports are Flushing, Terneuzen (for Belgium), Harlingen, Delfzyl, Dordrecht, Zaandam, Schiedam, Groningen, den Helder, Middelburg, Vlaardingen. Among the national mail steamship services are the lines to the East and West Indies, Africa and the United States. An examination of its lists of exports and imports will show that Holland receives from its colonies its spiceries, coffee, sugar, tobacco, indigo, cinnamon; from England and Belgium its manufactured goods and coals; petroleum, raw cotton and cereals from the United States; grain from the Baltic provinces, Archangel, and the ports of the Black Sea; timber from Norway and the basin of the Rhine, yarn from England, wine from France, hops from Bavaria and Alsace; iron-ore from Spain; while in its turn it sends its colonial wares to Germany, its agricultural produce to the London market, its fish to Belgium and Germany, and its cheese to France, Belgium and Hamburg, as well as England. The bulk of trade is carried on with Germany and England; then follow Java, Belgium, Russia, the United States, &c. In the last half of the 19th century the total value of the foreign commerce was more than trebled.
Constitution and Government.—The government of the Netherlands is regulated by the constitution of 1815, revised in 1848 and 1887, under which the sovereign’s person is inviolable and 593 the ministers are responsible. The age of majority of the sovereign is eighteen. The crown is hereditary in both the male and the female line according to primogeniture; but it is only in default of male heirs that females can come to the throne. The crown prince or heir apparent is the first subject of the sovereign, and bears the title of the prince of Orange. The sovereign alone has executive authority. To him belong the ultimate direction of foreign affairs, the power to declare war and peace, to make treaties and alliances, and to dissolve one or both chambers of parliament, the supreme command of the army and navy, the supreme administration of the state finances and of the colonies and other possessions of the kingdom, and the prerogative of mercy. By the provisions of the same constitution he establishes the ministerial departments, and shares the legislative power with the first and second chambers of parliament, which constitute the states-general and sit at the Hague. The heads of the departments to whom the especial executive functions are entrusted are eight in number—ministers respectively of the interior, of “water-staat,” trade and industry (that is, of public works, including railways, post-office, &c.), of justice, of finance, of war, of marine, of the colonies and of foreign affairs. There is a department of agriculture, but without a minister at its head. The heads of departments are appointed and dismissed at the pleasure of the sovereign, usually determined, however, as in all constitutional states, by the will of the nation as indicated by its representatives.
The number of members in the first chamber is 50, South Holland sending 10, North Holland 9, North Brabant and Gelderland each 6, Friesland 4, Overysel, Limburg and Groningen each 3, Zeeland, Utrecht and Drente each 2. According to the fundamental law (Grondwet) of 1887, they are chosen by the provincial states, not only from amongst those who bear the greatest burden of direct taxation in each province, but also from amongst great functionaries and persons of high rank. Those deputies who are not resident in the Hague are entitled to receive 16s. 8d. a day during the session. The duration of parliament is nine years, a third of the members retiring every three years. The retiring members are eligible for re-election. The members of the second chamber are chosen in the electoral districts by all capable male citizens not under 23 years of age, who pay one or more direct taxes, ranging from a minimum of one guilder (1s. 8d.) towards the income tax. The number of members is 100, Amsterdam returning 9, Rotterdam 5, the Hague 3, Groningen and Utrecht 2 members each. Members must be at least thirty years old, and receive an annual allowance of £166, besides travelling expenses. They only, and the government, have the right of initiating business, and of proposing amendments. Their term is four years, but they are re-eligible. All communications from the sovereign to the states-general and from the states to the sovereign, as well as all measures relating to internal administration or to foreign possessions, are first submitted to the consideration of the council of state, which consists of 14 members appointed by the sovereign, who is the president. The state council also has the right of making suggestions to the sovereign in regard to subjects of legislation and administration.
The provincial administration is entrusted to the provincial states, which are returned by direct election by the same electors as vote for the second chamber. The term is for six years, but one-half of the members retire every three years subject to re-election or renewal. The president of the assembly is the royal commissioner for the province. As the provincial states only meet a few times in the year, they name a committee of deputy-states which manages current general business, and at the same time exercises the right of control over the affairs of the communes. At the head of every commune stands a communal council, whose members must be not under 23 years of age. They are elected for six years (one-third of the council retiring every two years) by the same voters as for the provincial states. Communal franchise is further restricted, however, to those electors who pay a certain sum to the communal rates. The number of councillors varies according to the population between 7 and 45. One of the special duties of the council is the supervision of education. The president of the communal council is the burgomaster, who is named by the sovereign in every instance for six years, and receives a salary varying from £40 to over £600. Provision is made for paying the councillors a certain fee—called “presence-money”—when required. The burgomaster has the power to suspend any of the council’s decrees for 30 days. The executive power is vested in a college formed by the burgomaster and two, three or four magistrates (wethouders) to be chosen by and from the members of the council. The provinces are eleven in number.
National Defence.—The home defence system of Holland is a militia with strong cadres based on universal service. Service in the “militia” or 1st line force is for 8 years, in the 2nd line for 7. Every year in the drill season contingents of militiamen are called up for long or short periods of training, and the maximum peace strength under arms in the summer is about 35,000, of whom half are permanent cadres and half militiamen. In 1908 12,300 of the year’s contingent were trained for eight months and more, and 5200 for four months. The war strength of the militia is 105,000, that of the second line or reserve 70,000. The defence of the country is based on the historic principle of concentrating the people and their resources in the heart of the country, covered by a wide belt of inundations. The chosen line of defence is marked by a series of forts which control the sluices, extending from Amsterdam, through Muiden, thence along the Vecht and through Utrecht to Gorinchem (Gorkum) on the Waal. The line continues thence by the Hollandsche Diep and Volkerak to the sea, and the coast also is fortified. The army in the colonies numbers in all about 26,000, all permanent troops and for the most part voluntarily enlisted European regulars. The military expenditure in 1908 was £2,331,255. The Dutch navy at home and in Indian waters consists (1909) of 9 small battleships, 6 small cruisers and 80 other vessels, manned by 8600 officers and men of the navy and about 2250 marines. Recruiting is by voluntary enlistment, with contingent powers of conscription amongst the maritime population.
Justice.—The administration of justice is entrusted (1) to the high council (hooge raad) at the Hague, the supreme court of the whole kingdom, and the tribunal for all high government officials and for the members of the states-general; (2) to the five courts of justice established at Amsterdam, the Hague, Arnhem, Leeuwarden and ’s Hertogenbosch; (3) to tribunals established in each arrondissement; (4) to cantonal judges appointed over a group of communes, whose jurisdiction is restricted to claims of small amount (under 200 guilders), and to breaches of police regulations, and who at the same time look after the interest of minors. The high council is composed of 12 to 14 councillors, a procureur-general and three advocates-general. Criminal and correctional procedure were formerly divided between the courts of justice and the arrondissement tribunals; but this distinction was suppressed by the penal code of 1886, thereby increasing the importance of the arrondissement courts, which also act as court of appeal of the cantonal courts.
Besides the prisons, which include one built on the cellular principle at Breda, the state supports three penal workhouses for drunkards and beggars. There are also the penal colonies at Veenhuizen in Drente, which were brought from the Society of Charity (Maatschappij van Weldadigkeid) in 1859. The inmates practise agriculture, as well as various industries for supplying all the requirements of the colony. The objection raised against these establishments is that the prisoners do not represent the real vagabondage of the country, but a class of more or less voluntary inmates. Children under 16 years of age are placed in the three state reformatories, and there is an institution for vagabond women at Rotterdam.
Charitable and other Institutions.—Private charities have always occupied a distinguished position in the Netherlands, and the principle of the law of 1854 concerning the relief of the poor is, that the state shall only interfere when private charity fails. All private and religious institutions have to be inscribed before they can collect public funds. In some cases these institutions are organized and administered conjointly with the civil authorities. At the head of the charitable institutions stand the agricultural colonies belonging to the Society of Charity (see Drente). Of the numerous institutions for the encouragement of the sciences and the fine arts, the following are strictly national—the Royal Academy of Sciences (1855), the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (1854), the National Academy of the Plastic Arts, the Royal School of Music, the National Archives, besides various other national collections and museums. Provincial scientific societies exist at Middelburg, Utrecht, ’s Hertogenbosch and Leeuwarden, and there are private and municipal associations, institutions and collections in a large number of the smaller towns. Among societies of general utility are the Society for Public Welfare (Maatschappij tot nut van’t algemeen, 1785), whose efforts have been mainly in the direction of educational reform; the Geographical Society at Amsterdam (1873); Teyler’s Stichting or foundation at Haarlem (1778), and the societies for the promotion of industry (1777), and of sciences (1752) in the same town; the Institute of Languages, Geography and Ethnology of the Dutch Indies (1851), and the Indian Society at the Hague, the Royal Institute of Engineers at Delft (1848), the Association for the Encouragement of Music at Amsterdam, &c.
Religion.—Religious conviction is one of the most characteristic traits of the Dutch people, and finds expression in a large number of independent religious congregations. The bond between church 594 and state which had been established by the synod of Dort (1618) and the organization of the Low-Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandsche Hervormde Kerk) as the national Protestant church, practically came to an end in the revolution of 1795, and in the revision of the Constitution in 1848 the complete religious liberty and equality of all persons and congregations was guaranteed. The present organization of the Reformed Church dates from 1852. It is governed by a general assembly or “synod” of deputies from the principal judicatures, sitting once a year. The provinces are subdivided into “classes,” and the classes again into “circles” (ringen), each circle comprising from 5 to 25 congregations, and each congregation being governed by a “church council” or session. The provincial synods are composed of ministers and elders deputed by the classes; and these are composed of the ministers belonging to the particular class and an equal number of elders appointed by the local sessions. The meetings of the circles have no administrative character, but are mere brotherly conferences. The financial management in each congregation is entrusted to a special court (kerk-voogdij) composed of “notables” and church wardens. In every province there is besides, in the case of the Reformed Church, a provincial committee of supervision for the ecclesiastical administration. For the whole kingdom this supervision is entrusted to a common “collegium” or committee of supervision, which meets at the Hague, and consists of 11 members named by the provincial committee and 3 named by the synod. Some congregations have withdrawn from provincial supervision, and have thus free control of their own financial affairs. The oldest secession from the Orthodox Church is that of the Remonstrants, who still represent the most liberal thought in the country, and have their own training college at Leiden. Towards 1840 a new congregation calling itself the Christian Reformed Church (Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk) arose as a protest against the government and the modern tendencies of the Reformed Church; and for the same reason those who had founded the Free University of Amsterdam (1880) formed themselves in 1886 into an independent body called the Nederlandsche Gereformeerde Kerk. In 1892 these two churches united under the name of the Reformed Churches (Gereformeerde Kerken) with the doctrine and discipline of Dort. They have a theological seminary at Kampen. Other Protestant bodies are the Walloons, who, though possessing an independent church government, are attached to the Low-Dutch Reformed Church; the Lutherans, divided into the main body of Evangelical Lutherans and a smaller division calling themselves the Re-established or Old Lutherans (Herstelde Lutherschen) who separated in 1791 in order to keep more strictly to the Augsburg confession; the Mennonites founded by Menno Simons of Friesland, about the beginning of the 16th century; the Baptists, whose only central authority is the General Baptist Society founded at Amsterdam in 1811; the Evangelical Brotherhood of Hernhutters or Moravians, who have churches and schools at Zeist and Haarlem; and a Catholic Apostolic Church (1867) at the Hague. There are congregations of English Episcopalians at the Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and German Evangelicals at the Hague (1857) and Rotterdam (1861). In 1853 the Roman Catholic Church, which before had been a mission in the hands of papal legates and vicars, was raised into an independent ecclesiastical province with five dioceses, namely, the archbishopric of Utrecht, and the suffragan bishoprics of Haarlem, Breda, ’s Hertogenbosch and Roermond, each with its own seminary. Side by side with the Roman Catholic hierarchy are the congregations of the Old Catholics or Old Episcopalian Church (Oud Bisschoppelijke Clerezie), and the Jansenists (see Jansenism). The Old Catholics, with whom the Jansenists are frequently confused, date from the 17th century. Besides an archbishop at Utrecht, the Old Catholics have bishops at Deventer and Haarlem, and a training college at Amersfoort. They numbered in 1905 about 9000 (see Utrecht). The large Jewish population in Holland had its origin in the wholesale influx of Portuguese Jews at the end of the 16th, and of German Jews in the beginning of the 17th century. In 1870 they were reorganized under the central authority of the Netherlands Israelite Church, and divided into head and “ring” synagogues and associated churches. The Roman Catholic element preponderates in the southern provinces of Limburg, and North Brabant, but in Friesland, Groningen and Drente the Baptists and Christian Reformed are most numerous.
Education.—Every grade of education in the Netherlands is under the control and supervision of the state, being administered by a special department under the ministry for the interior. In 1889 the state recognized private denominational schools, and in 1900 passed a law of compulsory attendance. Infant schools, which are generally in the hands of private societies or the municipal authorities, are not interfered with by the state. According to the law of 1889 primary education is carried on in the ordinary and in continuation schools for boys and girls (co-education having been long in vogue). These schools are established in every commune, the state contributing aid at the rate of 25% of the total expenditure. The age of admission is six; and the course is for six years, 7-13 being the legal age limits; the fee, from which poverty exempts, is almost nominal. Nature-study, continued in the secondary schools, is an essential part in the curriculum of these schools, and elementary general history, English, French and German are among the optional subjects. While the boys are instructed in woodwork, needlework is taught to the girls, its introduction in 1889 having been the first recognition of practical instruction in any form. Continuation schools (herhalingsscholen) must be organized wherever required, and are generally open for six months in winter, pupils of twelve to fourteen or sixteen attending. Secondary schools were established by the law of 1863 and must be provided by every commune of 10,000 inhabitants; they comprise the Burgher-Day-and-Evening schools and the Higher-Burgher schools. The first named schools being mainly intended for those engaged in industrial or agricultural pursuits, the day classes gradually fell into disuse. The length of the course as prescribed by law is two years, but it is usually extended to three or four years, and the instruction, though mainly theoretical, has regard to the special local industries; the fees, if any, may not exceed one pound sterling per annum. Special mention must be made in this connexion of the school of engineering in Amsterdam (1878) and the Academy of Plastic Arts at Rotterdam. The higher-burgher schools have either a three or a five years’ course, and the fees vary from £2, 10s. to £5 a year. The instruction given is essentially non-classical and scientific. In both schools certificates are awarded at the end of the course, that of the higher-burgher schools admitting to the natural science and medical branches of university education, a supplementary examination in Greek and Latin being required for other branches. The gymnasia, or classical schools, fall legally speaking under the head of higher education. By the law of 1876, every town of 20,000 inhabitants, unless specially exempted, must provide a gymnasium. A large proportion of these schools are subsidized by the state to the extent of half their net cost. The curriculum is classical and philological, but in the two upper classes there is a bifurcation in favour of scientific subjects for those who wish. The fees vary from £5 to £8 a year, but, owing to the absence of scholarships and bursaries, are sometimes remitted, as in the case of the higher-burgher schools. Among the schools which give specialized instruction, mention must be made of the admirable trade schools (ambachtsscholen) established in 1861, and the corresponding industrial schools for girls; the fishery schools and schools of navigation; the many private schools of domestic science, and of commerce and industry, among which the municipal school at Enschedé (1886) deserves special mention; and the school of social work, “Das Huis,” at Amsterdam (1900). For the education of medical practitioners, civil and military, the more important institutions are the National Obstetrical College at Amsterdam, the National Veterinary School at Utrecht, the National College for Military Physicians at Amsterdam and the establishment at Utrecht for the training of military apothecaries for the East and West Indies. The organization of agricultural education under the state is very complete, and includes a state professor of agriculture for every province (as well as professors of horticulture in several cases), “winter schools” of agriculture and horticulture, and a state agricultural college at Wageningen (1876) with courses in home and colonial agriculture. The total fees at this college, including board and lodging, are about £50 a year. According to the law of 1898, the state also maintains or subsidizes experimental or testing-stations. Other schools of the same class are the Gerard Adriaan van Swieten schools of agriculture, gardening and forestry in Drente, the school of instruction in butter and cheese making (zuivelbereiding) at Bolsward and the state veterinary college at Utrecht.
There are three state universities in Holland, namely, Leiden (1575), Groningen (1585) and Utrecht (1634). The ancient athenaeums of Franeker (1585) and Harderwyk (1603) were closed in 1811, but that of Amsterdam was converted into a municipal university in 1877. In each of these universities there are five faculties, namely, law, theology, medicine, science and mathematics, and literature and philosophy, the courses for which are respectively four, five, eight, and six or seven years for the two last named. The fees amount to 200 florins (£16, 13s. 4d.) per annum and are payable for four years. Two kinds of degrees are conferred, namely, the ordinary (candidaats) and the “doctor’s” degrees. Pupils from the higher-burgher schools are only eligible for the first. There is also a free (Calvinistic) university at Amsterdam founded in 1880 and enjoying, since 1905, the right of conferring degrees. It has, however, no faculties of law or science. The state polytechnic school at Delft (1864) for the study of engineering in all its branches, architecture and naval construction, has a nominal course of four years, and confers the degree of “engineer.” The fees are the same as those of the universities, and as at the universities there are bursaries. A national institution at Leiden for the study of languages, geography and ethnology of the Dutch Indies has given place to communal institutions of the same nature at Delft and at Leiden, founded in 1864 and 1877. The centre of Dutch university life, which is non-residential, is the students’ corps, at the head of which is a “senate,” elected annually from among the students of four years’ standing. Membership of the corps is gained after a somewhat trying novitiate, but is the only passport to the various social and sports societies.
All teachers in the Netherlands must qualify for their profession by examination. Under the act of 1898 they are trained either in the state training-colleges, or in state-aided municipal, and private 595 denominational colleges; or else by means of state or private state-aided courses of instruction. The age of admission to this class of training is from 14 to 18, and the course is for four years. In the last year practice in teaching is obtained at the primary “practice” school attached to each college, and students are also taught to make models explanatory of the various subjects of instruction after the manner of the Swedish Sloyd (Slöjd) system. Assistant-teachers wishing to qualify as head-teachers must have had two years’ practical experience. Pupil-teachers can only give instruction under the supervision of a certificated teacher. The minimum salary of teachers is determined by law. The teaching, which follows the so-called “Heuristic” method, and the equipment of schools of every description, are admirable.
Finance.—The following statement shows the revenue and expenditure of the kingdom for the years 1889, 1900-1901 and 1905:—
Revenue.
Source. | 1889. | 1901. | 1905. |
£ | £ | £ | |
Excise | 3,678,075 | 4,042,500 | 4,514,998 |
Direct taxation | 2,300,865 | 2,900,175 | 3,135,665 |
Indirect taxation | 2,004,745 | 1,805,583 | 1,946,666 |
Post Office | 539,405 | 865,750 | 1,103,333 |
Government telegraphs | 106,970 | 187,375 | 211,333 |
Export and Import duties | 440,247 | 801,500 | 930,912 |
State domains | 213,186 | 147,000 | 139,000 |
Pilot dues | 106,079 | 191,667 | 200,000 |
State lotteries | 54,609 | 54,250 | 52,666 |
Game and Fisheries | 11,660 | 11,000 | 11,750 |
Railways | .. | 361,512 | 349,011 |
Part paid by East Indies on account of | |||
interest and redemption of public debt | .. | .. | 321,916 |
Netherland Bank contribution | .. | .. | 160,500 |
Total* | 9,475,337 | 11,394,220 | 14,017,079 |
* Including various miscellaneous items not specified in detail. |
Expenditure.
Object. | 1889. | 1901. | 1905. |
£ | £ | £ | |
National Debt | 2,727,591 | 2,906,214 | 2,899,770 |
Department of War | 1,708,698 | 1,893,036 | 2,474,011 |
Department of Waterstaat | 1,790,291 | 2,448,339 | 2,869,951 |
Department of Finance | 1,537,404 | 2,092,343 | 2,297,180 |
Department of Marine | 1,038,536 | 1,388,141 | 1,396,137 |
Department of Interior | 815,188 | 1,330,563 | 1,613,134 |
Department of Justice | 426,343 | 529,159 | 592,073 |
Department of Colonies | 93,829 | 109,768 | 251,150 |
Dept. of Foreign Affairs | 57,312 | 71,101 | 82,403 |
Royal Household | 54,166 | 66,667 | 66,666 |
Superior Authorities of the State | 52,476 | 56,792 | 58,251 |
Unforeseen Expenditure | 1,745 | 4,166 | 4,166 |
Total* | 10,393,579 | 12,896,289 | 14,907,781 |
* Including, besides the ordinary budget, the outlays in payment of annuities, in funding and discharging debt, in railway extension, &c. |
The total debt in 1905 amounted to £96,764,266, the annual interest amounted to £3,396,590. During the years 1850-1905, £27,416,651 has been devoted to the redemption of the public debt. The total wealth of the kingdom is estimated at 900 millions sterling. The various provinces and communes have separate budgets. The following table gives a statement of the provincial and communal finances:—
Revenue.
1889. | 1900. | 1905. | |
£ | £ | £ | |
Provincial | 722,583 | 445,333 | 718,199 |
Communal | 6,132,000 | 9,311,666 | 12,750,083 |
Expenditure.
1889. | 1900. | 1905. | |
£ | £ | £ | |
Provincial | 740,333 | 445,333 | 702,718 |
Communal | 5,683,800 | 8,503,250 | 12,085,250 |
Colonies.—The Dutch colonies in the Malay Archipelago have an area of 600,000 sq. m., with a population of 23,000,000, among which are 35,000 Europeans, 319,000 Chinese, 15,000 Arabs, and 10,000 other immigrant Asiatics. The West Indian possessions of Holland include Dutch Guiana or the government of Surinam, and the Dutch Antilles or the government of Curaçoa and its dependencies (St Eustatius, Saba, the southern half of St Martin, Curaçoa, Bonaire and Aruba), a total area of 60,000 sq. m., with 90,000 inhabitants, of whom a small portion are Europeans, and the rest negroes and other people of colour, and Chinese.
Bibliography.—The chief place is due to the following geographical publications:—Dr H. Blink, Nederland en zijne Bewoners (Amsterdam, 1888-1892), containing a copious bibliography; Tegenwoordige Staat van Nederland (Amsterdam, 1897); R. Schuiling, Aardrijkskunde van Nederland (Zwolle, 1884); A. A. Beekman, De Strijd om het Bestaan (Zutphen, 1887), a manual on the characteristic hydrography of the Netherlands; and E. Reclus’ Nouvelle géographie universelle (1879; vol. iv.). The Gedenboek uitgeven ter gelegenheid van het fijftig-jarig bestaan van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs, 1847-1897 (’s Gravenhage, 1898), is an excellent aid in studying technically the remarkable works on Dutch rivers, canals, sluices, railways and harbours, and drainage and irrigation works. The Aardrijkskundig Woordenboek van Nederland, by P. H. Witkamp (Arnhem, 1895), is a complete gazetteer with historical notes, and Nomina Geographica Neerlandica, published by the Netherlands Geographical Society (Amsterdam, 1885, &c.), contains a history of geographical names. Geschiedenis van den Boereastand en den landbouw in Nederland, H. Blink (Groningen, 1902), and the report on agriculture, published at the Hague by the Royal Commission appointed in 1896, furnish special information in connexion with this subject. Of more general interest are: Eene halve Eeuw, 1848-1898, edited by Dr P. H. Ritter (Amsterdam, 1898), containing a series of articles on all subjects connected with the kingdom during the second half of the 19th century, written by specialists; and Les Pays Bas (Leiden, 1899), and La Hollande géographique, ethnologique, politique, &c. (Paris, 1900), both works of the same class as the preceding.
Books of travel include some of considerable topographical as well as literary interest, from Lodovico Guicciardini (1567) down to Edmondo de Amicis (Holland, translated from the Italian, London, 1883); H. Havard, Dead Cities of the Zuider Zee, &c. (translated from the French, London 1876), and D. S. Meldrum, Holland and the Hollanders (London, 1899) in the 19th century. Mention may also be made of Old Dutch Towns and Villages of the Zuider Zee, by W. J. Tuyn (translated from the Dutch, London, 1901), Nieuwe Wandelingen door Nederland, by J. Craandijk and P. A. Schipperus (Haarlem, 1888); Friesland Meres and through the Netherlands, by H. M. Doughty (London, 1887); On Dutch Waterways, by G. C. Davis (London, 1887); Hollande et hollandais, by H. Durand (Paris, 1893); and Holland and Belgium by Professor N. G. van Kampen (translated from the Dutch, London, 1860), the last three being chiefly remarkable for their fine illustrations. Works of historical and antiquarian interest of a high order are Merkwaardige Kasteelen in Nederland, by J. van Lennep and W. J. Hofdyk (Leiden, 1881-1884); Noord-Hollandsche Oudheden, by G. van Arkel and A. W. Weisman, published by the Royal Antiquarian Society (Amsterdam, 1891); and Oud Holland, edited by A. D. de Vries and N. de Roever (Amsterdam, 1883-1886), containing miscellaneous contributions to the history of ancient Dutch art, crafts and letters. Natural history is covered by various periodical publications of the Royal Zoological Society “Natura Artis Magistra” at Amsterdam, and the Natuurlijke Historie van Nederland (Haarlem, 1856-1863) written by specialists, and including ethnology and flora. Military and naval defence may be studied in De vesting Holland, by A. L. W. Seijffardt (Utrecht, 1887), and the Handbook of the Dutch Army, by Major W. L. White, R.A. (London, 1896); ecclesiastical history in The Church in the Netherlands, by P. H. Ditchfield (London, 1893); and education in vol. viii. of the Special Reports on Educational Subjects issued by the Board of Education, London. Statistics are furnished by the annual publication of the Society for Statistics in the Netherlands, Amsterdam.
History from 1579 to Modern Times5
The political compact known as the Union of Utrecht differed
from its immediate predecessors, the Pacification of Ghent, the
Union of Brussels and the Perpetual Edict, in its
permanence. The confederacy of the northern provinces
Consequences of the Union of Utrecht.
of the Netherlands which was effected (29th
of January 1579) by the exertions of John of Nassau,
was destined to be the beginning of a new national
life. The foundation was laid on which the Republic of the
596
United Netherlands was to be raised. Its immediate results
were far from promising. The falling away of the Walloon
provinces and the Catholic nobles from the patriot cause
threatened it with ruin. Nothing but the strong personal
influence and indefatigable labours of the prince of Orange
stood in the way of a more general defection. Everywhere,
save in staunch and steadfast Holland and Zeeland, a feeling
of wavering and hesitation was spreading through the land.
In Holland and Zeeland William was supreme, but elsewhere
his aims and his principles were misrepresented and misunderstood.
He saw that unaided the patriotic party could not hope
to resist the power of Philip II., and he had therefore resolved
to gain the support of France by the offer of the sovereignty
Sovereignty offered to the Duke of Anjou.
The Ban against William of Orange.
The Act of Abjuration.
The Apology.
of the Netherlands to the duke of Anjou. But Anjou
was a Catholic, and this fact aroused among the Protestants
a feeling that they were being betrayed.
But the prince persisted in the policy he felt to be a
necessity, and (23rd of Jan. 1581) a treaty was concluded
with the duke, by which he, under certain
conditions, agreed to accept the sovereignty of the Netherlands
provinces, except Holland and Zeeland. These two provinces
were unwilling to have any sovereign but William
himself, and after considerable hesitation he agreed
to become their Count (24th of July 1581). He felt
that he was justified in taking this step because of the
Ban which Philip had published on the 15th of March
1581, in which Orange had been proclaimed a traitor and
miscreant, and a reward offered to any one who would take his
life. His practical answer to the king was the act
of Abjuration, by which at his persuasion the representatives
of the provinces of Brabant, Flanders,
Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland and Utrecht, assembled
at the Hague, declared that Philip had forfeited his sovereignty
over them, and that they held themselves henceforth absolved
from their allegiance to him. In a written defence,
the famous Apology, published later in the year, William
replied at great length to the charges that had been
brought against him, and carrying the war into the enemy’s
camp, endeavoured to prove that the course he had pursued
was justified by the crimes and tyranny of the king.
The duke of Anjou was solemnly inaugurated as duke of Brabant (February 1582), and shortly afterwards as duke of Gelderland, count of Flanders and lord of Friesland. Attempt on the Life of Orange by Jean Jaureguy. William had taken up his residence at Antwerp in order to give the French prince his strongest personal support, and while there a serious attempt was made upon his life (March 18th) by a youth named Jean Jaureguy. He fired a pistol at the prince close to his head, and the ball passed under the right ear and out at the left jaw. It was a terrible wound, but fortunately not fatal. Meanwhile Anjou soon grew tired of his dependent position and of the limitations placed upon his sovereignty. He resolved by a secret and sudden attack (17th of January 1583) to make himself master of Antwerp and of the person of Orange. The French Fury. The assault was made, but it proved an utter failure. The citizens resisted stoutly behind barricades, and the French were routed with heavy loss. The “French Fury” as it was called, rendered the position of Anjou in the Netherlands impossible, and made William himself unpopular in Brabant. He accordingly withdrew to Delft. In the midst of his faithful Hollanders he felt that he could still organize resistance, and stem the progress made by Spanish arms and Spanish influence under the able leadership of Alexander of Parma. Antwerp, with St Aldegonde as its burgomaster, was still in the hands of the patriots and barred the way to the sea, and covered Zeeland from invasion. Never for one moment did William lose heart or relax his efforts and vigilance; he felt that with the two maritime provinces secure the national cause need not be despaired of. But his own days had now drawn to their end. The failure of Jaureguy did not deter a young Catholic zealot, by name Balthazar Gérard, from attempting to assassinate the man whom he looked upon as the arch-enemy of God and the king. Under the pretext of seeking a passport, Assassination of William the Silent. Gérard penetrated into the Prinsenhof at Delft, and firing point blank at William as he left the dining hall, mortally wounded him (10th of July 1584). Amidst general lamentations “the Father of his Country,” as he was called, was buried with great state in the Nieuwe Kerk at Delft at the public charge.
But though the great leader was dead, he had not striven or worked in vain. The situation was critical, but there was no panic. Throughout the revolted provinces there was a general determination to continue the struggle to the bitter end. To make head, however, against the victorious advance of Parma, before whose arms all the chief towns of Brabant and Flanders, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels and lastly—after a valiant defence—Antwerp itself had fallen, it was necessary to look for the protection of a foreign ruler. The government, now that the commanding personal influence of William was no more, was without any central authority which could claim obedience. The States-General were but the delegates of a number of sovereign provinces, Maurice of Nassau. and amongst these Holland by its size and wealth (after the occupation by the Spaniards of Brabant and Flanders) was predominant. Maurice of Nassau, William’s second son, had indeed on his father’s death been appointed captain and admiral-general of the Union, president of the Council of State, and stadholder of Holland and Zeeland, but he was as yet too young, only seventeen, to take a leading part in affairs. Count Hohenloo took the command of the troops with the title of lieutenant-general. Two devoted adherents of William of Orange, Paul Buys, advocate The Sovereignty offered to Henry III. and declined. of Holland, and Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, pensionary of Rotterdam, were the statesmen who at this difficult juncture took the foremost part in directing the policy of the confederacy. They turned first to France. The sovereignty of the provinces was offered to Henry III., but the king, harassed by civil discords in his own country, declined the dangerous honour (1585). Repelled in this direction, the States-General next turned themselves to England. Elizabeth was alarmed by the successes of the Spanish arms, and especially by the fall of Antwerp; and, though refusing the sovereignty, she agreed to send a force of 5000 foot and 1000 horse to the aid of the Provinces under the command of the earl of Leicester, her expenses being Leicester Governor-general. guaranteed by the handing over to her the towns of Flushing, Brill and Rammekens as pledges (10th of August 1585). Leicester, on landing in Holland, was in the presence of the States-General and of Maurice of Nassau invested with the title of governor-general and practically sovereign powers (February 1586).
The new governor had great difficulties to contend with. He knew nothing of the language or the character of the people he was called upon to govern; his own abilities both as general and statesman were mediocre; and he was Failure and withdrawal of Leicester. hampered constantly in his efforts by the niggardliness and changing whims of his royal mistress. In trying to consolidate the forces of the Provinces for united action and to centralize its government, he undoubtedly did his best, according to his lights, for the national cause. But he was too hasty and overbearing. His edict prohibiting all commercial intercourse with the enemy at once aroused against him the bitter hostility of the merchants of Holland and Zeeland, who thrived by such traffic. His attempts to pack the council of State, on which already two Englishmen had seats, with personal adherents and to override the opposition of the provincial states of Holland to his arbitrary acts, at last made his position impossible. The traitorous surrender of Deventer and Zutphen by their English governors, Stanley and York, both Catholics, rendered all Englishmen suspect. The States of Holland under the leadership of Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, took up an attitude of resolute hostility to him, and the States of Holland dominated the States-General. In the midst of these divided councils the important seaport of Sluis was taken by Parma. Utterly discredited, Leicester (6th of August 1587) abandoned the task, 597 in which he had met with nothing but failure, and returned to England.
Nothing could have been worse than the position of the States at the beginning of 1588. Had Parma had a free hand, in all probability he would have crushed out the revolt and reconquered the northern Netherlands. But the Johan van Oldenbarneveldt. attention of the Spanish king was at this time concentrated upon the success of the Invincible Armada. The army of Parma was held in readiness for the invasion of England, and the United Provinces had a respite. They were fortunately able to avail themselves of it. The commanding abilities of Oldenbarneveldt, now advocate of Holland, gradually gathered into his hands the entire administration of the Republic. He became indispensable and, as his influence grew, more and more did the policy of the provinces acquire unity and consistency of purpose. At the same time Maurice of Maurice of Nassau. Nassau, now grown to man’s estate, began to display those military talents which were to gain for him the fame of being the first general of his time. But Maurice was no politician. He had implicit trust in the advocate, his father’s faithful friend and counsellor, and for many years to come the statesman and the soldier worked in harmony together for the best interests of their country (see Oldenbarneveldt, and Maurice, prince of Orange). At the side of Maurice, as a wise adviser, stood his cousin William Louis, stadholder of Friesland, a trained soldier and good commander in the field.
After the destruction of the Armada, Parma had been occupied
with campaigns on the southern frontier against the French,
and the Netherlanders had been content to stand on
guard against attack. The surprise of Breda by a
Campaign of 1591.
stratagem (8th of March 1590) was the only military
event of importance up to 1591. But the two stadholders had
not wasted the time. The States’ forces had been reorganized
and brought to a high state of military discipline and training.
In 1591 the States-General, after considerable hesitation, were
persuaded by Maurice to sanction an offensive campaign. It
was attended by marvellous success. Zutphen was captured
on the 20th of May, Deventer on the 20th of June. Parma,
who was besieging the fort of Knodsenburg, was forced to retire
with loss. Hulst fell after a three days’ investment, and finally
Nymegen was taken on the 21st of October. The fame of
Maurice, a consummate general at the early age of twenty-four,
was on all men’s lips. The following campaign was signalized
Death of Parma.
New province of Stadt en Landen.
by the capture of Steenwyk and Koevorden. On the
8th of December 1592 Parma died, and the States
were delivered from their most redoubtable adversary.
In 1593 the leaguer of Geertruidenburg put the seal on Maurice’s
reputation as an invincible besieger. The town fell after an
investment of three months. Groningen was the
chief fruit of the campaign of 1594. With its dependent
district it was formed into a new province under the
name of Stadt en Landen. William Louis became
the stadholder (see Groningen). The soil of the northern
Netherlands was at last practically free from the presence of
Spanish garrisons.
The growing importance of the new state was signalized by the conclusion, in 1596, of a triple alliance between England, France and the United Provinces. It was of short duration and purchased by hard conditions, but it Triple Alliance of France, England and the United Provinces. implied the recognition by Henry IV. and Elizabeth of the States-General, as a sovereign power, with whom treaties could be concluded. Such a recognition was justified by the brilliant successes of the campaign of 1597. It began with the complete rout of a Spanish force of 4500 men at Turnhout in January, with scarcely any loss to the victors. Then in a succession of sieges Rheinberg, Meurs, Groenlo, Bredevoort, Enschedé, Ootmarsum, Oldenzaal and Lingen fell into the hands of Maurice.
The relations of the Netherlands to Spain were in 1598 completely changed. Philip II. feeling death approaching, resolved to marry his elder daughter, the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, to her cousin, the Cardinal Archduke Albert of Austria, who Albert and Isabel, Sovereigns of the Netherlands. had been governor-general of the Netherlands since 1596, and to erect the Provinces into an independent sovereignty under their joint rule. The instrument was executed in May; Philip died in September; the marriage took place in November. In case the marriage should have no issue, the sovereignty of the Netherlands was to revert to the king of Spain. The archdukes (such was their official title) did not make their joyeuse entrée into Brussels until the close of 1599. The step was taken too late to effect a reconciliation with the rebel provinces. Peace overtures were made, but the conditions were unacceptable. The States-General never seriously considered the question of giving in their submission to the new sovereigns. The traders of Holland and Zeeland had thriven mightily by the war. Their ships had penetrated to the East and West Indies, and were to be found in every sea. The year 1600 saw the foundation of the Chartered East India Company (see Dutch East India Company). The question of freedom of trade with the Indies had become no less vital to the Dutch people than freedom of religious worship. To both these concessions Spanish policy was irreconcilably opposed.
Dunkirk, as a nest of freebooters who preyed upon Dutch commerce, was made the objective of a daring offensive campaign in 1600 by the orders of the States-General under the influence of Oldenbarneveldt in the teeth of the opposition The Battle of Nieuport. of the stadholders Maurice and William Louis. By a bold march across Flanders, Maurice reached Nieuport on the 1st of July, and proceeded to invest it. The archduke Albert, however, followed hard on his steps with an army of seasoned troops, and Maurice, with his communications cut, was forced to fight for his existence. A desperate combat took place on the dunes between forces of equal strength and valour. Only by calling up his last reserves did victory declare for Maurice. The archduke had to fly for his life. Five thousand Spaniards were killed; seven hundred taken, and one hundred and five standards. To have thus worsted the dreaded Spanish infantry in open fight was a great triumph for the States troops and their general, but it was barren of results. Maurice refused to run further risks and led back his army to Holland. For the following three years all the energies alike of the archdukes and Siege of Ostend. the States-General were concentrated on the siege of Ostend (15th of July 1601-20th of Sept. 1604), the solitary possession of the Dutch in Flanders. The heroic obstinacy of the defence was equalled by the perseverance of the attack, and there was a vast expenditure, especially on the side of the Spaniards, of blood and treasure. At last when reduced to a heap of ruins, Ostend fell before the resolution of Ambrosio de Spinola, a Genoese banker, to whom the command of the besiegers had been entrusted (see Spinola). A month before the surrender, however, another and more commodious seaport, Sluis, had fallen into the possession of the States army under Maurice, and thus the loss of Ostend was discounted.
Spinola proved himself to be a general of a high order, and the campaigns of 1606 and 1607 resolved themselves into a duel of skill between him and Maurice without much advantage accruing to either side. But the archdukes’ Negotiations for Peace. treasury was now empty, and their credit exhausted; both sides were weary of fighting, and serious negotiations for peace were set on foot. The disposition of the Spaniards to make concessions was further quickened by the destruction of their fleet at Gibraltar by the Dutch admiral Heemskerk, (April 1607). But there were many difficulties in the way. The peace party in the United Provinces headed by Oldenbarneveldt was opposed by the stadholders Maurice and William Louis, the great majority of the military and naval officers, the Calvinist preachers and many leading merchants. The Spaniards on their side were obdurate on the subjects of freedom of trade in the Indies and of freedom of religious worship. At last, after the negotiations had been repeatedly on the point of breaking off, a compromise was effected by the mediation of the envoys of France and England. On the 9th of April 1609 598 a truce for twelve years was agreed upon. On all points the Dutch demands were granted. The treaty was concluded with The Twelve Years’ Truce. the Provinces, “in the quality of free States over whom the archdukes made no pretentions.” The uti possidetis as regards territorial possession was recognized. Neither the granting of freedom of worship to Roman Catholics nor the word “Indies” was mentioned, but in a secret treaty King Philip undertook to place no hindrance in the way of Dutch trade, wherever carried on.
One of the immediate results of this triumph of his policy was the increase of Oldenbarneveldt’s influence and authority in the government of the Republic. But though Maurice and his other opponents had reluctantly yielded to Theological strife in Holland. the advocate’s skilful diplomacy and persuasive arguments, a soreness remained between the statesman and the stadholder which was destined never to be healed. The country was no sooner relieved from the pressure of external war than it was torn by internal discords. After a brief interference in the affairs of Germany, where the intricate question of the Cleves-Jülich succession was already preparing the way for the Thirty Years’ War, the United Provinces became immersed in a hot and absorbing theological struggle with which were Arminius and Gomarus. mixed up important political issues. The province of Holland was the arena in which it was fought out. Two professors of theology at Leiden, Jacobus Arminius (see Arminius) and Franciscus Gomarus, became the leaders of two parties, who differed from one another upon certain tenets of the abstruse doctrine of predestination. Gomarus supported the orthodox Calvinist view; Arminius assailed it. The Arminians appealed to the States of Holland (1610) in a Remonstrance in which their theological position was defined. They were henceforth known as “Remonstrants”; Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants. their opponents were styled “Contra-Remonstrants.” The advocate and the States of Holland took sides with the Remonstrants, Maurice and the majority of the States-General (four provinces out of seven) supported the Contra-Remonstrants. It became a question of the extent of the rights of sovereign princes under the Union. The States-General wished to summon a national synod, the States of Holland refused their assent, and made levies of local militia (waard-gelders) for the maintenance of order. The States-General (9th of July 1618) took up the challenge, and the prince of Orange, as captain-general, was placed at the head of a commission to go in the first place to Utrecht, which supported Oldenbarneveldt, and then to the various cities of Waard-gelders. Holland to insist on the disbanding of the waard-gelders. On the side of Maurice, whom the army obeyed, was the power of the sword. The opposition collapsed; the recalcitrant provincial states were purged; and the leaders of the party of state rights—the advocate himself, Hugo de Groot (see Grotius), pensionary of Rotterdam, and Hoogerbeets, pensionary of Leiden, were arrested and thrown into prison. The whole proceedings were illegal, and the illegality was consummated by the prisoners being brought before a Oldenbarneveldt executed. special tribunal of 24 judges, nearly all of whom were personal enemies of the accused. The trial was merely a preliminary to condemnation. The advocate was sentenced to death, and executed (13th of May 1619) in the Binnenhof at the Hague. The sentences of Grotius and Hoogerbeets were commuted to perpetual imprisonment.
Meanwhile the National Synod had been summoned and had met at Dort on the 13th of November 1618. One hundred members, many of them foreign divines, composed Synod of Dort. this great assembly, who after 154 sittings gave their seal to the doctrines of the Netherlands Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism. The Arminians were condemned, their preachers deprived, and the Remonstrant party placed under a ban (6th of May 1619).
In 1621 the Twelve Years’ Truce came to an end, and war
broke out once more with Spain. Maurice, after the death of
Oldenbarneveldt, was supreme in the land, but he missed
sorely the wise counsels of the old statesman whose tragic end
Renewal of the war.
Death of Maurice.
he had been so largely instrumental in bringing about. He
and Spinola found themselves once more at the head
of the armies in the field, but the health of the stadholder
was undermined, and his military genius was
under a cloud. Deeply mortified by his failure to relieve Breda,
which was blockaded by Spinola, Maurice fell seriously
ill, and died on the 23rd of April 1625. He was
succeeded in his dignities by his younger brother
Frederick Henry (see Frederick Henry, prince of Orange),
who was appointed stadholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht,
Overyssel and Gelderland, captain and adjutant-general of the
Union and head of the Council of State. Frederick Henry was as
a general scarcely inferior to Maurice, and a far more able statesman.
The moderation of his views and his conciliatory temper
did much to heal the wounds left by civil and religious strife,
and during his time the power and influence of the stadholderate
The period of Frederick Henry.
attained their highest point. Such was his popularity
and the confidence he inspired that in 1631 his great
offices of state were declared hereditary, in favour of
his five-year-old son, by the Acte de Survivance. He
did much to justify the trust placed in him, for the period of
Frederick Henry is the most brilliant in the history of the Dutch
Republic. During his time the East India Company, which had
founded the town of Batavia in Java as their administrative
The East and West India Companies.
capital, under a succession of able governor-generals
almost monopolized the trade of the entire
Orient, made many conquests and established a network
of factories and trade posts stretching from the Cape of
Good Hope to Japan (see Dutch East India Company). The
West India Company, erected in 1621, though framed on the
same model, aimed rather at waging war on the enemies’ commerce
than in developing their own. Their fleets for some years
brought vast booty into the company’s coffers. The Mexican
treasure ships fell into the hands of Piet Heyn, the boldest of
their admirals, in 1628; and they were able to send armies
across the ocean, conquer a large part of Brazil, and set up a
flourishing Dutch dominion in South America (see Dutch West
India Company). The operations of these two great chartered
companies occupy a place among memorable events of Frederick
Henry’s stadholderate; they are therefore mentioned here, but
for further details the special articles must be consulted.
When Frederick Henry stepped into his brother’s place, he found the United Provinces in a position of great danger and of critical importance. The Protestants of Germany were on the point of being crushed by the forces of the Policy of Frederick Henry. Austrian Habsburgs and the Catholic League. It lay with the Netherlands to create a diversion in the favour of their co-religionists by keeping the forces of the Spanish Habsburgs fully occupied. But to do so with their flank exposed to imperialist attack from the east, was a task involving grave risks and possible disaster. In these circumstances, Frederick Henry saw the necessity of securing French aid. It was secured by the skilful diplomacy of Francis van Aarssens (q.v.) but on hard conditions. Richelieu required the assistance of the Dutch fleet to enable him to overcome the resistance of the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle. The far-sighted stadholder, despite popular opposition, by his powerful personal influence induced the States-General to grant the naval aid, and thus obtain the French alliance on which the safety of the republic depended.
The first great military success of Frederick Henry was in 1629. His capture of Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-duc), hitherto supposed to be impregnable, after a siege of five months was a triumph of engineering skill. Wesel Sieges of Hertogenbosch and Maestricht. also was taken by surprise this same year. In 1631 a large Spanish fleet carrying a picked force of 6000 soldiers, for the invasion of Zeeland, was completely destroyed by the Dutch in the Slaak and the troops made prisoners. The campaign of the following year was made memorable by the siege of Maestricht. This important frontier town lying on both sides of the river Meuse was taken by the prince of Orange in the teeth of two relieving armies, Spanish 599 and Imperialist, whose united forces were far larger than his own. This brilliant feat of arms was the prelude to peace negotiations, Death of the Infanta Isabel. which led to a lengthy exchange of diplomatic notes. No agreement, however, was reached. The death of the Infanta Isabel in November 1633, and the reversion of the Netherlands to the sovereignty of the king of Spain, rendered all efforts to end the war, for the time being, fruitless.
At this juncture a strengthening of the French alliance seemed to the prince not merely expedient, but necessary. He had to contend against a strong peace party in Holland headed by the pensionary Pauw, but with the aid of Alliance with France. the diplomatic skill of Aarssens all opposition was overcome. Pauw was replaced as pensionary by Jacob Cats, and the objections of Richelieu were met and satisfied. A defensive and offensive alliance with France was concluded early in 1635 against the king of Spain, and each party bound itself not to make a peace or truce without the assent of the other. A large French force was sent into the Netherlands and placed under the command of the prince of Orange. The military results of the alliance were during the first two campaigns inconsiderable. The Cardinal Infant Ferdinand had been appointed governor of the Netherlands, and he proved himself an excellent general, and there were dissensions in the councils of the allies. In 1637 the stadholder was able to add to his fame as an invincible besieger of cities. His failure to relieve Breda had hastened the death of Maurice. Capture of Breda. It fell in 1625 into the hands of Spinola after a blockade of eleven months; it was now retaken by Frederick Henry after a siege of eleven weeks, in the face of immense difficulties. The reluctance of the States of Holland, and of Amsterdam in particular, to grant adequate supplies caused the campaigns of 1638 and 1639 to be in the main defensive and dilatory. An attempted attack on Antwerp was foiled by the vigilance of the Cardinal Infant. A body of 6000 men under Count William of Nassau were surprised and utterly cut to pieces. The year 1639, which had begun with abortive negotiations, and in which the activity of the stadholder had been much hampered by ill-health, was not to end, however, without a signal triumph of the Dutch arms, but it was to be on sea and not on land. A magnificent Spanish armada consisting of 77 vessels, manned by 24,000 soldiers and sailors under the command of Admiral Oquendo, were sent to the Channel in September with orders to drive the Dutch from the narrow seas and land a large body of troops at Dunkirk. Attacked by Battle of the Downs. a small Dutch fleet under Admiral Marten Tromp, the Spaniards sheltered themselves under the English Downs by the side of an English squadron. Tromp kept watch over them until he had received large reinforcements, and then (21st of October) boldly attacked them as they lay in English waters. Oquendo himself with seven vessels escaped under cover of a fog; all the rest of the fleet was destroyed. This crushing victory assured to the Dutch the command of the sea during the rest of the war. The naval power of Spain never in fact recovered from the blow.
The triumph of Tromp had, however, a bad effect on public
feeling in England. The circumstances under which the battle
of the Downs was won were galling to the pride of
the English people, and intensified the growing
English and Dutch Commercial Rivalry.
Marriage of William and Mary.
unfriendliness between two nations, one of whom
possessed and the other claimed supremacy upon
the seas. The prosperity of the world-wide Dutch
commerce was looked upon with eyes of jealousy across the
Channel. Disputes had been constantly recurring between
Dutch and English traders in the East Indies and elsewhere,
and the seeds were already sown of that stern rivalry which was
to issue in a series of fiercely contested wars. But in
1639-1640 civil discords in England stood in the way
of a strong foreign policy, and the adroit Aarssens
was able so “to sweeten the bitterness of the pill”
as to bring King Charles not merely to “overlook the scandal
of the Downs,” but to consent to the marriage of the princess
royal with William, the only son of the stadholder. The wedding
of the youthful couple (aged respectively 14 and 10 years)
took place on the 12th of May 1641 (see William II., prince
of Orange). This royal alliance gave added influence and
position to the house of Orange-Nassau.
About this time various causes brought about a change in the feelings which had hitherto prevented any possibility of peace between Spain and the United Netherlands. The revolt of Portugal (December 1640) weakened Changed relations of the United Provinces with France and Spain. the Spanish power, and involved the loss to Spain of the Portuguese colonies. But it was in the Portuguese colonies that the conquests of the Dutch East and West India Companies had been made, and the question of the Indies as between Netherlander and Spaniard assumed henceforth quite a different complexion. Aarssens, the strongest advocate of the French alliance, passed away in 1641, and his death was quickly followed by those of Richelieu and Louis XIII. The victory of Condé at Rocroy opened the eyes of Frederick Henry to the danger of a French conquest of the Belgian provinces; and, feeling his health growing enfeebled, the prince became anxious before his death to obtain peace and security for his country by means of an accommodation with Spain. In 1643 negotiations were opened which, after many delays and in the face of countless difficulties, were at length, four years later, to terminate successfully.
The course of the pourparlers would doubtless have run more smoothly but for the infirm health and finally the death of the prince of Orange himself. Frederick Henry expired on the 14th of March 1647, and was buried Death of Frederick Henry—his last campaigns. by the side of his father and brother in Delft. In his last campaigns he had completed with signal success the task which, as a military commander, he had set himself,—of giving to the United Provinces a thoroughly defensible frontier of barrier fortresses. In 1644 he captured Sas de Ghent; in 1645 Hulst. That portion of Flanders which skirts the south bank of the Scheldt thus passed into the possession of the States, and with it the complete control of all the waterways to the sea.
The death of the great stadholder did not, however, long delay the carrying out of the policy on which he had set his heart, of concluding a separate peace with Spain behind the back of France, notwithstanding the compact of 1635 The Peace of Münster. with that power. A provisional draft of a treaty had already been drawn up before the demise of Frederick Henry, and afterwards, despite the strenuous opposition of the new prince of Orange (who, under the Acte de Survivance, had inherited all his father’s offices and dignities) and of two of the provinces, Zeeland and Utrecht, the negotiations were by the powerful support of the States of Holland and of the majority of the States-General, quickly brought to a successful issue. The treaty was signed at Münster on the 30th of January 1648. It was a peace practically dictated by the Dutch, and involved a complete surrender of everything for which Spain had so Complete triumph of the Dutch. long fought. The United Provinces were recognized as free and independent, and Spain dropped all her claims; the uti possidetis basis was adopted in respect to all conquests; the Scheldt was declared entirely closed—a clause which meant the ruin of Antwerp for the profit of Amsterdam; the right to trade in the East and West Indies was granted, and all the conquests made by the Dutch from the Portuguese were ceded to them; the two contracting parties agreed to respect and keep clear of each other’s trading grounds; each was to pay in the ports of the other only such tolls as natives paid. Thus, triumphantly for the revolted provinces, the eighty years’ war came to an end. At this moment the republic of the United Netherlands touched, perhaps, the topmost point of its prosperity and greatness.
No sooner was peace concluded than bitter disputes arose between the provincial States of Holland and the prince of Orange, supported by the other six provinces, upon the question of the disbanding of the military forces. William was a young The form of Government in the United Provinces. man (he was twenty-one at the time of his father’s death) of 600 the highest abilities and of soaring ambition. He was totally opposed to the peace with Spain, and wished to bring about a speedy resumption of the war. With this view he entered into secret negotiations for a French alliance which, as far as can be gathered from extant records, had for its objects the conquest and partition by the allies of the Belgic provinces, and joint action in England on behalf of Charles II. As a preliminary step William aimed at a centralization of the powers of government in the United Provinces in his own person. He saw clearly the inherent defects of the existing federation, and he wished to remedy a system which was so complicated as to be at times almost unworkable. The States-General were but the delegates, the stadholders the servants, of a number of sovereign provinces, each of which had different historical traditions and a different form of government, and one of which—Holland—in wealth and importance outweighed the other six taken together. Between the States of Holland and the States-General there was constant The position of Holland and Amsterdam. jealousy and friction. And yet strangely enough the States of Holland themselves were not really representative of the people of that province, but only of the limited, self-coopting burgher aristocracies of certain towns, each of which with its rights and liberties had a quasi-independence of its own. Foremost among these was the great commercial capital, Amsterdam, whose rich burgher patriciate did not scruple on occasion to defy the authority of the States-General, the stadholder and even of the States of Holland themselves.
The States of Holland had, in the years that followed the truce of 1609, measured their strength with that of the States-General, but the issue had been decided conclusively in favour of the federal authority by the sword of The position in 1650. Maurice. The party and the principles of Oldenbarneveldt, however, though crushed, were not extinguished, and though Frederick Henry by his personal influence and prudent statesmanship had been able to surmount the difficulties placed in his way, he had had to encounter at times strong opposition, and had been much hampered in the conduct both of his campaigns and of his policy. With the conclusion of the peace of Münster and the death of the veteran stadholder the struggle for predominance in the Union between the Orange-federalist and the Hollander States-rights parties was certain to be renewed. The moment seemed to be favourable for the assertion of provincial sovereignty because of the youth and inexperience of the new prince of Orange. But William II., though little more than a boy, was endowed with singular capacity and great strength of will, and he was intent upon ambitious projects, the scope of which has been already indicated. The collision came, which was perhaps inevitable. The States-General The question of disbanding the forces. in the disbanding of the forces wished to retain the cadres of the regiments complete in case of a renewal of the war. The States of Holland objected, and, although the army was a federal force, gave orders for the general disbanding of the troops in the pay of the province. The officers refused to obey any orders but those of the council of State of the Union. The provincial states, on their part, threatened them with loss of pay. At this juncture the States-General, as in 1618, appointed a commission headed by the prince of Orange to visit the towns of Holland, and provide for the maintenance of order and the upholding of the Union. Both parties put themselves in the wrong, the province by refusing its quota to the federal war-sheet, the generality by dealing with individual towns instead of with the states of the province. The visitation was a failure. The town councils, though most of them willing to receive William in his capacity as stadholder, declined to give a hearing to the commission. The Prisoners of Loevenstein. Amsterdam refused absolutely to admit either stadholder or commission. In these circumstances William resolved upon strong measures. Six leading members of the States of Holland were seized (30th of July 1650) and imprisoned in Loevenstein Castle, and troops under the command of William Frederick, stadholder of Friesland, were sent to surprise Amsterdam. But the town council had been warned, and the gates were shut and guarded. The coup d’état nevertheless was completely successful. The anti-Orange party, remembering the fate of Oldenbarneveldt, were stricken with panic at the imprisonment of their leaders. The States of Holland and the town council of Amsterdam gave in their submission. The prisoners were released, and public thanks were rendered to the prince by the various provincial states for “his great trouble, care and prudence.” William appeared to be master of the situation but his plans for future action were Sudden Death of William II. never to be carried into effect. Busily engaged in secret negotiations with France, he had retired to his hunting seat at Dieren, when he fell ill with smallpox on the 27th of October. A few days later he expired at the Hague (6th of November), aged but twenty-four years. A week after his death, his widow, the princess Mary of England, gave birth to a son who, as William III., was to give added lustre to the house of Orange.
The anti-Orange particularist party, which had just suffered decisive defeat, now lifted up its head again. At the instance of Holland a Grand Assembly was summoned, consisting of delegates from all the provinces, to consider the The Grand Assembly. state of the Union, the army and religion. It met at the Hague on the 18th of January 1651. The conclusions arrived at were that all sovereign powers resided in the provinces, and that to them severally, each within its own borders, belonged the control of the military forces and of religion. There was to be no captain-general of the Union. All the provinces, except Friesland and Groningen, which remained true to William Frederick of Nassau-Dietz, agreed to leave the office of stadholder vacant. The practical result was the establishment of the hegemony of Holland in the Union, and the handing over of the control of its policy to the patrician oligarchies who formed the town councils of that province.
Such a system would have been unworkable but for the fact that with the revival of the political principles of Oldenbarneveldt, there was found a statesman of commanding ability to fill the office in which the famous advocate The office of Grand Pensionary. of Holland had for so many years been “minister of all affairs” in the forming state. The title of advocate had indeed been replaced by that of grand pensionary (Raad Pensionaris), but the duties assigned to the office remained the same, the only change of importance being that the advocate was appointed for life, the grand pensionary for a term of five years. The grand pensionary was nominally the paid servant of the States of Holland, but his functions were such as to permit a man of talent and industry in the stadholderless republic to exercise control in all departments of policy and of government. All correspondence passed through his hands, he wrote all despatches, conducted the debates over which he presided, kept the minutes, drafted the resolutions, and was ex officio the leader and spokesman of the delegates who represented the Province of Holland in the States-General. Such was the John de Witt. position to which John de Witt, a young man of twenty-eight years of age, belonging to one of the most influential patrician families of Dordrecht (his father, Jacob de Witt, was one of the prisoners of Loevenstein) was appointed in 1653. From that date until 1672 it was his brain and his will that guided the affairs of the United Netherlands. He was supreme in the States of Holland, and Holland was dominant in the States-General (see John de Witt).
The death of William II. had left the Dutch republic at the very highest point of commercial prosperity, based upon an almost universal carrying trade, and the strictest system of monopoly. Friction and disputes had Disputes between English and Dutch Traders. frequently arisen between the Dutch and the English traders in different parts of the world, and especially in the East Indies, culminating in the so-called “Massacre of Amboyna”; and the strained relations between the two nations would, but for the civil discords in England, have probably led to active hostilities during the reign of Charles I. With the accession of Cromwell to power the breach 601 was widened. A strong party in the Provinces were unfriendly to the Commonwealth, and insults were offered in the Hague to the English envoys. The parliament replied by passing the memorable Navigation Act (Oct. 1651), which struck a deadly blow at the Dutch carrying trade. It was the beginning of that struggle for supremacy upon the seas which was to end, after Naval struggle with England. three great wars, in the defeat of the weaker country. The first English war lasted from May 1652 to April 1654, and within fifteen months twelve sea-fights took place, which were desperately contested and with varying success. The leaders on both sides—the Netherlanders Tromp (killed in action on the 10th of August 1653) and de Ruyter, the Englishmen Blake and Monk—covered themselves with equal glory. But the losses to Dutch trade were so serious that negotiations for peace were set on foot by the burgher party of Holland, and Cromwell being not unwilling, an agreement Peace of Westminster. was reached in the Treaty of Westminster, signed on the 5th of April 1654. The Dutch conceded the striking of the flag and compensation for English claims against the Dutch in the East Indies and elsewhere. The act of Seclusion, which barred the young prince of Orange from holding the office of stadholder and of captain-general, had been one of the conditions on which Cromwell had insisted. The consent of the States-General was refused, but by a secret treaty Holland, under the influence of de Act of Seclusion. Witt, accepted it in their own name as a sovereign province. The popular feeling throughout the United Provinces was strongly antagonistic to the act of Seclusion, by which at the dictation of a foreign power a ban of exclusion was pronounced against the house of Orange-Nassau, to which the republic owed its independence.
In 1658, the States-General interfered to save the Danes from Charles Gustavus of Sweden. In 1659 a treaty of peace was concluded between France, England and the United Provinces with a view to the settlement of the Dano-Swedish War with Sweden. question, which ended in securing a northern peace in 1660, and in keeping the Baltic open for Dutch trade. The foreign affairs of the republic were throughout these years ably conducted by de Witt, and the position of Dutch colonial expansion in the Eastern seas made secure and firm. An advantageous peace with Portugal was made in 1662.
Meanwhile the Commonwealth in England had been followed
in 1660 by the restoration of the monarchy. To conciliate the
new king the act of Seclusion was repealed, and the
education of the young prince of Orange was undertaken
Second English war.
by the States of Holland under the superintendence
of de Witt. But Charles owed a grudge
against Holland, and he was determined to gratify it. The
Navigation Act was re-enacted, old grievances revived, and
finally the Dutch colony of New Netherland was seized in time
of peace (1664) and its capital, New Amsterdam, renamed New
York. War broke out in 1665, and was marked by a series of
terrific battles. On the 13th of June 1665 the Dutch admiral
Obdam was completely defeated by the English under the
duke of York. The four days’ fight (11th-14th of June 1666)
ended in a hard-won victory by de Ruyter over Monk, but later
in this year (August 3rd) de Ruyter was beaten by Ayscue
and forced to take refuge in the Dutch harbours. He had his
revenge, for on the 22nd of June 1667 the Dutch fleet under
de Ruyter and Cornelius de Witt made their way up the Medway
as far as Chatham and burnt the English fleet as it lay at anchor.
Negotiations between the two countries were already in progress
Peace of Breda.
The Triple Alliance.
and this event hastened a settlement. The peace of
Breda was signed (31st of July 1667) on terms on
the whole favourable to the Dutch. New Netherland
was retained by England in exchange for Suriname. In the
following year by the efforts of Sir William Temple the much
vaunted Triple Alliance was concluded between Great
Britain, the United Provinces and Sweden to check
the ambitious designs of Louis XIV. The instability
of Charles II., who sold himself to Louis by the treaty
of Dover (1670), speedily rendered it of no effect, and left the
United Provinces to face unaided the vengeance of the French
king.
From 1668 to 1672 Louis made ready to destroy the Dutch,
and so well had his diplomacy served him that they were left without
a friend in Europe. In 1672 the storm broke: the
English without a declaration of war tried, unsuccessfully,
The French invasion.
to intercept the Dutch Mediterranean fleet;
and the French at the same time set forth in apparently
irresistible strength to overcome the despised traders of Holland.
The States were ill-prepared on land though their fleet was
strong and ready; party spirit had become intensely bitter as
the prince of Orange (see William III.) grew to man’s estate,
and the ruling burgher party, knowing how great was the
popularity of William, especially in the army, had purposely
neglected their land forces. Town after town fell before the
French armies, and to de Witt and his supporters there seemed
to be nothing left but to make submission and accept the best
terms that Louis XIV. would grant. The young prince alone
rose to the height of the occasion, and set his face against such
William III. Stadholder and Captain-general.
The third English war.
Murder of the Brothers de Witt.
cowardly counsels, and he had the enthusiastic support
of the great majority of the people. Amidst general
acclamation William was elected stadholder, first of
Zeeland, then of Holland, and was appointed captain-general
of the Union (June 1672). Meanwhile the
fleet under de Ruyter had encountered a combined English
and French force in Solebay (7th of June), and after a
desperate fight, in which the French had but slackly supported
their allies, had more then held its own. William,
in his turn, with an army wholly insufficient to meet
the French in the open field, was able to persuade
his countrymen to open the dikes and by flooding
the land to prevent its occupation by the enemy. The courage
and resourcefulness of their youthful leader inspired
the people to make heroic sacrifices for their independence,
but unfortunately such was the revulsion of
feeling against the grand pensionary, that he himself
and his brother Cornelius were torn in pieces by an infuriated
mob at the Hague (20th of August).
William, now supreme in the States, while on land struggling
with chequered success against the superior forces of the
French, strove by his diplomacy, and not in vain, to
gain allies for the republic. The growing power of
Peace of Westminster.
France caused alarm to her neighbours, and Sweden,
Denmark, Spain and the emperor lent a willing ear
to the persuasions of the stadholder and were ready to aid his
efforts to curb the ambition of Louis. On sea in 1673 de Ruyter,
in a series of fiercely contested battles, successfully maintained
his strenuous and dogged conflict against the united English
and French fleets. In England the war was exceedingly unpopular,
and public opinion forced Charles II. to conclude peace.
The treaty of Westminster, which provided that all conquests
should be restored, was signed on the 14th of February 1674.
The French now found themselves threatened on many sides,
The war with France.
Death of de Ruyter.
Peace of Nymwegen.
and were reduced to the defensive. The prince, however,
suffered a defeat at Seneff, and was in 1674
prevented from invading France. The war, nevertheless,
during the following years was on the whole
advantageous to the Dutch. In 1676 a Dutch squadron fought
two hard but indecisive battles with a superior French force,
off Stromboli (8th of January) and off Messina (22nd of April).
In the last-named fight Admiral de Ruyter was badly
wounded and died (29th of April). In 1677 negotiations
for peace went on, and were forwarded by the
marriage, at the close of the year, of William of Orange with
his cousin the princess Mary, daughter of the duke of York.
At last (August 1678) a peace was concluded at Nymwegen
by which the Dutch secured the integrity
and independence of their country. All the conquests
made by the French were given up.
The aggressive policy of Louis XIV. in the years that followed the peace of Nymwegen enabled William to lay the foundations of the famous confederacy which changed the whole aspect 602 of European politics. The league of Augsburg (1686), which League of Augsburg. followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes, placed Orange at the head of the resistance to French domination. The league was formed by the emperor, Spain, Sweden, the United Provinces and by several German states. In England William and Mary were looked upon as the natural successors to the throne on the death of James II., and William kept up close relations with the malcontents in Church and State, who disliked the arbitrary and papistical policy of his father-in-law. But with the birth of a prince of Wales the situation was changed, and William determined to intervene actively in English affairs. His opportunity came when Louis XIV., having declared war against the Empire, had invaded the Palatinate. The opposition of Amsterdam to an English Revolution of 1688. expedition, in the absence of danger from the side of France, was overcome. The Revolution of 1688 ensued, and England became, under William’s strong rule, the chief member of the Great Coalition against French aggression. In the Grand Alliance of 1689-1690 he was accused of sacrificing Dutch to English interests, but there can be no doubt that William loved his native country better than his adopted one, and was a true patriot. If the United Provinces suffered in prosperity through their close relations The Grand Alliance. with and subordination to Great Britain during a long series of years, it was due not to the policy of William, but to the fact that the territory of the republic was small, open to attack by great military powers, and devoid of natural resources. The stadholder’s authority and popularity continued unimpaired, despite of his frequent absences in England. He had to contend, like his predecessors, with the perennial hostility of the burgher aristocracy of Amsterdam, and at times with other refractory town councils, but his power in the States during his life was almost autocratic. His task was rendered lighter by the influence and ability of Heinsius, the grand pensionary of Holland, William and Heinsius. a wise and prudent statesman, whose tact and moderation in dealing with the details and difficulties of internal administration were conspicuous. The stadholder gave to Heinsius his fullest confidence, and the pensionary on his part loyally supported William’s policy and placed his services ungrudgingly at his disposal (see Heinsius).
The conduct of the war by the allies was far from successful.
In 1690 (July 1st) Waldeck was defeated by Luxemburg at
Fleurus; and the Anglo-Dutch fleet was so severely
handled by Tourville (10th July) off Beachy Head
War with France.
that for two years the command of the sea remained
in the possession of the French. A striking victory off Cape la
Hogue (29th of May 1692) restored, however, supremacy to
the allies. On land the combined armies fared ill. In 1691
the French took Mons, and in 1692 Namur, in which year after
a hard-fought battle William was defeated at Steenkirk and in
1693 at Neerwinden. But William’s military genius never shone
so brightly as in the hour of defeat; he never knew what it was
to be beaten, and in 1695 his recapture of Namur was a real
triumph of skill and resolution. At last, after long negotiations,
exhaustion compelled the French king to sign the peace of
Peace of Ryswick.
Death of William III.
Ryswick in 1697, in which William was recognized
by France as king of England, the Dutch obtaining
a favourable commercial treaty, and the right to
garrison the Netherland barrier towns. This peace, however, did
no more than afford a breathing space during which Louis XIV.
prepared for a renewal of the struggle. The great question of
the Spanish succession was looming in all men’s eyes, and
though partition treaties between the interested
powers were concluded in 1698 and 1700, it is practically
certain that the French king held himself little bound
by them. In 1701 he elbowed the Dutch troops
out of the barrier towns; he defied England by recognizing
James III. on the death of his father; and it was clear
that another war was imminent when William III. died in
1702.
In 1672 the stadholdership in five provinces had been made hereditary in the family of the prince of Orange, but William died childless, and the republican burgher party was strong enough to prevent the posts being filled up. William Stadholderless Government. had wished that his cousin, Count John William Friso of Nassau, stadholder of Friesland and Groningen, should succeed him, but his extreme youth and the jealousy of Holland against a “Frisian” stood in the way of his election. The result was a want of unity in counsel and action among the provinces, Friesland and Groningen standing aloof from the other five, while Holland and Zeeland had to pay for their predominance in the Union by being left to bear the bulk of the charges. Fortunately there was no break of continuity in the policy of the States, the chief conduct of affairs remaining, until his death in 1720, in the capable and tried hands of the grand pensionary Heinsius, who had at his side a number of exceptionally experienced and wise counsellors—among these Simon van Slingeland, for forty-five years (1680-1725) secretary of the council of state, and afterwards grand pensionary of Holland (1727-1736), and Francis Fagel, who succeeded his father in 1699 as recorder (Griffier) of the States-General, and held that important office for fifty years. The tradition of William III. was thus preserved, but with the loss of the firm hand and strong personality of that great ruler the United Provinces were relegated to a subordinate place in the councils of the nations, and with the gradual decadence of its navy the Dutch republic ceased to rank as a power to be reckoned with.
In the War of the Spanish Succession, which broke out in 1702, Dutch troops took part in the campaigns of Marlborough and Eugene, and had their share in winning the great victories of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde War of the Spanish Succession. (1708) and Malplaquet (1709). At the peace of Utrecht, concluded in 1713, the interests of the Netherlands were but half-heartedly supported by the English plenipotentiaries, and the French were able to obtain far more favourable terms than they had the power to exact. But they were compelled to abandon all claim to the Spanish Netherlands, which were formally handed over to the United Provinces, as trustees, to be by them, after the conclusion of a satisfactory barrier treaty, given up to the emperor, Treaty of Utrecht. and be known henceforth as the Austrian Netherlands. The peace of Utrecht taught the Dutch that the great powers around them, while ready to use their resources for war, would not scruple to abandon them when they wanted peace; they, therefore, determined henceforth to stand clear of all foreign complications. With 1713 the influence of the United Netherlands upon European politics comes almost to an end.
The ruling party in the States took an active part in securing
George I. on the throne of England; and they succeeded in
coming to an agreement both with France and with
Austria over the difficulties connected with the barrier
Peace policy.
towns, and were thus able in tranquillity to concentrate
their energies upon furthering the interests of their trade. Under
the close oligarchical rule of the patrician families, who filled
all offices in the town councils, the States of Holland, in which
the influence of Amsterdam was dominant, and which in their
turn exercised predominance in the States-General, became more
and more an assembly of “shopkeepers” whose policy was to
maintain peace for the sake of the commerce on which they
thrived. For thirty years after the peace of Utrecht the Provinces
kept themselves free from entanglement in the quarrels of
Ostend East India Company.
their neighbours. The foundation of the Ostend East
India Company (see Ostend Company), however,
by the emperor Joseph II. in 1723, at once aroused
the strong opposition of the Amsterdam merchants
who looked upon this invasion of their monopoly with alarm,
and declared that the Ostend Company had been set up in
contravention to the terms of Article V. of the treaty of Münster.
In maintaining this position the States had the support of
England, but it was not until 1731 that they succeeded in
obtaining the suppression of the company by consenting to
603
guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI. This
step led in 1743 to their being involved in the War of the
War of the Austrian Succession.
Revolution of 1747.
William IV.
Austrian Succession, and thus being drawn into hostilities
with France, which invaded the barrier country.
In 1744 they formed with Great Britain, Austria and
Saxony, a Quadruple Alliance, and put a contingent
of troops in the field. The Dutch took an active part in the
campaign of 1745 and suffered heavily at Fontenoy, after which
battle Marshal Saxe overran the Austrian Netherlands. The
French captured all the barrier towns, and in 1747
entered Dutch Flanders and made an easy conquest.
The United Provinces, as in 1672, seemed to lie at the
mercy of their enemies, and as in that eventful year,
popular feeling broke down the opposition of the burgher
oligarchies, and turned to William IV., prince of Orange, as the
saviour of the state. John William Friso had died
young in 1711, leaving a posthumous son, William
Charles Henry Friso, who was duly elected stadholder
by the two provinces, Friesland and Groningen, which were
always faithful to his family, and in 1722 he became also, though
with very limited powers, stadholder of Gelderland. The other
provinces, however, under pressure from Holland, bound themselves
not to elect stadholders, and they refused to revive the
office of captain-general of the Union. By the conquest of
Dutch Flanders Zeeland was threatened, and the states of that
province, in which there were always many Orange partisans,
elected (April 1747) William stadholder, captain-general and
admiral of Zeeland. The example once given was infectious,
and was followed in rapid succession by Holland, Utrecht and
Overysel. Finally the States-General (May 4) appointed the
prince, who was the first member of his family to be stadholder
of all the seven provinces, captain and admiral-general of
the Union, and a little later these offices were declared hereditary
in both the male and female lines.
William IV., though not a man of great ability, was sincerely
anxious to do his utmost for securing the maintenance of peace,
and the development of the resources and commercial
prosperity of the country, and his powerful dynastic
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.
connexions (he had married Anne, eldest daughter
of George II.) gave him weight in the councils of
Europe. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, in which the
influence of Great Britain was exerted on behalf of the States,
though it nominally restored the old condition of things, left
the Provinces crippled by debt, and fallen low from their old
position among the nations. At first the stadholder’s efforts
to promote the trade and welfare of the country were hampered
by the distrust and opposition of Amsterdam, and other strongholds
Death of William IV.
Anne of England Regent.
of anti-Orange feeling, and just as his good
intentions were becoming more generally recognized,
William unfortunately died, on the 22nd of October
1751, aged forty years, leaving his three-year-old son,
William V., heir to his dignities. The princess Anne of England
became regent, but she had a difficult part to play, and on the
outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in which the
Provinces were determined to maintain neutrality,
her English leanings brought much unpopularity upon
her. She died in 1759, and for the next seven years
the regency passed into the hands of the States, and the
government was practically stadholderless.
In 1766 William V. was declared to be of age; and his accession to power was generally welcomed. He was, however, a weak man, without energy or resolution, and he allowed himself to be entirely led by his old guardian the William V. duke of Brunswick, and by his wife Frederica Wilhelmina of Prussia, a woman of marked ability, to whom he entirely deferred. In the American War of Independence William’s sympathies were strongly on the English side, while those of the majority of the Dutch people were with the revolted colonies. It is, however, certain that nothing would have driven the Provinces to take part in the war but for the overbearing attitude of the British government with regard to the right of neutral shipping upon the seas, and the heavy losses sustained by Dutch commerce at the hands of British privateers. The The Armed Neutrality. famous agreement, known as the “Armed Neutrality,” with which in 1780 the States of the continent at the instigation of Catherine II. of Russia replied to the maritime claims put forward by Great Britain drew the Provinces once more into the arena of European politics. Every effort was made by the English to prevent the Dutch from joining the league, and in this they were assisted by the stadholder, but at last the States-General, though only by the bare majority of four provinces against three, determined to throw in their lot with the opponents of England. War with England. Nothing could have been more unfortunate, for the country was not ready for war, and party spirit was too strong for united action to be taken or vigorous preparations to be made. When war broke out Dutch commerce was destroyed, and the Dutch colonies were at the mercy of the English fleet without the possibility of a blow being struck in their defence. An indecisive, but bravely fought action with Admiral Parker at the Dogger Bank showed, however, that the Dutch seamen had lost none of their old dogged courage, and did much to soothe the national sense of humiliation. In the negotiations Peace of Paris. of the Treaty of Paris (1783) the Dutch found themselves abandoned by their allies, and compelled to accept the disadvantageous but not ungenerous terms accorded to them by Great Britain. They had to sacrifice some of their East Indian possessions and to concede to the English freedom of trade in the Eastern seas.
One result of this humiliating and disastrous war was the
strengthening of the hands of the anti-Orange burgher-regents,
who had now arrogated to themselves the name of
“patriots.” It was they, and not the stadholder, who
The “Patriot” Party.
Intervention of the King of Prussia.
Difficulty with the Emperor.
had been mainly responsible for the Provinces joining
“the Armed Neutrality,” but the consequences of the
war, in which this act had involved them, was largely visited
upon the prince of Orange. The “patriot” party did their
utmost to curtail his prerogatives, and harass him with petty
insults, and at last the Prussian king was obliged to
interfere to save his niece, who was even more unpopular
than her weak husband, from being driven
from the country. In 1784 the emperor Joseph II.
took advantage of the dissensions in the Provinces to
raise the question of the opening of the Scheldt. He himself
was, however, no more prepared for attack than the Republic
for defence, but the Dutch had already sunk so low,
that they agreed to pay a heavy indemnity to induce
the Austrians to drop a demand they were unable to
enforce. To hold the mouth of the Scheldt and
prevent at all costs a revival of Antwerp as a commercial port
had been for two centuries a cardinal point of Dutch policy.
This difficulty removed, the agitation of the “patriots” against
the stadholderate form of government increased in violence, and
William speedily found his position untenable. An insult offered
Prussian Invasion.
Restoration to power of William V.
to the prince of Orange in 1787 led to an invasion
of the country by a Prussian army. Amsterdam
capitulated, the country was occupied, and the patriot
leaders declared incapable of holding any office. The Orange
party was completely triumphant, and William V., under the
protection of Prussia and England, with which states
the United Provinces were compelled to ally themselves,
was restored to power. It was, however, impossible
to make the complicated and creaking machinery of
the constitution of the worn-out republic of the United Netherlands
work smoothly, and in all probability it would have been
within a very short time replaced by an hereditary monarchy,
had not the cataclysm of the French Revolution swept it away
from its path, never to be revived.
When war broke out between the French revolutionary
government and the coalition of kings, the Provinces
remained neutral as long as they could. It was not till
Dumouriez had overrun all the Austrian Netherlands
The French invade the Netherlands.
in 1792, and had thrown open the passage of the Scheldt,
that they were drawn into the war. The patriot party sided with
604
the French, but for various reasons the conquest of the
country was delayed until 1795. In the closing months
of 1794 Pichegru, at the head of a large and victorious army,
invaded the Provinces. The very severe frost of that winter gave
his troops an easy passage over all the rivers and low-lying
lands; town after town fell before him; he occupied
Overthrow of the Stadholderate.
Flight of William V.
The Batavian Republic.
Changes of Government.
Amsterdam, and crossing the ice with his cavalry
took the Dutch fleet, as it lay frost-bound at the
Texel. The stadholder and his family fled to England,
and the disorganized remnants of the allied forces under
the duke of York retreated into Germany. The “patriots,” as
the anti-Orange republicans still styled themselves,
received the French with open arms and public rejoicings,
and the government was reorganized so as
to bring it into close harmony with that of Paris. The stadholderate,
the offices of captain and admiral-general, and all the
ancient organization of the United Netherlands were abolished,
and were transformed into the Batavian Republic, in close
alliance with France. But the Dutch had soon cause
to regret their revolutionary ardour. French alliance
meant French domination, and participation in the
wars of the Revolution. Its consequences were the
total ruin of Dutch commerce, and the seizure of all the Dutch
colonies by the English. Internally one change of government
succeeded another; after the States-General came a
national convention; then in 1798 a constituent
assembly with an executive directory; then chambers
of representatives; then a return to the earlier systems
under the names of the eight provincial and one central Commissions
(1801). These changes were the outcome of a gradual
reaction in a conservative direction.
The peace of Amiens gave the country a little rest, and the
Dutch got back the Cape of Good Hope and their West Indian
colonies; it was, however, but the brief and deceptive
interlude between two storms; when war began
Constitution of 1805.
again England once more took possession of all she
had restored. In 1805 the autocratic will of Napoleon
Bonaparte imposed upon them a new constitution, and Rutger
Jan Schimmelpenninck (1765-1825) was made, under the
ancient title of grand pensionary, head of the government.
In the next year the French emperor added Holland,
as the United Provinces were now named, to the ring of
dependent sovereignties, by means of which he sought to
build up a universal empire, and he forced his brother Louis
to be the unwilling king of an unwilling people. The new
Louis Bonaparte King of Holland.
king was a man of excellent intentions and did his
best to promote the interest of his subjects, but finding
himself unable to protect them from the despotic
overlordship of his brother, after a four years’ reign,
Louis abdicated. In 1810 the Northern Netherlands by decree
of Napoleon were incorporated in the French empire, and had
to bear the burdens of conscription and of a crushing weight of
taxation. The defeat of Leipzig in 1813 was the signal for a
general revolt in the Netherlands; the prince of Orange (son
The Sovereign Prince.
Creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Hundred Days.
of William V.) was recalled, and amidst general
rejoicing accepted at Amsterdam the offer of the
sovereignty under a free constitution (Dec. 1, 1813),
with the title of sovereign prince. On the downfall
of Napoleon the great powers determined to create in the Low
Countries a powerful state, and by the treaty of London (June
14, 1814) the Belgians were united with the Dutch
provinces to form the kingdom of the Netherlands,
which was also to include the bishopric of Liège and
the duchy of Bouillon, and the prince of Orange was
placed upon the throne on the 15th of March 1815 as
William I., king of the Netherlands (see William I.,
king of the Netherlands). The ancestral possessions of the
House of Nassau were exchanged for Luxemburg, of which
territory King William in his personal capacity
became grand duke. The carrying out of the treaty
was delayed by the Hundred Days’ campaign,
which for a short time threatened its very existence. The
daring invasion of Napoleon, however, afforded the Dutch and
Belgian contingents of the allied army the opportunity to fight
side by side under the command of William, prince of Orange,
eldest son of the new king, who highly distinguished himself by
his gallantry at Quatre Bras, and afterwards at Waterloo where
William I. crowned at Brussels.
Constitution of the Netherlands.
he was wounded (see William II., king of the Netherlands).
The Congress of Vienna confirmed the
arrangements made by the treaty of London, and
William I. was crowned king of the Netherlands at
Brussels on the 27th of September 1815. Under the constitution
the king, as hereditary sovereign, possessed full executive
powers, and the initiative in proposing laws. He had
the power of appointing his own council of state.
The legislative body bore the time-honoured title of
States-General, and was divided into an Upper
Chamber nominated by the king, and a Lower Chamber
elected by the people. Freedom of worship, freedom of the
press, and political equality were principles of the constitution,
guaranteed to all.
The union of the Dutch and Belgian provinces, like so many
of the territorial arrangements of the Congress of Vienna, was
an attempt to create a strong state out of diverse
and jarring elements. It was an artificial union,
Difference between the Dutch and Belgic provinces.
which nothing but consummate tact and statesmanship
could have rendered permanent and solid. North
and south were divided from one another by religious
belief, by laws and usages, by material interests, and
by two centuries and a half of widely severed national
life. The Belgians were strict Catholics, the Dutch Calvinistic
Protestants. The Dutch were chiefly a commercial and seafaring
people, with interests in distant lands and colonial
possessions; the Belgians were agriculturists, except where
their abundance of minerals made them manufacturers. The
national traits of the Dutch were a blend of German and English,
the national leaning of the Belgians was towards France and
French ideals. Nevertheless the materials were there out of
which a really broad-minded and conciliatory handling of religion
and racial difficulties might have gradually built up a Netherland
nation able to hold from its population and resources
a considerable place among European powers. For it must not
be forgotten that some two-thirds of the Belgian people are by
origin and language of the same race as the Dutch. But when
difficulties and differences arose between North and South, as
they were sure to arise, they were not dealt with wisely. The
king had good intentions, but his mind was warped by Dutch
prejudices, and he was ill-advised and acted unadvisedly. The
The Belgian Revolution.
Reign of William II.
Accession of William III.
The Constitution of 1848.
consequences were the Belgian Revolution of 1830,
which ended in the intervention of the great powers,
and the setting up, in 1831, of Belgium as an independent
kingdom. The final settlement of outstanding
questions between the two countries was not reached till 1839
(for an account of the Belgian Revolution, see Belgium). King
William I. in the following year, having become unpopular
through his resistance to reform, resigned his crown to
his son William II., who reigned in peace till his
death in 1849, when he was succeeded by his eldest
son William III. (see William III., king of the Netherlands).
His accession marked the beginning of constitutional government
in the Netherlands. William I. had been to
a large extent a personal ruler, but William II.,
though for a time following in his father’s steps, had
been moved by the revolutionary outbreaks of 1848
to concede a revision of the constitution. The fundamental
law of 1848 enacted that the first chamber of the States-General
should be elected by the Provincial Estates
instead of being appointed by the king, and that the
second chamber should be elected directly by all
persons paying a certain amount in taxation. Ministers
were declared responsible to the States-General, and a liberal
measure of self-government was also granted. During the long
reign of William III. (1849-1890) the chief struggles of parties
in the Netherlands centred round religious education. On
605
the one side are the liberals, divided into moderates and
progressives, the representatives to a large extent of the commercial
towns. Opposed to them is the coalition of
Political parties in the Netherlands.
the orthodox Protestant conservatives, styled anti-revolutionaries,
supported by the Calvinistic peasantry,
and the Catholics, who represent about one-third of
the population and have their headquarters in Dutch Brabant,
Dutch Flanders and Limburg. There is also in the Netherlands
a small, but very strenuous socialist party, which was founded
by the active propaganda of an ex-pastor Domela-Nieuwenhuis.
It draws its chief strength from Amsterdam and certain country
districts of Friesland.
The liberals were in power from 1871 to 1888 continuously, but a Catholic-anti-revolutionary ministry under Baron Mackay held office from 1888 to 1891, and again a coalition ministry was formed in 1901 with Dr Kuyper at its Religious education. head. From 1894 to 1897 a ministry of moderate liberals supported by a large part of the Catholic and anti-revolutionary parties were in power. The constitution of 1848 made it the duty of the state to provide free primary secular education, but it allowed to members of all creeds the liberty of establishing private schools, and this was carried into effect by a law passed in 1857 by the joint efforts of the liberals and Catholics against the opposition of the orthodox Calvinists. But the long liberal ascendancy closed the ranks of the Catholic-Calvinist coalition, and united them against the neutral schools, and in 1889 they were able to pass a law enabling not only the unsectarian public schools, but all private schools organized by societies and bodies recognized by the law to receive subventions from the state. In 1890 there were 3000 public schools with 450,000 scholars and 1300 private schools with 195,000 scholars.
The subject of the extension of the franchise has also been the cause of violent party strife and controversy. It was taken in hand as early as 1872, but as a revision of the constitution was necessary, no change was actually carried out till 1887. The law of that year lowered the qualification of the payer of a direct tax to 10 fl. Votes were given to all householders paying a certain minimum house duty, and to all lodgers who had for a given time paid a minimum of rent, also to all who possessed certain educational and social qualifications, whose definition was left to be specified by a later law. The passing of such a law was deferred by the coalition (Catholic-Orthodox) ministry of 1888-1891. The liberal ministry of 1891 attempted to deal with the question, and a proposal was made by the minister Tak van Poortvliet, which almost amounted to universal Extension of the suffrage. suffrage. The educational qualification was to be able to write, the social that of not receiving charitable relief. This proposal caused a cleavage right through all parties. It was supported by the radical left, by a large portion of the Orthodox-Calvinists under Dr Kuyper, and by some Catholics; it had against it the moderate liberals, the aristocratic section of the Orthodox-Calvinists, the bulk of the Catholics, and a few radicals under an influential leader van Houten. After a fierce electoral fight the Takkians were victors at the first polls, but were beaten at the second ballots. Of the 46 Takkians, 35 were liberals; of the 54 anti-Takkians, 24 were Catholics. A moderate liberal ministry was formed (1894) and in 1896 carried into law what was known as the van Houten project. It gave the right of voting to all Dutchmen over twenty-five years of age, who paid 1 fl. in direct taxation; were householders or lodgers as defined in 1887, or tenants of a vessel of, at least, 24 tons; were the recipients of certain salaries or had certain deposits in the public funds or savings banks. By this reform the number of electors, which had been raised in 1887 from 140,000 to 300,000, was augmented to Military service. 700,000. The question of universal military service has also divided parties. The principle of personal service has been strongly opposed by the Catholics and conservatives, but became the law of the land in 1898, though exemptions were conceded in favour of ecclesiastics and certain classes of students.
The long-continued and costly wars with the sultan of Achin have during a series of years been a source of trouble to Dutch ministries. In 1871-1872 Great Britain, in exchange for certain possessions of Holland on the coast of The Achin war. Guinea, agreed to recognize the right of the Dutch to occupy the north of Sumatra. The sultan of Achin opposed by force of arms the efforts of the Dutch to make their occupation effective, and has succeeded in maintaining a vigorous resistance, the Dutch colonial troops suffering severely from the effects of the insalubrious climate. Until 1871 the surplus derived from the colonial budget had been turned into a deficit, and the necessity of imposing fresh taxes to meet the war expenses has led to the downfall both of individual ministries and of cabinets.
William III. dying in 1890 was succeeded by his only surviving child, Wilhelmina. The new queen being a minor, her mother, the queen-dowager Emma, became regent. One effect of the accession of Queen Wilhelmina was the Queen Wilhelmina. severance of the bond between the Netherlands and Luxemburg. The grand duchy, being hereditary only in the male line, passed to the nearest agnate, the duke of Nassau. In 1898 the queen, having reached the age of eighteen, assumed the government. She married in 1901 Prince Henry of Mecklenburg. The outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 led to a strong outburst of sympathy among the Dutch on behalf of their kinsmen in South Africa, and there were times during the war, especially after President Kruger had fled from the Transvaal in a Dutch war vessel and had settled in Holland, when it was a task of some difficulty for the Dutch government to prevent the relations between Great Britain and the Netherlands from becoming strained. The ministry, however, under Dr Kuyper were able to keep the popular feeling in favour of the Boers in restraint, and to maintain towards Great Britain a correct attitude of strict neutrality. In 1903 the government took strong measures to prevent a threatened general strike of railway employees, the military were called out, and occupied the stations. A bill was passed by the States-General declaring railway strikes illegal. The elections of 1905 for the Second Chamber gave the liberals a narrow majority of four. Dr Kuyper accordingly resigned, and a moderate liberal cabinet was formed by Th. H. de Meester. The fact that up to 1908 the queen had not become a mother gradually caused some public concern as to the succession; but in 1909 Queen Wilhelmina, amid national rejoicings, gave birth to a princess.
Bibliography.—See (for the general history) J. Wagenaar, Vaderlandsche historie, to 1751 (21 vols., 1749-1759); continuation by Az. P. Loosjes, from 1751-1810 (48 vols., 1786-1811); W. Bilderdijk, Geschiedenis der Vaderlands (13 vols., 1832-1853); Groen G. van Prinsterer, Handboek der Geschiedenis van het Vaderland (6th ed., 1895); (for particular periods): L. ab Aitzema, Saken van spaet en oorlogh in ende om trent de Vereenigde Nederlanden (1621-1668) (15 vols., 1657-1671); continuation by Lambert van den Bos (Lambertus Sylvius) (4 vols., 1685-1699). The work of Aitzema contains a large number of important diplomatic and other documents; A. de Wicquefort, Histoire des provinces des Pays-Bas depuis la paix de Munster (1648-1658) (2 vols., 1719-1743); in these volumes will be also found a rich collection of original documents; R. Fruin, Tien jaren uit den tactig jarigen oorlog (1588-1598), (6th ed., 1905), a standard work; J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands (1584-1609), (4 vols., 1860-1868); P. J. Blok, History of the People of the Netherlands, vol. iii. (1568-1621) (trans. by Ruth Putnam, 1900); Cambridge Modern History, vol. iii. ch. xix. and vol. iv. ch. xxv. (see the bibliographies); Ant. L. Pontales, Vingt années de république parlementaire au 17me siècle. Jean de Witt, grand pensionnaire de Hollande (1884); E. C. de Gerlache, Histoire du royaume des Pays-Bas 1814-1830 (3 vols., 1859); Bosch J. de Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 (5 vols., 1873-1882); also the following important works: Groen G. van Prinsterer, Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, 2e série (1584-1688) (5 vols., 1857-1860); J. de Witt, Brieven (1652-1669) (6 vols., 1723-1725); A. Kluit, Historie der Hollandsche Staatsregering tot 1795 (5 vols., 1802-1805); G. W. Vreede, Inleiding tot eene geschiedenis der Nederlandsche diplomatic (6 vols., 1850-1865); J. C. de Jonge, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewesen, (6 vols., 1833-1848); E. Luzac, Holland’s Rijkdom (4 vols., 1781); R. Fruin, Geschiedenis der Staatsinstellingen in Nederland tot den val der Republick, edn. Colenbrander (1901); N. G. van Kampen, Geschiedenis der Nederlanders buiten Europa (4 vols., 1833); W. J. A. Jonckbloet, 606 Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Letterkunde (2 vols. 1881); C. Busken Hüet, Het Land van Rembrandt-studien over de Nordnederlandsche beschaving in de 17e eeuw (2 vols., 1886); L. D. Petit, Repertorium der verhandelingen en bijdragen betreffende de geschiedenis des Vaterlands in tijdschriften en mengel werken tot op 1900 verschenen, 2 parts (1905); other parts of this valuable repertorium are in course of publication.
1 At Maastricht, however, a portion lies on the left bank of the river, measured, according to the treaty with Belgium, 19th of April 1839, art. 4, by an average radius of 1200 Dutch fathoms (7874 ft.) from the outer glacis of the fortress.
2 The datum plane, or basis of the measurement of heights, is throughout Holland, and also in some of the border districts of Germany, the Amsterdamsch Peil (A.P.), or Amsterdam water-level, and represents the average high water-level of the Y at Amsterdam at the time when it was still open to the Zuider Zee. Local and provincial “peils” are, however, also in use on some waterways.
3 See J. Lorié, Contributions à la géologie des Pays-bas (1885-1895), Archives du Mus. Teyler (Haarlem), ser. 2, vol. ii. pp. 109-240, vol. iii. pp. 1-160, 375-461, vol. iv. pp. 165-309 and Bull. soc. belge géol. vol. iii. (1889); Mém. pp. 409-449; F. W. Harmer, “On the Pliocene Deposits of Holland,” &c., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., London, vol. lii. (1896) pp. 748-781, pls. xxxiv., xxxv.
4 The dates indicate the period of construction of the different sections.
5 For the history of the Netherlands previous to the confederacy of the northern provinces in 1579 see Netherlands.
HOLLAND, COUNTY AND PROVINCE OF.—The first mention of Holland in any document is found in an imperial gift brief dated May 2nd, 1064. In this the phrase “omnis comitatus in Hollandt” occurs, but without any further description of the locality indicated. A comparison with other documentary evidence, however, leads to the identification of Holland with the forestum Merweda, or the bush-grown fenland lying between the Waal, the old Meuse and the Merwe. It is the district surrounding the town of Dordrecht. A portion of the original Holland was submerged by a great inundation in 1421, and its modern appellation of Biesbosch (reed-forest) is descriptive of what must have been the condition of the entire district in early times. The word Holland is indeed by many authorities thought to be a corruption of Holt-land (it was sometimes so spelt by 13th-century writers) and to signify wood-land. The earliest spelling is, however, Holland, and it is more probable that it means lowlying-land (hol = hollow), a derivation which is equally applicable to the district in Lincolnshire which bears the same name.
The title count of Holland appears to have been first borne by the Frisian count Dirk III., who founded Dordrecht (about 1015) and made it his residence (see below). It was The first Count of Holland. not, however, till late in the 11th century that his successors adopted the style “Hollandensis comes” as their territorial designation (it is found for the first time on a seal of Dirk V. 1083), and that the name Holland became gradually extended northwards to connote all the land subject to the rule of the counts between Texel and the Maas.
The beginnings of the history of this feudal state (the later
Holland) centre round the abbey of Egmont in whose archives
its records have been preserved. In 922 Charles the
Simple gave in full possession to a count in Frisia,
Dirk I.
Dirk by name (a shortened form of Diederic, Latin Theodoricus),
“the church of Egmont with all that belonged to it from Swithardeshage
to Kinhem.” This man, usually known as Dirk I.,
died about 939 and was succeeded by his son of the same name.
Among the records of the abbey of Egmont is a document by
which the emperor Arnulf gave to a certain count Gerolf the
same land “between Swithardeshage and Kinhem,” afterwards
held by Dirk I. It is generally assumed that this Gerolf was
his father, otherwise their deed of gift would not have been
Dirk II.
Extent of his dominions.
Arnulf.
Dirk III.
preserved among the family papers. Dirk II. was
the founder of the abbey of Egmont. His younger
son Egbert became archbishop of Treves. His elder son Arnulf
married Liutgardis, daughter of Siegfried of Luxemburg and
sister-in-law of the emperor Henry II. He obtained from the
emperor Otto III., with whom he was in great favour
in 983, a considerable extension of territory, that now
covered by the Zuider Zee and southward down to
Nijmwegen. In the deed of gift he is spoken of as
holding the three countships of Maasland, Kinhem or Kennemerland
and Texla or Texel; in other words his rule extended over
the whole country from the right bank of the Maas or Meuse to
the Vlie. He appears also to have exercised authority at Ghent.
He died in 988. Arnulf was count till 993, when he was
slain in battle against the west Frisians, and was
succeeded by his twelve-year-old son Dirk III. During the
guardianship of his mother, Liutgardis, the boy was despoiled of
almost all his possessions, except Kennemerland and Maasland.
But no sooner was he arrived at man’s estate than
Dirk turned upon his enemies with courage and vigour.
He waged war, successfully with Adelbold, the powerful bishop
of Utrecht, and made himself master not only of his ancestral
possessions, but of the district on the Meuse known as the
Bushland of Merweda (forestum Merweda), hitherto subject to
the see of Utrecht. In the midst of this marshy tract, at a
point commanding the courses of the Meuse and the Waal,
Foundation of Dordrecht.
Defeat of Godfrey of Lorraine.
Beginning of the County of Holland.
he built a castle (about 1015) and began to levy
tolls. Around this castle sprang up the town of Thuredrecht
or Dordrecht. The possession of this stronghold
was so injurious to the commerce of Tiel, Cologne
and the Rhenish towns with England that complaints were
made by the bishop of Utrecht and the archbishop of Cologne
to the emperor. Henry II. took the part of the complainants
and commissioned Duke Godfrey of Lorraine to
chastise the young Frisian count. Duke Godfrey
invaded Dirk’s lands with a large army, but they were
impeded by the swampy nature of the country and
totally defeated with heavy loss (July 29, 1018). The duke
was himself taken prisoner. The result was that Dirk was not
merely confirmed in his possession of Dordrecht and the Merweda
Bushland (the later Holland) but also of the territory of a vassal
of the Utrecht see, Dirk Bavo by name, which he
conquered. This victory of 1018 is often regarded as
the true starting-point of the history of the county of
Holland. Having thus established his rule in the
south, Dirk next proceeded to bring into subjection the
Frisians in the north. He appointed his brother Siegfrid or
Sikka as governor over them. In his later years Dirk went
upon a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from which he returned in
1034; and ruled in peace until his death in 1039.
His son, Dirk IV., was one of the most enterprising of his
warlike and strenuous race. He began the long strife with the
counts of Flanders, as to the lordship over Walcheren
and other islands of Zeeland; the quarrel was important,
Dirk IV.
Quarrel with Flanders about Zeeland.
as dealing with the borderland between French and
German overlordship. This strife, which lasted 400 years, did
not at first break out into actual warfare, because both Dirk
and Baldwin V. of Flanders had a common danger in
the emperor Henry III., who in 1046 occupied the
lands in dispute. Dirk allied himself with Godfrey
the Bearded of Lorraine, who was at war with the
emperor, and his territory was invaded by a powerful
imperial fleet and army (1047). But Dirk entrenched himself
in his stronghold at Vlaardingen, and when winter came on he
surrounded and cut off with his light boats a number of the
enemy’s ships, and destroyed a large part of their army as they
made their way amidst the marches, which impeded their
retreat. He was able to recover what he had lost and to make
peace on his own terms. Two years later he was again assailed by
a coalition headed by the archbishop of Cologne and the bishop
of Utrecht. They availed themselves of a very hard winter to
penetrate into the land over the frozen water. Dirk offered a
stout resistance, but, according to the most trustworthy account,
was enticed into an ambuscade and was killed in the fight (1049).
He died unmarried and was succeeded by his brother Floris I.
Floris, like his predecessors, was hard-fighting and tenacious.
He gradually recovered possession of his ancestral lands. He
found a formidable adversary in the able and warlike
William, who, becoming bishop of Utrecht in 1054,
Floris I.
was determined to recover the lost possessions of his see; and
in 1058, in alliance with Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, Egbert,
margrave of Brandenburg, the bishop of Liége and others,
invaded the Frisian territory. At first success attended the
invaders and many places fell into their hands, but finally they
were surprised and defeated near Dordrecht. The counts of
Guelders and Louvain were among the prisoners that fell into
the hands of Floris. The attack was renewed in 1061. In a
battle at Nederhemert Floris met with his death in the hour
of victory. He is said to have been killed as, wearied with
pursuing, he lay asleep under a tree. He was succeeded by his
Dirk V.
son, Dirk V., a child, under the guardianship of his
mother, Gertrude of Saxony. Bishop William seems
now to have seized his opportunity and occupied all the territory
that he claimed. In this he was confirmed by two charters of
the emperor Henry IV. (April 30 and May 2, 1064). Among
the possessions thus assigned to him is found comitatus omnis
607
in Hollandt cum omnibus ad bannum regalem pertinentibus. An
examination of these documents shows the possessions of Dirk
as in Westflinge et circa oras Rheni, i.e. west of the Vlie and
around the mouths of the Rhine. Gertrude and her son appear
to have withdrawn to the islands of Frisia (Zeeland), leaving
William in undisturbed occupation of the disputed lands.
In 1063 Gertrude contracted a marriage with Robert, the
second son of Baldwin V. of Flanders, a man famous for his
adventurous career (see Flanders). On his marriage his father
Robert the Frisian guardian to his stepson
invested him with Imperial Flanders, as an apanage
including the islands of Frisia (Zeeland) west of the
Scheldt. He now became guardian to his stepson,
in whose inheritance lay the islands east of the Scheldt.
Robert thus, in his own right and that of Dirk, was
ruler of all Frisia (Zeeland), and thus became known
among his Flemish countrymen as Robert the Frisian. The
death of his brother Baldwin VI. in 1070 led to civil war in
Flanders, the claim of Robert to the guardianship of his nephew
Arnulf being disputed by Richilde, the widow of Baldwin.
The issue was decided by the decisive victory of Robert at
Cassel (February 1071) when Arnulf was killed and Richilde
taken prisoner (see Flanders). While Robert was thus engaged
in Flanders, an effort was made to recover “the County of
Holland” and other lands now held by William of Utrecht.
The people rose in revolt, but by command of the emperor
Henry IV. were speedily brought back under episcopal rule by
Godfrey the Hunchback of Lorraine conquers Holland.
The Bishop of Utrecht surrenders it to Dirk V.
Floris II.
Dirk VI.
an army under the command of Godfrey the Hunchback,
duke of Lower Lorraine. Again in 1076, at the request
of the bishop, Duke Godfrey visited his domains in
the Frisian borderland. At Delft, of which town
tradition makes Godfrey the founder, the duke was
treacherously murdered (February 26, 1076). William
of Utrecht died on the 17th of the following April.
Dirk V., now grown to man’s estate, was not slow to take
advantage of the favourable juncture. With the help of Robert
(his stepfather) he raised an army, besieged Conrad,
the successor of William, in the castle of Ysselmonde
and took him prisoner. The bishop purchased his
liberty by surrendering all claim to the disputed lands.
Henceforth the Frisian counts became definitively
known as counts of Holland. Dirk V. died in 1091
and was succeeded by his son Floris II. the Fat. This count
had a peaceful and prosperous reign of thirty-one years.
After his death (1122) his widow, Petronilla of Saxony,
governed in the name of Dirk VI., who was a minor.
The accession of her half-brother, Lothaire of Saxony, to the
imperial throne on the death of Henry V. greatly strengthened
her position. The East Frisian districts, Oostergoo
and Westergoo, were by Lothaire transferred from
the rule of the bishops of Utrecht to that of the counts of Holland
(1125). These Frisians proved very troublesome subjects to
Dirk VI. In 1132 they rose in insurrection under the leadership
of Dirk’s own brother, Floris the Black. The emperor
Conrad III. (1138), who was of the rival house of Hohenstaufen,
gave back these Frisian districts to the bishop; it
was in truth somewhat of an empty gift. The Frisian
peasants and fisher folk loved their independence, and
were equally refractory to the rule of any distant overlord,
whether count or bishop. Dirk VI. was succeeded in 1157 by
Floris III.
Floris III. reversed the traditional policy of his house by allying himself with the Hohenstaufens. He became a devoted adherent and friend of Frederick Barbarossa. He had Floris III. troubles with West Friesland and Groningen, and a war with the count of Flanders concerning their respective rights in West Zeeland, in which he was beaten. In 1170 a great flood caused immense devastation in the north and helped to form the Zuider Zee. In 1189 Floris accompanied Frederick Barbarossa upon the third Crusade, of which he was a distinguished leader. He died in 1190 at Antioch of Dirk VII. pestilence. His son, Dirk VII., had a stormy, but on the whole successful reign. Contests with the Flemings in West Zeeland and with the West Frisians, stirred up to revolt by his brother William, ended in his favour. The brothers were reconciled and William was made count of East Friesland. In 1202, however, Dirk was defeated and taken prisoner by the duke of Brabant, and had to purchase peace on humiliating terms. He only survived his defeat a short time and died early in 1204, leaving as his only issue a daughter, Ada, 17 years of age. The question of female succession thus raised was not likely to be accepted without a challenge by William. It had been the intention of Dirk VII. to secure the recognition of his daughter’s rights by appointing his brother her guardian. His widow Alida, however, an ambitious woman of strong character, as soon as her husband was dead, hurried on a marriage between Ada and Count Louis of Loon; and attempted with the nobles of Holland, who now for the first time make their appearance as a power in the country, to oppose the claim which William had made to the countship as heir in the male line. A struggle William I. ensued. William was supported by the Zeelanders and Ada was forced to fly to England. William, by a treaty concluded with Louis of Loon in 1206, became undisputed count. He took an active part in the events of his time. He fought by the side of the emperor Otto IV. in the great battle of Bouvines in 1214 (see Philip Augustus), and was taken prisoner. Two years later he accompanied Louis, the eldest son of Philip Augustus, in his expedition against King John of England. William is perhaps best known in history by his taking part in the fourth Crusade. He distinguished himself greatly at the capture of Damietta (1219). He did not long survive his return home, dying in 1222. The earliest charters conveying civic privileges in the county of Holland date from his reign—those of Geertruidenberg (1213) and of Dordrecht Floris IV. (1220). His son Floris IV., being a minor, succeeded him under the guardianship of his maternal uncle, Gerard III. of Gelderland. He maintained in later life close relations of friendship with Gerard, and supported him in his quarrel with the bishop of Utrecht (1224-1226). Floris was murdered in 1235 at a tournament at Corbie in Picardy by the count of Clermont. Another long minority followed his death, during which his brother Otto, bishop of Utrecht, acted as guardian to his nephew William II.
William II. became a man of mark. Pope Innocent IV.,
having deposed the emperor Frederick II., after several princes
had refused to allow themselves to be nominated in
the place of the Hohenstaufen, caused the young
William II.
Elected King of the Romans.
Floris V.
count of Holland to be elected king of the Romans
(1247) by an assembly composed chiefly of German ecclesiastics.
William took Aachen in 1248 and was there crowned
king; and after Frederick’s death in 1250, he had a
considerable party in Germany. He brought a war
with Margaret of Flanders (Black Margaret) to a
successful conclusion (1253). He was on the point of proceeding
to Rome to be crowned emperor, when in an expedition against
the West Frisians he perished, going down, horse and armour,
through the ice (1256). Like so many of his predecessors he
left his inheritance to a child. Floris V. was but
two years old on his father’s death; and he was
destined during a reign of forty years to leave a deeper
impress upon the history of Holland than any other of its
counts. Floris was a man of chivalrous character and high
capacity, and throughout his reign he proved himself an able
and beneficent ruler. Alike in his troubles with his turbulent
subjects and in the perennial disputes with his neighbours
he pursued a strong, far-sighted and successful policy. But his
active interest in affairs was not limited to the Netherlands.
Alliance with Edward I. of England.
He allied himself closely with Edward I. of England
in his strife with France, and secured from the English
king great trading advantages for his people; the
staple of wool was placed at Dort (Dordrecht) and
the Hollanders and Zeelanders got fishing rights on
the English coast. So intimate did their relations become that
Floris sent his son John to be educated at the court of Edward
with a view to his marriage with an English princess. To
608
balance the power of the nobles he granted charters to many of
the towns. Floris made himself master of Amstelland and
First Charter to Amsterdam.
Gooiland; and Amsterdam, destined to become the
chief commercial town of Holland, counts him the
founder of its greatness. Its earliest extant charter
dates from 1275. In 1296 Floris forsook the alliance
of Edward I. for that of Philip IV. of France, probably because
Edward had given support to Guy, count of Flanders, in his
dynastic dispute with John of Avesnes, count of Hainaut,
Floris’s nephew (see Flanders). The real motives of his policy
will, however, never be known, for shortly afterwards a conspiracy
of disaffected nobles, headed by Gijsbrecht van Amstel,
Murder of Floris V.
Gerard van Velzen and Wolfert van Borselen, was
formed against him. He was by them basely murdered
in the castle of Muiden (June 27, 1296). The tragic
event has been immortalized in dramas from the pens of
Holland’s most famous writers (see Vondel, Hooft). The
burghers and people, who knew him to be their best friend,
took such vengeance on his slayers as permanently to reduce
the power of the nobles.
John I., his son, was in England when his father was murdered; he was but 15 years of age, feeble in body and mind. He was married to Eleanor, daughter of Edward I. His reign was a struggle between John of Avesnes, the John I. young count’s guardian and next heir, and Wolfert van Borselen, who had a strong following in Zeeland. In 1299 van Borselen was killed, and a few months later John I. died. John of Avesnes was at once recognized as his successor by the Hollanders. Thus with John I. ended the first line of counts, after a rule of nearly 400 years. Europe has perhaps never seen Extinction of the first line of Counts. Their high character. an abler series of princes than these fourteen lineal descendants of Dirk I. Excepting the last there is not a weak man among them. Physically handsome and strong, model knights of the days of chivalry, hard fighters, wise statesmen, they were born leaders of men; always ready to advance the commerce of the country, they were the supporters of the growing towns, and likewise the pioneers in the task of converting a land of marshes and swamps into a fertile agricultural territory rich in flocks and herds. As individuals they had their failings, but one and all were worthy members of a high-souled race.
John of Avesnes, who took the title of John II., was the son
of John of Avesnes, count of Hainaut, and Alida, sister of
William II. of Holland. On his succession to the
countship the Hollanders were willing to receive him,
John II. of the House of Avesnes.
but the Zeelanders were hostile; and a long struggle
ensued before his authority was generally recognized.
In 1301 Bishop William of Utrecht invaded Amstelland, but
was killed in battle. John made use of his victory to secure the
election of his brother Guy as bishop in his place. A war with
the Flemings followed, in which the Flemings were at first
victorious, but after a struggle of many vicissitudes they were at
length driven out of Holland and Zeeland In 1304. John II. died
in that year and was succeeded by his son William III., surnamed
the Good (1304-1337). In his reign the long-standing quarrel
William III.
with Flanders, which had during a century and a half
caused so many wars, was finally settled by the treaty
of 1323, by which the full possession of West Zeeland
was granted to William, who on his part renounced all claim in
Imperial Flanders. The Amstelland with its capital, Amsterdam,
which had hitherto been held as a fief of Utrecht, was by William,
on the death of his uncle Bishop Guy, finally annexed to Holland.
This count did much to encourage civic life and to develop the
resources of the country. He had close relations through
marriage with the three principal European dynasties of his
time. His wife was Jeanne of Valois, niece of the French king;
in 1323 the emperor Louis the Bavarian wedded his daughter
Margaret; and in 1328 his third daughter, Philippa of Hainaut,
was married to Edward III. of England. By their alliance
William III. occupied a position of much dignity and influence,
which he used to further the interests and increase the welfare
of his hereditary lands. He was in all respects a great prince
and a wise and prudent statesman. He was succeeded by his
William IV.
son, William IV., who was the ally of his brother-in-law,
Edward III., in his French wars. He was fond of adventure,
and in 1343 made a journey to the Holy Land in
disguise, and on his way took part in an expedition of the
knights of the Teutonic Order against the infidel Wends and
Lithuanians. He was killed in battle against the Frisians in
1345. He left no children, and the question as to the succession
now brought on Holland a period of violent civil commotions.
The Empress Margaret.
His inheritance was claimed by his eldest sister,
the empress Margaret, as well as by Philippa of
Hainaut, or in other words, by Edward III. of England.
Margaret came in person and was duly recognized
as countess in Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut; but returned
to her husband after appointing her second son (the eldest,
Louis, renounced his rights) Duke William of Bavaria, as
stadholder in her place. William was but sixteen, and disorder
and confusion soon reigned in the land. The sudden death of
the emperor in 1347 added to the difficulties of his position.
In 1349 Margaret was induced to resign her sovereignty, and
William V. of the House of Bavaria.
the stadholder became count under the title of William
V. This was the time of the formation of the famous
parties in Holland, known as Kabbeljauws (Cods)
and Hoeks (Hooks); the former, the burgher party,
were the supporters of William (possibly the name was
derived from the light blue, scaly looking Bavarian coat of
arms), the latter the party of the disaffected nobles, who wanted
to catch and devour the fat burgher fish. In 1350 such was
the disorder in the land that Margaret, at the request of the nobles,
came to Holland to take into her own hands the reins of government.
The struggle between the nobles and the cities broke out
into civil war. Edward III. came to Margaret’s aid, winning
a sea-fight off Veere in 1351; a few weeks later the Hooks
and their English allies were defeated by William and the Cods
at Vlaardingen—an overthrow which ruined Margaret’s cause.
Edward III. shortly afterwards changed sides, and the empress
saw herself compelled (1354) to come to an understanding with
her son, he being recognized as count of Holland and Zeeland,
she of Hainaut. Margaret died two years later, leaving William,
who had married Matilda of Lancaster, in possession of the
entire Holland-Hainaut inheritance (July 1356). His tenure
of power was, however, very brief. Before the close of 1357
he showed such marked signs of insanity that his wife, with his
Albert of Bavaria.
own consent and the support of both parties, invited
Duke Albert of Bavaria, younger brother of William
V., to be regent, with the title of Ruward (1358).
William lived in confinement for 31 years. Albert died
in 1404, having ruled the land well and wisely for 46 years,
first as Ruward, then as count. Despite outbreaks from time
to time of the Hook and Cod troubles, he was able to make his
authority respected, and to help forward in many ways the
social progress of the country. The influence of the towns was
steadily on the increase, and their government began to fall
into the hands of the burgher patrician class, who formed the
Cod party. Opposed to them were the nobility and the lower
classes, forming the Hook party. In Albert’s latter years a
fresh outbreak of civil war (1392-1395) was caused by the count’s
espousing the side of the Cods, while the Hooks had the support
of his eldest son, William. Albert was afterwards reconciled
William VI.
Jacqueline of Bavaria.
to his son, who succeeded him as William VI. in 1404.
On his accession to power William upheld the Hooks,
and secured their ascendancy. His reign was much
troubled with civil discords, but he was a brave soldier, and was
generally successful in his enterprises. He died in 1417, leaving
an only child, a daughter, Jacqueline (or Jacoba),
who had in her early youth been married to John,
heir to the throne of France. At a gathering held at
the Hague (August 15, 1416) the nobles and representatives
of the cities of Holland and Zeeland had promised at
William’s request to support his daughter’s claims to the succession.
But John of France died (April 1417), and William VI.
609
about a month later, leaving the widowed Jacqueline at
17 years of age face to face with a difficult situation. She
was at first welcomed in Holland and Zeeland, but found
her claims opposed by her uncle, John of Bavaria, supported
by the Cod party. Every one from whom she might have
expected help betrayed her in turn, her second husband John
IV. of Brabant, her third husband Humphrey of Gloucester,
her cousin Philip the Good of Burgundy, all behaved shamefully
to her. Her romantic and sad life has rendered the courageous
and accomplished Jacqueline the most picturesque figure in
the whole history of Holland. She struggled long against her
powerful kinsfolk, nor did she know happiness till near the end
of her life, when she abandoned the unequal strife, and found
repose with Francis of Borselen, Ruward of Holland, her fourth
husband. Him Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, craftily
seized; and thereby in 1433 the Duchess Jacqueline was compelled
to cede her rights over the counties of Holland and
Hainaut. Consequently at her death in 1436, as she left no
Accession of the Burgundian Dynasty.
Philip the Good.
Flourishing state of Holland.
children, Philip succeeded to the full and undisputed
possession of her lands. He had already acquired by
inheritance, purchase or force almost all the other
Netherland states; and now, with the extinction of
the Bavarian line of counts, Holland ceased to have
an independent existence and became an outlying province
of the growing Burgundian power (see Burgundy). During
the years that followed the accession to the sovereignty
of Duke Philip, Holland plays but an insignificant
part. It was governed by a stadholder, and but
small respect was shown for its chartered rights and privileges.
The quarrels between the Hook and Cod factions still continued,
but the outbreaks of civil strife were quickly repressed by the
strong hand of Philip. Holland during this time contented
herself with growing material prosperity. Her
herring fishery, rendered more valuable by the curing
process discovered or introduced by Benkelszoon,
brought her increasing wealth, and her fishermen
were already laying the foundations of her future maritime
greatness. It was in the days of Duke Philip that Lorenz
Koster of Haarlem contributed his share to the discovery of
printing. During the reign of Charles the Bold (1467-1477)
Charles the Bold.
Mary of Burgundy.
the Hollanders, like the other subjects of that warlike
prince, suffered much from the burden of taxation
An outbreak at Hoorn was by Charles sternly repressed.
The Hollanders were much aggrieved by the establishment
of a high court of justice for the entire Netherlands at Mechlin.
(1474). This was regarded as a serious breach of their privileges.
The succession of Mary of Burgundy led to the granting
to Holland as to the other provinces of the Netherlands,
of the Great Privilege of March 1477, which
restored the most important of their ancient rights and liberties
(see Netherlands). A high court of justice was established
for Holland, Zeeland and Friesland, and the use of the native
language was made official. The Hook and Cod troubles
again disturbed the country. Hook uprisings took place at
Leiden and Dordrecht and had to be repressed by armed
force.
By the sudden death of the Duchess Mary in 1482 her possessions,
including the county of Holland, passed to her infant son
Philip, under the guardianship of his father the Archduke
Maximilian of Austria. Thus the Burgundian
Maximilian of Austria.
Philip II. the Fair.
dynasty was succeeded by that of the Habsburgs.
During the regency of Maximilian the turbulence of
the Hooks caused much strife and unrest in Holland. Their
leaders. Francis of Brederode and John of Naaldwijk, seized
Rotterdam and other places. Their overthrow finally ended
the strife between Hooks and Cods. The “Bread
and Cheese War,” an uprising of the peasants in
North Holland caused by famine, is a proof of the
misery caused by civil discords and oppressive taxation. In
1494, Maximilian having been elected emperor, Philip was
declared of age. His assumption of the government was greeted
with joy in Holland, and in his reign the province enjoyed rest
and its fisheries benefited from the commercial treaty concluded
The Emperor Charles V. (Charles III.).
Philip III.
William of Orange Stadholder.
The revolt of the Netherlands.
Union of Utrecht.
Abjuration of Philip’s Sovereignty.
with England. The story of Holland during
the long reign of his son and successor Charles III.
(1506-1555), better known as the emperor Charles V.,
belongs to the general history of the Netherlands
(see Netherlands). On the abdication of Charles, his
son Philip II. of Spain became Philip III., count of Holland, the
ruler whose arbitrary rule in church and state brought about
the revolt of the Netherlands. His appointment of
William, prince of Orange, as stadholder of Holland
and Zeeland was destined to have momentous results to the
future of those provinces (see William the Silent). The
capture of Brill and of Flushing in 1572 by the Sea-Beggars
led to the submission of the greater part of
Holland and Zeeland to the authority of the prince
of Orange, who, as stadholder, summoned the states
of Holland to meet at Dordrecht. This act was the beginning of
Dutch independence. From this time forward William made
Holland his home. It became the bulwark of the
Protestant faith in the Netherlands, the focus of the
resistance to Spanish tyranny. The sieges of Haarlem,
Alkmaar and Leiden saved Holland from being
overwhelmed by the armies of Alva and Requesens and stemmed
the tide of Spanish victory. The act of federation between
Holland and Zeeland brought about by the influence
of William was the germ of the larger union of Utrecht
between the seven northern provinces in 1579. But
within the larger union the inner and closer union between
Holland and Zeeland continued to subsist. In 1580, when the
sovereignty of the Netherlands was offered to the
duke of Anjou, the two maritime provinces refused
to acquiesce, and forced William to accept the title
of count of Holland and Zeeland. In the following
year William in the name of the two provinces
solemnly abjured the sovereignty of the Spanish king (July 24).
After the assassination of William (1584) the title of count of
Holland was never revived.
In the long struggle of the united provinces with Spain,
which followed the death of Orange, the brunt of the conflict
fell upon Holland. More than half the burden of the charges
of the war fell upon this one province; and with Zeeland it
furnished the fleets which formed the chief defence of the country.
Hence the importance attached to the vote of Holland in the
assembly of the States-General. That vote was given by deputies
at the head of whom was the advocate (in later times called
the grand pensionary) of Holland, and who were responsible to,
and the spokesmen of, the provincial states. These states, which
met at the Hague in the same building as the States-General,
consisted of representatives of the burgher oligarchies (regents)
of the principal towns, together with representatives of the
nobles, who possessed one vote only. The advocate was the
Government of Holland.
Johan van Oldenbarneveldt.
paid minister of the states. He presided over their
meetings, kept their minutes and conducted all
correspondence, and, as stated above, was their
spokesman in the States-General. The advocate (or
grand pensionary) of Holland therefore, if an able man, had
opportunities for exercising a very considerable influence,
becoming in fact a kind of minister of all affairs. It was this
influence as exerted by the successive advocates of
Holland, Paul Buys and Johan van Oldenbarneveldt,
which rendered abortive the well-meant efforts of the
earl of Leicester to centralize the government of the
United Provinces. After his departure (1587) the advocate of
Holland, Oldenbarneveldt, became the indispensable statesman
of the struggling republic. The multiplicity of his functions
gave to the advocate an almost unlimited authority in the details
of administration, and for thirty years the conduct of affairs
remained in his hands (see Oldenbarneveldt). This meant
the undisputed hegemony of Holland in the federation, in other
words of the burgher oligarchies who controlled the town corporations
of the province, and especially of Amsterdam. This
authority of Holland was, however, more than counterbalanced
610
by the extensive powers with which the stadholder princes
of Orange were invested; and the chief crises in the internal
Contest between the Principles of National and Provincial Sovereignty.
history of the Dutch republic are to be found in
the struggles for supremacy between two, in reality,
different principles of government. On the one side
the principle of provincial sovereignty which gave to
the voice of Holland a preponderating weight that was
decisive; on the other side the principle of national
sovereignty personified in the princes of Orange, to
whom the States-General and the provincial states
delegated executive powers that were little less than monarchical.
The conclusion of the twelve years’ truce in 1609 was a triumph
for Oldenbarneveldt and the province of Holland over the
opposition of Maurice, prince of Orange. In 1617 the
outbreak of the religious dispute between the Remonstrant
Maurice Prince of Orange and John of Oldenbarneveldt.
Frederick Henry Prince of Orange.
William II. Prince of Orange.
and Contra-remonstrant parties brought on a
life and death struggle between the sovereign province
of Holland and the States-General of the union. The
sword of Maurice decided the issue in favour of the
States-General. The claims of Holland were overthrown
and the head of Oldenbarneveldt fell upon the scaffold (1619).
The stadholder, Frederick Henry of Orange, ruled with well-nigh
monarchical authority (1625-1647), but even he at the
height of his power and popularity had always to
reckon with the opposition of the states of Holland
and of Amsterdam, and many of his plans of campaign
were thwarted by the refusal of the Hollanders to furnish supplies.
His son William II. was but 21 years of age on succeeding
to the stadholdership, and the states of Holland were
sufficiently powerful to carry through the negotiations
for the peace of Münster (1648) in spite of his opposition.
A life and death conflict again ensued, and once
more in 1650 the prince of Orange by armed force crushed the
opposition of the Hollanders. The sudden death of William in
the hour of his triumph caused a complete revolution in the
government of the republic. He left no heir but a posthumous
infant, and the party of the burgher regents of Holland was
John de Witt.
once more in the ascendant. The office of stadholder
was abolished, and John de Witt, the grand pensionary
(Raad-Pensionaris) of Holland, for two decades held
in his hands all the threads of administration, and occupied the
same position of undisputed authority in the councils of the land
as Oldenbarneveldt had done at the beginning of the century.
Amsterdam during this period was the centre and head of the
United Provinces. The principle of provincial sovereignty was
carried to its extreme point in the separate treaty concluded
with Cromwell in 1654, in which the province of Holland agreed
to exclude for ever the prince of Orange from the office of stadholder
of Holland or captain-general of the union. In 1672
William III. Prince of Orange.
another revolution took place. John de Witt was
murdered, and William III. was called to fill the office
of dignity and authority which had been held by his
ancestors of the house of Orange, and the stadholdership
was declared to be hereditary in his family. But William
died without issue (see William III.) and a stadholderless period,
during which the province of Holland was supreme in the union,
followed till 1737. This change was effected smoothly, for
though William had many differences with Amsterdam, he had
in Anthony Heinsius (van der Heim), who was grand pensionary
of Holland from 1690 to his death in 1720, a statesman whom
he thoroughly trusted, who worked with him in the furtherance
of his policy during life and who continued to carry out that
policy after his death. In 1737 there was once more a reversion
William IV. Prince of Orange.
to the stadholdership in the person of William IV.,
whose powers were strengthened and declared hereditary
both in the male and female line in 1747. But
until the final destruction of the federal republic by
the French armies, the perennial struggle went on between the
Holland or federal party (Staatsgesinden) centred at Amsterdam—out
of which grew the patriot party under William V.—and the
Orange or unionist party (Oranjegesinden), which was strong in
the smaller provinces and had much popular support among
the lower classes. The French conquest swept away the old
condition of things never to reappear; but allegiance to the
Orange dynasty survived, and in 1813 became the rallying
point of a united Dutch people. At the same time the leading
part played by the province of Holland in the history of the
republic has not been unrecognized, for the country ruled over
by the sovereigns of the house of Orange is always popularly,
and often officially, known as Holland.
The full title of the states of Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries was: de Edele Groot Mogende Heeren Staaten van Holland en Westfriesland. After 1608 this assembly consisted of nineteen members, one representing the Constitution of the States of Holland. nobility (ridderschap), and eighteen, the towns. The member for the nobles had precedence and voted first. The interests of the country districts (het platte land) were the peculiar charges of the member for the nobles. The nobles also retained the right of appointing representatives to sit in the College of Deputed Councillors, in certain colleges of the admiralty, and upon the board of directors of the East India Company, and to various public offices. The following eighteen towns sent representatives: South Quarter—(1) Dordrecht, (2) Haarlem, (3) Delft, (4) Leiden, (5) Amsterdam, (6) Gouda, (7) Rotterdam, (8) Gorinchem, (9) Schiedam, (10) Schoonhoven, (11) Brill; North Quarter:—(12) Alkmaar, (13) Hoorn, (14) Enkhuizen, (15) Edam, (16) Monnikendam, (17) Medemblik, (18) Purmerend. Each town (as did also the nobles) sent as many representatives as they pleased, but the nineteen members had only one vote each. Each town’s deputation was headed by its pensionary, who was the spokesman on behalf of the representatives. Certain questions such as peace and war, voting of subsidies, imposition of taxation, changes in the mode of government, &c., required unanimity of votes. The grand pensionary (Raad-Pensionaris) The Grand Pensionary. was at once the president and chief administrative officer of the states. He presided over all meetings, conducted the business, kept the minutes, and was charged with the maintenance of the rights of the states, with the execution of their resolutions and with the entire correspondence. Nor were his functions only provincial. He was the head and the spokesman of the deputation of the states to the States-General of the union; and in the stadholderless period the influence of such grand pensionaries of Holland as John de Witt and Anthony Heinsius enabled the complicated and intricate machinery of government in a confederacy of many sovereign and semi-sovereign authorities without any recognized head of the state, to work with comparative smoothness and a remarkable unity of policy. This was secured by the indisputable predominance in the union of the province of Holland. The policy of the states of Holland swayed the policy of the generality, and historical circumstances decreed that the policy of the states of Holland during long and critical periods should be controlled by a succession of remarkable men filling the office of grand pensionary. The states of Holland sat at the Hague in the months of March, July, September and November. During the periods of prorogation the continuous oversight of the business and interests of the province was, however, never neglected. College of Deputed Councillors. This duty was confided to a body called the College of Deputed Councillors (het Kollegie der Gekommitteerde Raden), which was itself divided into two sections, one for the south quarter, another for the north quarter. The more important—that for the south quarter—consisted of ten members, (1) the senior member of the nobility, who sat for life, (2) representatives (for periods of three years) of the eight towns: Dordrecht, Haarlem, Delft, Leiden, Amsterdam, Gouda, Rotterdam and Gorinchem, with a tenth member (usually elected biennially) for the towns of Schiedam, Schoonhoven and Brill conjointly. The grand pensionary presided over the meetings of the college, which had the general charge of the whole provincial administration, especially of finance, the carrying out of the resolutions of the states, the maintenance of defences, and the upholding of the privileges and liberties of the land. With particular regard to this last-named 611 duty the college deputed two of its members to attend all meetings of the states-general, to watch the proceedings and report at once any proposals which they held to be contrary to the interests or to infringe upon the rights of the province of Holland. The institution of the College of Deputed Councillors might thus be described as a vigilance committee of the states in perpetual session. The existence of the college, with its many weighty and important functions, must never be lost sight of by students who desire to have a clear understanding of the remarkable part played by the province of Holland in the history of the United Netherlands.
HOLLAND, a city of Ottawa county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Macatawa Bay (formerly called Black Lake), near Lake Michigan, and 25 m. W.S.W. of Grand Rapids. Pop. (1890) 3945; (1900) 7790, of whom a large portion were of Dutch descent; (1904) 8966; (1910) 10,490. It is served by the Père Marquette Railroad, by steamboat lines to Chicago and other lake ports, and by electric lines connecting with Grand Rapids, Saugatuck, and the neighbouring summer resorts. On Macatawa Bay are Ottawa Beach, Macatawa Park, Jenison Park, Central Park, Castle Park and Waukezoo. In the city itself are Hope College (co-educational; founded in 1851 and incorporated as a college in 1866), an institution of the (Dutch) Reformed Church in America; and the Western Theological Seminary (1869; suspended 1877-1884) of the same denomination. Holland is a grain and fruit shipping centre, and among its manufactures are furniture, leather, grist mill products, iron, beer, pickles, shoes, beet sugar, gelatine, biscuit (Holland rusk), electric and steam launches, and pianos. In 1908 seven weekly, one daily, and two monthly papers (four denominational) were published at Holland, five of them in Dutch. The municipality owns its water-works and electric-lighting plant. Holland was founded in 1847 by Dutch settlers, under the leadership of the Rev. A. C. Van Raalte, and was chartered as a city in 1867. In 1871 much of it was destroyed by a forest fire.
HOLLAND, a cloth so called from the country where it was first made. It was originally a fine plain linen fabric of a brownish colour—unbleached flax. Several varieties are now made: hollands, pale hollands and fine hollands. They are used for aprons, blinds, shirts, blouses and dresses.
HOLLAR, WENZEL or WENCESLAUS [Vaclaf Holar] (1607-1677), Bohemian etcher, was born at Prague on the 13th of July 1607, and died in London, being buried at St Margaret’s church, Westminster, on the 28th of March 1677. His family was ruined by the capture of Prague in the Thirty Years’ War, and young Hollar, who had been destined for the law, determined to become an artist. The earliest of his works that have come down to us are dated 1625 and 1626; they are small plates, and one of them is a copy of a Virgin and Child by Dürer, whose influence upon Hollar’s work was always great. In 1627 he was at Frankfort, working under Matthew Merian, an etcher and engraver; thence he passed to Strassburg, and thence, in 1633, to Cologne. It was there that he attracted the notice of the famous amateur Thomas, earl of Arundel, then on an embassy to the imperial court; and with him Hollar travelled to Vienna and Prague, and finally came in 1637 to England, destined to be his home for many years. Though he lived in the household of Lord Arundel, he seems to have worked not exclusively for him, but to have begun that slavery to the publishers which was afterwards the normal condition of his life. In his first year in England he made for Stent, the printseller, the magnificent View of Greenwich, nearly a yard long, and received thirty shillings for the plate,—perhaps a twentieth part of what would now be paid for a single good impression. Afterwards we hear of his fixing the price of his work at fourpence an hour, and measuring his time by a sandglass. The Civil War had its effect on his fortunes, but none on his industry. Lord Arundel left England in 1642, and Hollar passed into the service of the duke of York, taking with him a wife and two children. With other royalist artists, notably Inigo Jones and Faithorne, he stood the long and eventful siege of Basing House; and as we have some hundred plates from his hand dated during the years 1643 and 1644 he must have turned his enforced leisure to good purpose. Taken prisoner, he escaped or was released, and joined Lord Arundel at Antwerp, and there he remained eight years, the prime of his working life, when he produced his finest plates of every kind, his noblest views, his miraculous “muffs” and “shells,” and the superb portrait of the duke of York. In 1652 he returned to London, and lived for a time with Faithorne the engraver near Temple Bar. During the following years were published many books which he illustrated:—Ogilby’s Virgil and Homer, Stapylton’s Juvenal, and Dugdale’s Warwickshire, St Paul’s and Monasticon (part i.). The booksellers continued to impose on the simple-minded foreigner, pretending to decline his work that he might still further reduce the wretched price he charged them. Nor did the Restoration improve his position. The court did nothing for him, and in the great plague he lost his young son, who, we are told, might have rivalled his father as an artist. After the great fire he produced some of his famous “Views of London”; and it may have been the success of these plates which induced the king to send him, in 1668, to Tangier, to draw the town and forts. During his return to England occurred the desperate and successful engagement fought by his ship the “Mary Rose,” under Captain Kempthorne, against seven Algerine men-of-war,—a brilliant affair which Hollar etched for Ogilby’s Africa. He lived eight years after his return, still working for the booksellers, and retaining to the end his wonderful powers; witness the large plate of Edinburgh (dated 1670), one of the greatest of his works. He died in extreme poverty, his last recorded words being a request to the bailiffs that they would not carry away the bed on which he was dying.
Hollar’s variety was boundless; his plates number some 2740, and include views, portraits, ships, religious subjects, heraldic subjects, landscapes, and still life in a hundred different forms. No one that ever lived has been able to represent fur, or shells, or a butterfly’s wing as he has done. His architectural drawings, such as those of Antwerp and Strassburg cathedrals, and his views of towns, are mathematically exact, but they are pictures as well. He could reproduce the decorative works of other artists quite faultlessly, as in the famous chalice after Mantegna’s drawing. His Theatrum mulierum and similar collections reproduce for us with literal truth the outward aspects of the people of his day; and his portraits, a branch of art in which he has been unfairly disparaged, are of extraordinary refinement and power.
Almost complete collections of Hollar’s works exist in the British Museum and in the library at Windsor Castle. Two admirable catalogues of his plates have been made, one in 1745 (2nd ed. 1759) by George Vertue, and one in 1853 by Parthey. The latter, published at Berlin, is a model of German thoroughness and accuracy.
HOLLES, DENZIL HOLLES, Baron (1599-1680), English statesman and writer, second son of John Holles, 1st earl of Clare (c. 1564-1637), by Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Stanhope, was born on the 31st of October 1599. The favourite son of his father and endowed with great natural abilities, Denzil Holles grew up under advantageous circumstances. Destined to become later one of the most formidable antagonists of King Charles’s arbitrary government, he was in early youth that prince’s playmate and intimate companion. The earl of Clare was, however, no friend to the Stuart administration, being especially hostile to the duke of Buckingham; and on the accession of Charles to the throne the king’s offers of favour were rejected. In 1624 Holles was returned to parliament for Mitchell in Cornwall, and in 1628 for Dorchester. He had from the first a keen sense of the humiliations which attended the foreign policy of the Stuart kings. Writing to Strafford, his brother-in-law, on the 29th of November 1627, he severely censures Buckingham’s conduct of the expedition to the Isle of Rhé; “since England was England,” the declared, “it received not so dishonourable a blow”; and he joined in the demand for Buckingham’s impeachment in 1628. To these discontents were now added the abuses arising from the king’s arbitrary administration. On the 2nd of March 1629, when Sir John Finch, the speaker, refused to put Sir John Eliot’s Protestations and was about to adjourn the House by the king’s 612 command, Holles with another member thrust him back into the chair and swore “he should sit still till it pleased them to rise.” Meanwhile Eliot, on the refusal of the speaker to read the Protestations, had himself thrown them into the fire; the usher of the black rod was knocking at the door for admittance, and the king had sent for the guard. But Holles, declaring that he could not render the king or his country better service, put the Protestations to the House from memory, all the members rising to their feet and applauding. In consequence a warrant was issued for his arrest with others on the following day. They were prosecuted first in the Star Chamber and subsequently in the King’s Bench. When brought upon his habeas corpus before the latter court Holles offered with the rest to give bail, but refused sureties for good behaviour, and argued that the court had no jurisdiction over offences supposed to have been committed in parliament. On his refusal to plead he was sentenced to a fine of 1000 marks and to imprisonment during the king’s pleasure. Holles had at first been committed and remained for some time a close prisoner in the Tower of London. The “close” confinement, however, was soon changed to a “safe” one, the prisoner then having leave to take the air and exercise, but being obliged to maintain himself at his own expense. On the 29th of October Holles, with Eliot and Valentine, was transferred to the Marshalsea. His resistance to the king’s tyranny did not prove so stout as that of some of his comrades in misfortune. Among the papers of the secretary Sir John Coke is a petition of Holles, couched in humble and submissive terms, to be restored to the king’s favour;1 having given the security demanded for his good behaviour, he was liberated early in 1630, and on the 30th of October was allowed bail. Being still banished from London he retired to the country, paying his fine in 1637 or 1638. The fine was repaid by the parliament in July 1644, and the judgment was revised on a writ of error in 1668. In 1638 we find him, notwithstanding his recent experiences, one of the chief leaders in his county of the resistance to ship money, though it would appear that he subsequently made submission.
Holles was a member of the Short and Long Parliaments assembled in 1640. According to Laud he was now “one of the great leading men in the House of Commons,” and in Clarendon’s opinion he was “a man of more accomplished parts than any of his party” and of most authority. He was not, however, in the confidence of the republican party. Though he was at first named one of the managers for the impeachment of Strafford, Holles had little share in his prosecution. According to Laud he held out to Strafford hopes of saving his life if he would use his influence with the king to abolish episcopacy, but the earl refused, and Holles advised Charles that Strafford should demand a short respite, of which he would take advantage to procure a commutation of the death sentence. In the debate on the attainder he spoke on behalf of Strafford’s family, and later obtained some favours from the parliament for his eldest son. In all other matters in parliament Holles took a principal part. He was one of the chief movers of the Protestation of the 3rd of May 1641, which he carried up to the Lords, urging them to give it their approval. Although, according to Clarendon, he did not wish to change the government of the church, he showed himself at this time decidedly hostile to the bishops. He took up the impeachment of Laud to the House of Peers, supported the Londoners’ petition for the abolition of episcopacy and the Root and Branch Bill, and afterwards urged that the bishops impeached for their conduct in the affair of the late canons should be accused of treason. He showed equal energy in the affairs of Ireland at the outbreak of the rebellion, supported strongly the independence and purity of the judicial bench, and opposed toleration of the Roman Catholics. On the 9th of July 1641 he addressed the Lords on behalf of the queen of Bohemia, expressing great loyalty to the king and royal family and urging the necessity of supporting the Protestant religion everywhere. Together with Pym, Holles drew up the Grand Remonstrance, and made a vigorous speech in its support on the 22nd of November 1641, in which he argued for the right of one House to make a declaration, and asserted: “If kings are misled by their counsellors we may, we must tell them of it.” On the 15th of December he was a teller in the division in favour of printing it. On the great subject of the militia he also showed activity. He supported Hesilriges’ Militia Bill of the 7th of December 1641, and on the 31st of December he took up to the king the Commons’ demand for a guard under the command of Essex. “Holles’s force and reputation,” said Sir Ralph Verney, “are the two things that give the success to all actions.” After the failure of the attempt by the court to gain over Holles and others by offering them posts in the administration, he was one of the “five members” impeached by the king.2 Holles at once grasped the full significance of the king’s action, and after the triumphant return to the House of the five members, on the 11th of January, threw himself into still more pronounced opposition to the arbitrary policy of the crown. He demanded that before anything further was done the members should be cleared of their impeachment; was himself leader in the impeachment of the duke of Richmond; and on the 31st of January, when taking up the militia petition to the House of Lords, he adopted a very menacing tone, at the same time presenting a petition of some thousands of supposed starving artificers of London, congregated round the House. On the 15th of June he carried up the impeachment of the nine Lords who had deserted the parliament; and he was one of the committee of safety appointed on the 4th of July.
On the outbreak of the Civil War (see Great Rebellion) Holles, who had been made lieutenant of Bristol, was sent with Bedford to the west against the marquess of Hertford, and took part in the unsuccessful siege of the latter at Sherborne Castle. He was present at Edgehill, where his regiment of Puritans recruited in London was one of the few which stood firm and saved the day for the parliament. On the 13th of November his men were surprised at Brentford during his absence, and routed after a stout resistance. In December he was proposed for the command of the forces in the west, an appointment which he appears to have refused. Notwithstanding his activity in the field for the cause of the parliament, the appeal to arms had been distasteful to Holles from the first. As early as September he surprised the House by the marked abatement of his former “violent and fiery spirit,” and his changed attitude did not escape the taunts of his enemies, who attributed it scornfully to his disaster at Brentford or to his new wife. He probably foresaw that, to whichever side victory fell, the struggle could only terminate in the suppression of the constitution and of the moderate party on which all his hopes were based. His feelings and political opinions, too, were essentially aristocratic, and he regarded with horror the transference of the government of the state from the king and the ruling families to the parliamentary leaders. He now advocated peace and a settlement of the disputes by concessions on both sides; a proposal full of danger because impracticable, and one therefore which could only weaken the parliamentary resistance and prolong the struggle. He warmly supported the peace negotiations on the 21st of November and the 22nd of December, and his attitude led to a breach with Pym and the more determined party. In June 1643 he was accused of complicity in Waller’s plot, but swore to his innocency; and his arrest with others of the peace party was even proposed in August, when Holles applied for a pass to leave the country. The king’s successes, however, for the moment put a stop to all hopes of peace; and in April 1644 Holles addressed the citizens of London at the Guildhall, calling upon them “to join with their purses, their persons, and their prayers together” to support the army of Essex. In November Holles and Whitelocke headed the commission appointed to treat with the king at Oxford. He endeavoured to convince the royalists of the necessity of yielding in time, before the “new party of hot men” should gain the upper hand. Holles and Whitelocke had a 613 private meeting with the king, when at Charles’s request they drew up the answer which they advised him to return to the parliament. This interview was not communicated to the other commissioners or to parliament, and though doubtless their motives were thoroughly patriotic, their action was scarcely compatible with their position as trustees of the parliamentary cause. Holles was also appointed a commissioner at Uxbridge in January 1645 and endeavoured to overcome the crucial difficulty of the militia by postponing its discussion altogether. As leader of the moderate (or Presbyterian) party Holles now came into violent antagonism with Cromwell and the army faction. “They hated one another equally”; and Holles would not allow any merit in Cromwell, accusing him of cowardice and attributing his successes to chance and good fortune. With the support of Essex and the Scottish commissioners Holles endeavoured in December 1644 to procure Cromwell’s impeachment as an incendiary between the two nations, and “passionately” opposed the self-denying ordinance. In return Holles was charged with having held secret communications with the king at Oxford and with a correspondence with Lord Digby; but after a long examination by the House he was pronounced innocent on the 19th of July 1645. Determined on Cromwell’s destruction, he refused to listen to the prudent counsels of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who urged that Cromwell was too strong to be resisted or provoked, and on the 29th of March 1647 drew up in parliament a hasty proclamation declaring the promoters of the army petition enemies to the state; in April challenging Ireton to a duel.
The army party was now thoroughly exasperated against Holles. “They were resolved one way or other to be rid of him,” says Clarendon. On the 16th of June 1647 eleven members including Holles were charged by the army with various offences against the state, followed on the 23rd by fresh demands for their impeachment and for their suspension, which was refused. On the 26th, however, the eleven members, to avoid violence, asked leave to withdraw. Their reply to the charges against them was handed into the House on the 19th of July, and on the 20th Holles took leave of the House in A grave and learned speech.... After the riot of the apprentices on the 26th, for which Holles disclaimed any responsibility, the eleven members were again (30th of July) recalled to their seats, and Holles was one of the committee of safety appointed. On the flight of the speaker, however, and part of the parliament to the army, and the advance of the latter to London, Holles, whose party and policy were now entirely defeated, left England on the 22nd of August for Sainte-Mère Eglise in Normandy. On the 26th of January 1648 the eleven members, who had not appeared when summoned to answer the charges against them, were expelled. Not long afterwards, however, on the 3rd of June, these proceedings were annulled; and Holles, who had then returned and was a prisoner in the Tower with the rest of the eleven members, was discharged. He returned to his seat on the 14th of August.
Holles was one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Newport on the 18th of September 1648. Aware of the plans of the extreme party, Holles threw himself at the king’s feet and implored him not to waste time in useless negotiations, and he was one of those who stayed behind the rest in order to urge Charles to compliance. On the 1st of December he received the thanks of the House. On the occasion of Pride’s Purge on the 6th of December Holles absented himself and escaped again to France. From his retirement there he wrote to Charles II. in 1651, advising him to come to terms with the Scots as the only means of effecting a restoration; but after the alliance he refused Charles’s offer of the secretaryship of state. In March 1654 Cromwell, who in alarm at the plots being formed against him was attempting to reconcile some of his opponents to his government, sent Holles a pass “with notable circumstances of kindness and esteem.” His subsequent movements and the date of his return to England are uncertain, but in 1656 Cromwell’s resentment was again excited against him as the supposed author of a tract, really written by Clarendon. He appears to have been imprisoned, for his release was ordered by the council on the 2nd of September 1659.
Holles took part in the conference with Monk at Northumberland House, when the Restoration was directly proposed, and with the secluded members took his seat again in parliament on the 21st of February 1660. On the 23rd of February he was chosen one of the council to carry on the government during the interregnum; on the 2nd of March the votes passed against him and the sequestration of his estates were repealed, and on the 7th he was made custos rotulorum for Dorsetshire. He took a leading part in bringing about the Restoration, was chairman of the committee of seven appointed to prepare an answer to the king’s letter, and as one of the deputed Lords and Commons he delivered at the Hague the invitation to Charles to return. He preceded Charles to England to prepare for his reception, and was sworn of the privy council on the 5th of June. He was one of the thirty-four commissioners appointed to try the regicides in September and October. On the 20th of April 1661 he was created Baron Holles of Ifield in Sussex, and became henceforth one of the leading members of the Upper House.
Holles, who was a good French scholar, was sent as ambassador to France on the 7th of July 1663. He was ostentatiously English, and a zealous upholder of the national honour and interests; but his position was rendered difficult by the absence of home support. On the 27th of January 1666 war was declared, but Holles was not recalled till May. Pepys remarks on the 14th of November: “Sir G. Cartaret tells me that just now my Lord Holles had been with him and wept to think in what a condition we are fallen.” Soon afterwards he was employed on another disagreeable mission in which the national honour was again at stake, being sent to Breda to make a peace with Holland in May 1667. He accomplished his task successfully, the articles being signed on the 21st of June.
On the 12th of December he protested against Lord Clarendon’s banishment and was nearly put out of the council in consequence. In 1668 he was manager for the Lords in the celebrated Skinner’s case, in which his knowledge of precedents was of great service, and on which occasion he published the tract The Grand Question concerning the Judicature of the House of Peeres (1669). Holles, who was honourably distinguished by Charles as a “stiff and sullen man,” and as one who would not yield to solicitation, now became with Halifax and Shaftesbury a leader in the resistance to the domestic and foreign policy of the court. Together with Halifax he opposed both the arbitrary Conventicle Act of 1670 and the Test Oath of 1675, his objection to the latter being chiefly founded on the invasion of the privileges of the peers which it involved; and he defended with vigour the right of the Peers to record their protests. On the 7th of January 1676 Holles with Halifax was summarily dismissed from the council. On the occasion of the Commons petitioning the king in favour of an alliance with the Dutch, Holles addressed a Letter to Van Beuninghen at Amsterdam on “Love to our Country and Hatred of a Common Enemy,” enlarging upon the necessity of uniting in a common defence against French aggression and in support of the Protestant religion. “The People are strong but the Government is weak,” he declares; and he attributes the cause of weakness to the transference of power from the nobility to the people, and to a succession of three weak princes. “Save what (the Parliament) did, we have not taken one true step nor struck one true stroke since Queen Elizabeth.” He endeavoured to embarrass the government this year in his tract on Some Considerations upon the Question whether the parliament is dissolved by its prorogation for 15 months. It was held by the Lords to be seditious and scandalous; while for publishing another pamphlet written by Holles entitled The Grand Question concerning the Prorogation of this Parliament (otherwise The Long Parliament dissolved) the corrector of the proof sheets was committed to the Tower and fined £1000. In order to bring about the downfall of Danby (afterwards duke of Leeds) and the disbanding of the army, which he believed to be intended for the suppression of the national liberties, Holles at this time (1677-1679) engaged, as did many others, in a 614 dangerous intrigue with Courtin and Barillon, the French envoys, and Louis XIV.; he refused, however, the latter’s presents on the ground that he was a member of the council, having been appointed to Sir William Temple’s new modelled cabinet in 1679. Barillon described him as at this period in his old age “the man of all England for whom the different cabals have the most consideration,” and as firmly opposed to the arbitrary designs of the court. He showed moderation in the Popish Plot, and on the question of the exclusion followed Halifax rather than Shaftesbury. His long and eventful career closed by his death on the 17th of February 1680.
The character of Holles has been drawn by Burnet, with whom he was on terms of friendship. “Hollis was a man of great courage and of as great pride.... He was faithful and firm to his side and never changed through the whole course of his life.... He argued well but too vehemently; for he could not bear contradiction. He had the soul of an old stubborn Roman in him. He was a faithful but a rough friend, and a severe but fair enemy. He had a true sense of religion; and was a man of an unblameable course of life and of a sound judgment when it was not biased by passion.”3 Holles was essentially an aristocrat and a Whig in feeling, making Cromwell’s supposed hatred of “Lords” a special charge against him; regarding the civil wars rather as a social than as a political revolution, and attributing all the evils of his time to the transference of political power from the governing families to the “meanest of men.” He was an authority on the history and practice of parliament and the constitution, and besides the pamphlets already mentioned was the author of The Case Stated concerning the Judicature of the House of Peers in the Point of Appeals (1675); The Case Stated of the Jurisdiction of the House of Lords in the point of Impositions (1676); Letter of a Gentleman to his Friend showing that the Bishops are not to be judges in Parliament in Cases Capital (1679); Lord Holles his Remains, being a 2nd letter to a Friend concerning the judicature of the Bishops in Parliament....4 He also published A True Relation of the unjust accusation of certain French gentlemen (1671), an account of Holles’s intercession on their behalf and of his dispute with Lord Chief Justice Keeling; and he left Memoirs, written in exile in 1649, and dedicated “to the unparalleled Couple, Mr Oliver St John ... and Mr Oliver Cromwell....” published in 1699 and reprinted in Baron Maseres’s Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars, i. 189. Several speeches of Holles were printed and are extant, and his Letter to Van Beuninghen has been already quoted.
Holles married (1) in 1628 Dorothy, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Ashley; (2) in 1642 Jane, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Shirley of Ifield in Sussex and widow of Sir Walter Covert of Slougham, Sussex; and (3) in 1666 Esther, daughter and co-heiress of Gideon Le Lou of Columbiers in Normandy, widow of James Richer. By his first wife he left one son, Francis, who succeeded him as 2nd baron. He had no children by his other wives, and the peerage became extinct in the person of his grandson Denzil, 3rd Baron Holles, in 1694, the estates devolving on John Holles (1662-1711), 4th earl of Clare and duke of Newcastle.
Holles’s brother, John Holles, 2nd earl of Clare (1595-1666), was member of parliament for East Retford in three parliaments before succeeding to the peerage in 1637. He took some part in the Civil War, but “he was very often of both parties, and never advantaged either.” The earldom of Clare, which had been granted in 1624 by James I. to his father, John Holles, in return for the payment of £5000, became merged in the dukedom of Newcastle in 1694, when John Holles, the 4th earl, was created duke of Newcastle.
Holles’s Life has been written by C. H. Firth in the Dictionary of National Biography; by Horace Walpole in Royal and Noble Authors, ii. 28; by Guizot in Monk’s Contemporaries (Eng. trans., 1851); and by A. Collins in Historical Collections of Noble Families (1752), and in the Biographia Britannica. See also S. R. Gardiner, History of England (1883-1884), and History of the Great Civil War (1893); Lord Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, edited by W. D. Macray; G. Burnet, History of His Own Time (1833); and B. Whitelock, Memorials (1732).
1 Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Earl Cowper, i. 422.
2 The speech of January 5 attributed to him and printed in Thomason Tracts, E 199 (55), is a forgery.
3 Burnet’s History of His Own Times, vi. 257, 268.
4 The rough draft, apparently in Holles’s handwriting, is in Egerton MSS. ff. 136-149.
HOLLOWAY, THOMAS (1800-1883), English patent-medicine vendor and philanthropist, was born at Devonport, on the 22nd of September 1800, of humble parents. Until his twenty-eighth year he lived at Penzance, where he assisted his mother and brother in the baker’s shop which his father, once a warrant officer in a militia regiment, had left them at his death. On coming to London he made the acquaintance of Felix Albinolo, an Italian, from whom he obtained the idea for the ointment which was to carry his name all over the world. The secret of his enormous success in business was due almost entirely to advertisement, in the efficacy of which he had great faith. He soon added the sale of pills to that of the ointment, and began to devote the larger part of his profits to advertising. Holloway’s first newspaper announcement appeared on the 15th of October 1837, and in 1842 his yearly expenses for publicity had reached the sum of £5000; this expenditure went on steadily increasing as his sales increased, until it had reached the figure of £50,000 per annum at the time of his death. It is, however, chiefly by the two princely foundations—the Sanatorium and the College for Women at Egham (q.v.), endowed by Holloway towards the close of his life—that his name will be perpetuated, more than a million sterling having been set apart by him for the erection and permanent endowment of these institutions. In the deed of gift of the college the founder credited his wife, who died in 1875, with the advice and counsel that led him to provide what he hoped might ultimately become the nucleus of a university for women. The philanthropic and somewhat eccentric donor (he had an unconcealed prejudice against doctors, lawyers and parsons) died of congestion of the lungs at Sunninghill on the 26th of December 1883.
HOLLY (Ilex Aquifolium), the European representative of a large genus of trees and shrubs of the natural order Ilicineae, containing about 170 species. The genus finds its chief development in Central and South America; is well developed in Asia, especially the Chinese-Japanese area, and has but few species in Europe, Africa and Australia. In Europe, where I. Aquifolium is the sole surviving species, the genus was richly represented during the Miocene period by forms at first South American and Asiatic, and later North American in type (Schimper, Paléont. végét. iii. 204, 1874). The leaves are generally leathery and evergreen, and are alternate and stalked; the flowers are commonly dioecious, are in axillary cymes, fascicles or umbellules, and have a persistent four- to five-lobed calyx, a white, rotate four- or rarely five- or six-cleft corolla, with the four or five stamens adherent to its base in the male, sometimes hypogynous in the female flowers, and a two- to twelve-celled ovary; the fruit is a globose, very seldom ovoid, and usually red drupe, containing two to sixteen one-seeded stones.
Ilex Aquifolium. Shoot bearing leaves and fruit about ½ nat. size. | |
1. Flower with abortive stamens. 2. Flower with abortive pistil. 3. Floral diagram showing arrangement of parts in horizontal section. |
4. Fruit. 5. Fruit cut transversely showing the four one-seeded stones. |
The common holly, or Hulver (apparently the κήλαστρος of Theophrastus;1 Ang.-Sax. holen or holegn; Mid. Eng. holyn or holin, whence holm and holmtree;2 Welsh, celyn; Ger. Stechpalme, Hulse, Hulst; O. Fr. houx; and Fr. houlx),3 I. Aquifolium, is an evergreen shrub or low tree, having smooth, ash-coloured bark, and wavy, pointed, smooth and glossy leaves, 2 to 3 in. long, with a spinous margin, raised and cartilaginous below, or, as commonly on the upper branches of the older trees, entire—a 615 peculiarity alluded to by Southey in his poem The Holly Tree. The flowers, which appear in May, are ordinarily dioecious, as in all the best of the cultivated varieties in nurseries (Gard. Chron., 1877, i. 149). Darwin (Diff. Forms of Flow., 1877, p. 297) says of the holly: “During several years I have examined many plants, but have never found one that was really hermaphrodite.” Shirley Hibberd, however (Gard. Chron., 1877, ii. 777), mentions the occurrence of “flowers bearing globose anthers well furnished with pollen, and also perfect ovaries.” In his opinion, I. Aquifolium changes its sex from male to female with age. In the female flowers the stamens are destitute of pollen, though but slightly or not at all shorter than in the male flowers; the latter are more numerous than the female, and have a smaller ovary and a larger corolla, to which the filaments adhere for a greater length. The corolla in male plants falls off entire, whereas in fruit-bearers it is broken into separate segments by the swelling of the young ovary. The holly occurs in Britain, north-east Scotland excepted, and in western and southern Europe, from as high as 62° N. lat. in Norway to Turkey and the Caucasus and in western Asia. It is found generally in forest glades or in hedges, and does not flourish under the shade of other trees. In England it is usually small, probably on account of its destruction for timber, but it may attain to 60 or 70 ft. in height, and Loudon mentions one tree at Claremont, in Surrey, of 80 ft. Some of the trees on Bleak Hill, Shropshire, are asserted to be 14 ft. in girth at some distance from the ground (N. and Q., 5th ser., xii. 508). The holly is abundant in France, especially in Brittany. It will grow in almost any soil not absolutely wet, but flourishes best in rather dry than moist sandy loam. Beckmann (Hist. of Invent., 1846, i. 193) says that the plant which first induced J. di Castro to search for alum in Italy was the holly, which is there still considered to indicate that its habitat is aluminiferous. The holly is propagated by means of the seeds, which do not normally germinate until their second year, by whip-grafting and budding, and by cuttings of the matured summer shoots, which, placed in sandy soil and kept under cover of a hand-glass in sheltered situations, generally strike root in spring. Transplantation should be performed in damp weather in September and October, or, according to some writers, in spring or on mild days in winter, and care should be taken that the roots are not dried by exposure to the air. It is rarely injured by frosts in Britain, where its foliage and bright red berries in winter render it a valuable ornamental tree. The yield of berries has been noticed to be less when a warm spring, following on a wet winter season, has promoted excess of growth. There are numerous varieties of the holly. Some trees have yellow, and others white or even black fruit. In the fruitless variety laurifolia, “the most floriferous of all hollies” (Hibberd), the flowers are highly fragrant; the form known as femina is, on the other hand, remarkable for the number of its berries. The leaves in the unarmed varieties aureo-marginata and albo-marginata are of great beauty, and in ferox they are studded with sharp prickles. The holly is of importance as a hedge-plant, and is patient of clipping, which is best performed by the knife. Evelyn’s holly hedge at Say’s Court, Deptford, was 400 ft. long, 9 ft. high and 5 ft. in breadth. To form fences, for which Evelyn recommends the employment of seedlings from woods, the plants should be 9 to 12 in. in height, with plenty of small fibrous roots, and require to be set 1 to 1½ ft. apart, in well-manured and weeded ground and thoroughly watered.
The wood of the holly is even-grained and hard, especially when from the heartwood of large trees, and almost as white as ivory, except near the centre of old trunks, where it is brownish. It is employed in inlaying and turning, and, since it stains well, in the place of ebony, as for teapot handles. For engraving it is inferior to box. When dry it weighs about 47½ ℔ per cub. ft. From the bark of the holly bird-lime is manufactured. From the leaves are obtainable a colouring matter named ilixanthin, ilicic acid, and a bitter principle, ilicin, which has been variously described by different analytical chemists. They are eaten by sheep and deer, and in parts of France serve as a winter fodder for cattle. The berries provoke in man violent vomiting and purging, but are eaten with immunity by thrushes and other birds. The larvae of the moths Sphinx ligustri and Phoxopteryx naevana have been met with on holly. The leaves are mined by the larva of a fly, Phytomyza ilicis, and both on them and the tops of the young twigs occurs the plant-louse Aphis ilicis (Kaltenbach, Pflanzenfeinde, 1874, p. 427). The custom of employing holly and other plants for decorative purposes at Christmas is one of considerable antiquity, and has been regarded as a survival of the usages of the Roman Saturnalia, or of an old Teutonic practice of hanging the interior of dwellings with evergreens as a refuge for sylvan spirits from the inclemency of winter. A Border proverb defines an habitual story-teller as one that “lees never but when the hollen is green.” Several popular superstitions exist with respect to holly. In the county of Rutland it is deemed unlucky to introduce it into a house before Christmas Eve. In some English rural districts the prickly and non-prickly kinds are distinguished as “he” and “she” holly; and in Derbyshire the tradition obtains that according as the holly brought at Christmas into a house is smooth or rough, the wife or the husband will be master. Holly that has adorned churches at that season is in Worcestershire and Herefordshire much esteemed and cherished, the possession of a small branch with berries being supposed to bring a lucky year; and Lonicerus mentions a notion in his time vulgarly prevalent in Germany that consecrated twigs of the plant hung over a door are a protection against thunder.
Among the North American species of Ilex are I. opaca, which resembles the European tree, the Inkberry, I. (Prinos) glabra, and the American Black Alder, or Winterberry, I. (Prinos) verticillata. Hooker (Fl. of Brit. India, i. 598, 606) enumerates twenty-four Indian species of Ilex. The Japanese I. crenata, and I. latifolia, a remarkably hardy plant, and the North American I. Cassine, are among the species cultivated in Britain. The leaves of several species of Ilex are used by dyers. The member of the genus most important economically is I. paraguariensis, the prepared leaves of which constitute Paraguay tea, or Maté (q.v.). Knee holly is Ruscus aculeatus, or butcher’s broom (see Broom); sea holly, Eryngium maritimum, an umbelliferous plant; and the mountain holly of America, Nemopanthes canadensis, also a member of the order Ilicineae.
Besides the works above mentioned, see Louden, Arboretum, ii. 506 (1844).
1 Hist. Plant. i. 9. 3, iii. 3. 1, and 4. 6, et passim. On the aquifolium or aquifolia of Latin authors, commonly regarded as the holly, see A. de Grandsagne, Hist. Nat. de Pline, bk. xvi., “Notes,” pp. 199, 206.
2 The term “holm,” as indicative of a prevalence of holly, is stated to have entered into the names of several places in Britain. From its superficial resemblance to the holly, the tree Quercus Ilex, the evergreen oak, received the appellation of “holm-oak.”
3 Skeat (Etymolog. Dict., 1879) with reference to the word holly remarks: “The form of the base Kul (= Teutonic Hul) is probably connected with Lat. culmen, a peak, culmus, a stalk; perhaps because the leaves are ‘pointed.’” Grimm (Deut. Wörterb. Bd. iv.) suggests that the term Hulst, as the O.H.G. Hulis, applied to the butcher’s broom, or knee-holly, in the earliest times used for hedges, may have reference to the holly as a protecting (hüllender) plant.
HOLLYHOCK (from M.E. holi—doubtless because brought from the Holy Land, where it is indigenous (Wedg.)—and A.-S. 616 hoc, a mallow), Althaea rosea, a perennial plant of the natural order Malvaceae, a native of the East, which has been cultivated in Great Britain for about three centuries. The ordinary hollyhock is single-blossomed, but the florists’ varieties have all double flowers, of white, yellow, rose, purple, violet and other tints, some being almost black. The plant is in its prime about August, but by careful management examples may be obtained in blossom from July to as late as November. Hollyhocks are propagated from seed, or by division of the root, or by planting out in rich sandy soil, in a close frame, with a gentle bottom heat, single eyes from woodshoots, or cuttings from outgrowths of the old stock or of the lateral offsets of the spike. The seed may be sown in October under cover, the plants obtained being potted in November, and kept under glass till the following April, or, if it be late-gathered, in May or June, in the open ground, whence, if required, the plants are best removed in October or April. In many gardens, when the plants are not disturbed, self-sown seedlings come up in abundance about April and May. Seedlings may also be raised in February or March, by the aid of a gentle heat, in a light and rich moist soil; they should not be watered till they have made their second leaves, and when large enough for handling should be pricked off in a cold frame; they are subsequently transferred to the flower-bed. Hollyhocks thrive best in a well-trenched and manured sandy loam. The spikes as they grow must be staked; and water and, for the finest blossoms, liquid manure should be liberally supplied to the roots. Plants for exhibition require the side growths to be pinched out; and it is recommended, in cold, bleak or northerly localities, when the flowering is over, and the stalks have been cut off 4 to 6 in. above the soil, to earth up the crowns with sand. Some of the finest double-flowered kinds of hollyhock do not bloom well in Scotland. The plant is susceptible of great modification under cultivation. The forms now grown are due to the careful selection and crossing of varieties. It is found that the most diverse varieties may be raised with certainty from plants growing near together.
The young shoots of the hollyhock are very liable to the attacks of slugs, and to a disease occasioned by a fungus, Puccinia malvacearum, which is a native of Chile, attained notoriety in the Australian colonies, and finally, reaching Europe in 1869, threatened the extermination of the hollyhock, the soft parts of the leaves of which it destroys, leaving the venation only remaining. It has been found especially hurtful to the plant in dry seasons. It is also parasitic on the wild mallows. The disease appears on the leaves as minute hard pale-brown pustules, filled with spores which germinate without a resting-period, but when produced late in the season may last as resting-spores until next spring. Spraying early in the season with Bordeaux mixture is an effective preventive, but the best means of treatment is to destroy all leaves as soon as they show signs of being attacked, and to prevent the growth of other host-plants such as mallows, in the neighbourhood. In hot dry seasons, red-spider injures the foliage very much, but may be kept at bay by syringing the plants frequently with plenty of clean water.
HOLLY SPRINGS, a city and the county-seat of Marshall county, Mississippi, U.S.A., in the N. part of the state, 45 m. S.E. of Memphis. Pop. (1890) 2246; (1900) 2815 (1559 negroes); (1910) 2192. Holly Springs is served by the Illinois Central and the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham (Frisco System) railways. The city has broad and well-shaded streets, and a fine court-house and court-house square. It is the seat of Rust University (opened in 1867), a Methodist Episcopal institution for negroes; of the Mississippi Synodical College (1905; Presbyterian), for white girls; and of the North Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station. The principal industries are the ginning, compressing and shipping of cotton, and the manufacture of cotton-seed oil, but the city also manufactures pottery and brick from clay obtained in the vicinity, and has an ice factory, bottling works and marble works. The municipality owns and operates its water-works and electric-lighting plant. Holly Springs was founded in 1837 and was chartered as a city in 1896. Early in December 1862 General Grant established here a large depot of supplies designed for the use of the Federal army while on its march toward Vicksburg, but General Earl Van Dorn, with a brigade of cavalry, surprised the post at daylight on the 20th of this month, burned the supplies and took 1500 prisoners. Holly Springs was the home and is the burial-place of Edward Cary Walthall (1831-1898), a Democratic member of the United States Senate in 1885-1894 and in 1895-1898.
HOLMAN, JAMES (1786-1857), known as the “Blind Traveller,” was born at Exeter on the 15th of October 1786. He entered the British navy in 1798 as first-class volunteer, and was appointed lieutenant in April 1807. In 1810 he was invalided by an illness which resulted in total loss of sight. In consideration of his helpless circumstances he was in 1812 appointed one of the royal knights of Windsor, but the quietness of such a life harmonized so ill with his active habits and keen interests that he requested leave of absence to go abroad, and in 1819, 1820 and 1821 journeyed through France, Italy, Switzerland, the parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine, Belgium and the Netherlands. On his return he published The Narrative of a Journey through France, &c. (London, 1822). He again set out in 1822 with the design of making the circuit of the world, but after travelling through Russia into Siberia, he was suspected of being a spy, was arrested when he had managed to penetrate 1000 m. beyond Smolensk, and after being conducted to the frontiers of Poland, returned home by Austria, Saxony, Prussia and Hanover. He now issued Travels through Russia, Siberia, &c. (London, 1825). Shortly afterwards he again set out to accomplish by a somewhat different method the design which had been frustrated by the Russian authorities; and an account of his remarkable achievement was published in four volumes in 1834-1835, under the title of A Voyage round the World, including Travels in Africa, Asia, Australasia, America, &c., from 1827 to 1832. His last journeys were through Spain, Portugal, Moldavia, Montenegro, Syria and Turkey; and he was engaged in preparing an account of this tour when he died in London on the 29th of July 1857.
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL (1809-1894), American writer and physician, was born on the 29th of August 1809 at Cambridge, Mass. His father, Abiel Holmes (1763-1837), was a Calvinist clergyman, the writer of a useful history, Annals of America, and of much very dull poetry. His mother (the second wife of Abiel) was Sarah Wendell, of a distinguished New York family. Through her Dr Holmes was descended from Governors Thomas Dudley and Simon Bradstreet of Massachusetts, and from her he derived his cheerfulness and vivacity, his sympathetic humour and wit. From Phillips (Andover) Academy he entered Harvard in the “famous class of ’29,” made further illustrious by the charming lyrics which he wrote for the anniversary dinners from 1851 to 1889, closing with the touching “After the Curfew.” After graduation he studied law perfunctorily for a year and dabbled in literature, winning the public ear by a spirited lyric called forth by the order to destroy the old frigate Constitution. These verses were sung all over the land, and induced the Navy Department to revoke its order and save the old ship. Turning next to medicine, and convinced by a brief experience in Boston that he liked it, he went to Paris in March 1833. He studied industriously under Louis and other famous physicians and surgeons in France, and in his vacations visited the Low Countries, England, Scotland and Italy. Returning to Boston at the close of 1835, filled with a high professional ambition, he sought practice, but achieved only moderate success. Social, brilliant in conversation, and a writer of gay little poems, he seemed to the grave Bostonians not sufficiently serious. He won prizes, however, for professional papers, and lectured on anatomy at Dartmouth College. He wrote two papers on homoeopathy, which he attacked with trenchant wit; also a valuable paper on the malarial fevers of New England. In 1843 he published his essay on the Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, which stirred up a fierce controversy and brought upon him bitter personal abuse; but he maintained his position with dignity, temper and judgment; and in time he was honoured 617 as the discoverer of a beneficent truth. The volume of his medical essays holds some of his most sparkling wit, his shrewdest observation, his kindliest humanity. In 1840 he married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of the Hon. Charles Jackson (1775-1855), formerly associate justice of the State supreme judicial court, a lady of rare charm alike of mind and character. She died in the winter of 1887-1888. Their first-born child, Oliver Wendell Holmes, afterwards became chief justice of that same bench on which his grandfather sat. In 1847 Dr Holmes was appointed professor of anatomy and physiology In the Medical School of Harvard University, the duties involving the giving of instruction also in kindred departments, so that, as he said, he occupied “not a chair, but a settee in the school.” He delivered the anatomical lectures until November 1882, and in later years these were his only link with the medical profession. They were fresh, witty and lively; and the students were sent to him at the end of the day, when they were fagged, because he alone could keep them awake. In later years he made few finished contributions to medical knowledge; his eager and impetuous temperament caused him to leave more patient investigators to push to ultimate results the suggestions thrown out by his fertile and imaginative mind.
In 1836, being in that year the Phi Beta Kappa poet at Harvard University, he published his first volume of Poems, which afterwards reached a second edition. Among these earlier lyrics was “The Last Leaf,” one of the most delicate combinations of pathos and humour in literature. His collected poetry fills three volumes. In 1856-1857 a Boston publishing house (Phillips, Sampson, and Co.) invited James Russell Lowell to edit a new magazine, which he agreed to do on condition that he could secure the assistance of Dr Holmes. By this urgent invitation the Doctor was equally surprised and flattered, for heretofore he had stood rather outside the literary coterie of Cambridge and Boston. He accepted with pleasure, and at once threw himself into the enterprise with zeal. He christened it The Atlantic Monthly; and, as Mr Howells afterwards said, he “not only named but made” it, for in each number of its first volume there appeared one of the papers of the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. The opening of the Autocrat—“I was just going to say when I was interrupted”—is explained by the fact that in the old New England Magazine (1831 to 1833) the Doctor had published two Autocrat papers, which, by his wish, have never been reprinted. In the commercial panic of 1857 the new magazine would inevitably have failed had it not been for these fascinating essays. Their originality of conception, their wit and humour, their suggestions of what then seemed bold ideas, and their expression of New Englandism, all combined to make them so popular that the most harassed merchant in that gloomy winter purchased them as a dose of cheering medicine. Thus Dr Holmes made The Atlantic Monthly, which in return made him. A success so immediate and so splendid settled the rest of his career; he ceased to be a physician and became an author. These twelve papers were immediately (1858) published as a volume. No sooner was the Autocrat silent than the Professor (1859) succeeded him at the breakfast table. The Professor was preferred by more thoughtful readers, though it has hardly been so widely popular as the Autocrat. Its theology, which seemed in those days audacious, frightened many of the strict and old-fashioned religionists of New England, though to-day it seems mild enough. Twelve years later, in 1871, the Landlady had another boarder, who took the vacant chair—the Poet (published 1872). But here Holmes fell a little short. In these three books, especially in the Autocrat and the Professor, the Doctor wrote as he talked at many a dinner table in Boston, but less well. The animation and clash of talk roused him. The dinners of the Saturday Club are among Boston’s proudest traditions, as they were the chief pleasure of Dr Holmes’s life. There he met Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Sumner, Agassiz, Motley, and many other charming talkers, and among them all he was admitted to be the best.
There were characters and incidents, but hardly a story, in the Autocrat and the Professor. Holmes had an ambition for more sustained work, and in 1861 his novel, Elsie Venner, at first called The Professor’s Story, was published. The book was illuminated throughout by admirable pictures of character and society in the typical New England town. But the rattlesnake element was unduly extravagant, and in other respects the book was open to criticism as a work of art. It was written with the same purpose which informed the greatest part of the Doctor’s literary work, and which had already been scented and nervously condemned by the religious world. By heredity the Doctor was a theologian; no other topic enchained him more than did the stern and merciless dogmas of his Calvinist forefathers. His humanity revolted against them, his reason condemned them, and he set himself to their destruction as his task in literature. The religious world of his time was still so largely under the control of old ideas that he was assailed as a freethinker and a subverter of Christianity; though before his death opinions had so changed that the bitterness of the attacks upon him seemed incredible, even to some of those who had most vehemently made them. None the less, undaunted and profoundly earnest, he returned, six years later, to the same line of thought in his second novel, The Guardian Angel (published 1867). This, though less well known than Elsie Venner, is in many respects better. No more lifelike and charming picture of the society of the New England country-town of the middle third of the 19th century has ever been drawn, and every page sparkles with wit and humour. In 1884 and 1885 it was followed, still in the same line, by A Mortal Antipathy, a production inferior to its predecessors.
Holmes generally held himself aloof from politics, and from those “causes” of temperance, abolition and woman’s rights which enthralled most of his contemporaries in New England. The Civil War, however, aroused him for the time; finding him first a strenuous Unionist, it quickly converted him into an ardent advocate of emancipation. His interest was enhanced by the career of his elder son Oliver (see below), who was three times severely wounded, and finally rose to the rank of lieut.-colonel in the Northern army. He wrote some ringing war lyrics, and in 1863 delivered the Fourth of July oration in Boston, which showed a masterly appreciation of the stirring public questions of the day. In 1878 Dr Holmes wrote a memoir of the historian John Lothrop Motley, an affectionate tribute to one who had been his dear friend. In 1884 he contributed the life of Emerson to the American “Men of Letters” series. He admired the “Sage of Concord,” but was not quite in intellectual sympathy with him. Both were Liberals in thought, but in widely different ways. But in spite of this handicap the volume proved very popular. In 1888 he began the papers which he happily christened Over the Tea Cups. As a tour de force on the part of a man of nearly fourscore years they are very remarkable.
After his return from Paris in 1835 Dr Holmes lived in Boston, with summer sojournings at Pittsfield and Beverly Farms, and occasional trips to neighbouring cities, until 1886. He then undertook a four months’ journey in Europe, and in England had a sort of triumphal progress. On his return he wrote Our Hundred Days in Europe (1887), a courteous recognition of the hospitality and praise which had been accorded to him. During this visit Cambridge University made him Doctor of Letters, Edinburgh University made him Doctor of Laws, and Oxford University made him Doctor of Civil Law. Already, in 1880, Harvard University had made him Doctor of Laws. He died on the 7th of October 1894, and was buried from King’s Chapel, Boston, in the cemetery of Mount Auburn.
His eldest son Oliver Wendell (b. 1841), who graduated from Harvard in 1861 and fought in the Civil War, retiring from the army as brevet lieut.-colonel in 1864, took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar in Boston in 1866. He was for some years editor of the American Law Review, and after being professor in the Harvard Law School in 1882 was appointed in the same year a judge of the Massachusetts supreme court, rising to be chief justice in 1899. In 1902 he was made a judge of the United States Supreme Court. His work on The Common Law (1881) and his edition (1873) of Kent’s Commentaries 618 are his principal publications; and he became widely recognized as one of the great jurists of his day.
Bibliography.—Holmes’s Complete Works, in 13 volumes, were published at Boston in 1891. See J. T. Morse, Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes (London, 1896); G. B. Ives, Bibliography (Boston, 1907); and the bibliography in P. K. Foley’s American Authors (Boston, 1897). An essay by Sir Leslie Stephen is prefixed to the “Golden Treasury” edition (1903) of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. See also monographs by William Sloane Kennedy (Boston, 1882); Emma E. Brown (Boston, 1884).
HOLMFIRTH, an urban district in the Holmfirth parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on and Holme and the Ribble, 6 m. S. of Huddersfield, and on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 8977. The valley, walled by bold hills, is very picturesque. In 1852 great destruction was wrought in the town by the bursting of a reservoir in the vicinity. The large industrial population is employed in woollen manufactories, and in the neighbouring stone quarries.
HOLOCAUST (Gr. ὁλοκαυστον, or ὁλόκαυτον, wholly burnt), strictly a sacrifice wholly destroyed by fire, such as the sacrifices of the Jews, described in the Pentateuch as “whole burnt offerings” (see Sacrifice). The term is now often applied to a catastrophe on a large scale, whether by fire or not, or to a massacre or slaughter.
HOLOCENE (from Gr. ὅλος, whole, καινός, recent), in geology, the time division which embraces the youngest of all the formations; it is equivalent to the “Recent” of some authors. The name was proposed in 1860 by P. Gervais. The oldest deposits that may be included are those containing neolithic implements; deposits of historic times should also be grouped here; presumably the youngest are those to be chronicled by the last man. The Holocene formations obviously include all the varieties of deposits which are accumulating at the present day: the gravels and alluvia of rivers; boulder clays, moraines and fluvio-glacial deposits; estuarine, coastal and abyssal deposits of the seas, and their equivalents in lakes; screes, taluses, wind-borne dust and sand and desert formations; chemical deposits from saline waters; peat, diatomite, marls, foraminiferal and other oozes; coral, algal and shell banks, and other organic deposits; mud, lava and dust deposits of volcanic origin and extrusions of asphalt and pitch; to all these must be added the works of man.
HOLROYD, SIR CHARLES (1861- ), British artist, was born in Leeds on the 9th of April 1861. He received his art education under Professor Legros at the Slade School, University College, London, where he had a distinguished career. After passing six months at Newlyn, where he painted his first picture exhibited in the Royal Academy, “Fishermen Mending a Sail” (1885), he obtained a travelling scholarship and studied for two years in Italy, a sojourn which greatly influenced his art. At his return, on the invitation of Legros, he became for two years assistant-master at the Slade School, and there devoted himself to painting and etching. Among his pictures may be mentioned “The Death of Torrigiano” (1886), “The Satyr King” (1889), “The Supper at Emmaus,” and, perhaps his best picture, “Pan and Peasants” (1893). For the church of Aveley, Essex, he painted a triptych altarpiece, “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” with wings representing “St Michael” and “St Gabriel,” and designed as well the window, “The Resurrection.” His portraits, such as that of “G. F. Watts, R.A.,” in the Legros manner, show much dignity and distinction. Sir Charles Holroyd has made his chief reputation as an etcher of exceptional ability, combining strength with delicacy, and a profound technical knowledge of the art. Among the best known are the “Monte Oliveto” series, the “Icarus” series, the “Monte Subasio” series, and the “Eve” series, together with the plates, “The Flight into Egypt,” “The Prodigal Son,” “A Barn on Tadworth Common” (etched in the open air), and “The Storm.” His etched heads of “Professor Legros,” “Lord Courtney” and “Night,” are admirable alike in knowledge and in likeness. His principal dry-point is “The Bather.” In all his work Holroyd displays an impressive sincerity, with a fine sense of composition, and of style, allied to independent and modern feeling. He was appointed the first keeper of the National Gallery of British Art (Tate Gallery), and on the retirement of Sir Edward Poynter in 1906 he received the directorship of the National Gallery. He was knighted in 1903. His Michael Angelo Buonarotti (London, Duckworth, 1903) is a scholarly work of real value.
HOLSTEIN, FRIEDRICH VON (1837-1909), German statesman, for more than thirty years head of the political department of the German Foreign Office. Holstein’s importance began with the dismissal of Bismarck in 1890. The new chancellor, Caprivi, was ignorant of foreign affairs; and Holstein, as the repository of the Bismarckian tradition, became indispensable. This reluctance to emerge into publicity has been ascribed to the part he had played under Bismarck in the Arnim affair, which had made him powerful enemies; it was, however, possibly due to a shrinking from the responsibility of office. Yet the weakness of his position lay just in the fact that he was not ultimately responsible. He protested against the despatch of the “Kruger telegram,” but protested in vain. On the other hand, where his ideas were acceptable, he was generally able to realize them. Thus it was almost entirely due to him that Germany acquired Kiao-chau and asserted her interests in China, and the acquisition of Samoa was also largely his work. If the skill and pertinacity with which Holstein carried through his plans in these matters was learned in the school of Bismarck, he had not acquired Bismarck’s faculty for foreseeing their ulterior consequences. This is true of his Chinese policy, and true also of his part in the Morocco crisis. The emperor William II.’s journey to Tangier was undertaken on his advice, as a protest against the supposed attempt at the isolation of Germany; but of the later developments of German policy in the Morocco question he did not approve, on the ground that the result would merely be to strengthen the Anglo-French entente; and from the 12th of March 1906 onwards he took no active part in the matter. To the last he believed that the position of Germany would remain unsafe until an understanding had been arrived at with Great Britain, and it was this belief that determined his attitude towards the question of the fleet, “beside which,” he wrote in February 1909, “all other questions are of lesser account.” His views on this question were summarized in a memorandum of December 1907, of which Herr von Rath gives a résumé. He objected to the programme of the German Navy League on three main grounds: (1) the ill-feeling likely to be aroused in South Germany, (2) the inevitable dislocation of the finances through the huge additional charges involved, (3) the suspicion of Germany’s motives in foreign countries, which would bind Great Britain still closer to France. As for the idea that Germany’s power would be increased, this—he wrote in reply to a letter from Admiral Galster—was “a simple question of arithmetic”; for how would the sea-power of Germany be relatively increased if for every new German ship Great Britain built two? Herr von Holstein retired on the resignation of Prince Bülow, and died on the 8th of May 1909.
See Hermann von Rath, “Erinnerungen an Herrn von Holstein” in the Deutsche Revue for October 1909. He is also frequently mentioned passim in Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe’s Memoirs.
HOLSTEIN, formerly a duchy of Germany. Until about 1110 the county of Holstein formed part of the duchy of Saxony, and it was made a duchy in 1472. From 1460 to 1864 it was ruled by members of the house of Oldenburg, some of whom were also kings of Denmark. It is now the southern part of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. (See Schleswig-Holstein, and for history Schleswig-Holstein Question.)
HOLSTEN, KARL CHRISTIAN JOHANN (1825-1897), German theologian, was born at Güstrow, Mecklenburg, on the 31st of March 1825, and educated at Leipzig, Berlin and Rostock, where in 1852 he became a teacher of religion in the Gymnasium. In 1870 he went to Bern as professor of New Testament studies, passing thence in 1876 to Heidelberg, where he remained until his death on the 26th of January 1897. Holsten was an adherent of the Tübingen school, and held to Baur’s views on the alleged antagonism between Petrinism and Paulinism.
Among his writings are Zum Evangelium d. Paulus und d. Petrus (1867); Das Evangelium des Paulus dargestellt (1880); Die synoptischen Evangelien nach der Form ihres Inhalts (1886).
HOLSTENIUS, LUCAS, the Latinized name of Luc Holste (1596-1661), German humanist, geographer and theological writer, was born at Hamburg. He studied at Leiden university, where he became intimate with the most famous scholars of the age—J. Meursius, D. Heinsius and P. Cluverius, whom he accompanied on his travels in Italy and Sicily. Disappointed at his failure to obtain a post in the gymnasium of his native town, he left Germany for good. Having spent two years in Oxford and London, he went to Paris. Here he obtained the patronage of N. de Peiresc, who recommended him to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, papal nuncio and the possessor of the most important private library in Rome. On the cardinal’s return in 1627 he took Holstenius to live with him in his palace and made him his librarian. Although converted to Roman Catholicism in 1625, Holstenius showed his liberal-mindedness by strenuously opposing the strict censorship exercised by the Congregation of the Index. He was appointed librarian of the Vatican by Innocent X., and was sent to Innsbruck by Alexander VII. to receive Queen Christina’s abjuration of Protestantism. He died in Rome on the 2nd of February 1661. Holstenius was a man of unwearied industry and immense learning, but he lacked the persistency to carry out the vast literary schemes he had planned. He was the author of notes on Cluvier’s Italia antiqua (1624); an edition of portions of Porphyrius (1630), with a dissertation on his life and writings, described as a model of its kind; notes on Eusebius Against Hierocles (1628), on the Sayings of the later Pythagoreans (1638), and the De diis et mundo of the neo-Platonist Sallustius (1638); Notae et castigationes in Stephani Bysantini ethnica (first published in 1684); and Codex regularum, Collection of the Early Rules of the Monastic Orders (1661). His correspondence (Epistolae ad diversos, ed. J. F. Boissonade, 1817) is a valuable source of information on the literary history of his time.
See N. Wilckens, Leben des gelehrten Lucae Holstenii (Hamburg, 1723); Johann Moller, Cimbria literata, iii. (1744).
HOLSTER, a leather case to hold a pistol, used by a horseman and properly fastened to the saddle-bow, but sometimes worn in the belt. The same word appears in Dutch, from which the English word probably directly derives. The root is hel- or hul- to cover, and is seen in the O. Eng. heolster, a place of shelter or concealment, and in “hull” a sheath or covering. The German word for the same object, holfter, is, according to the New English Dictionary, from a different root.
HOLT, SIR JOHN (1642-1710), lord chief justice of England, was born at Thame, Oxfordshire, on the 30th of December 1642. His father, Sir Thomas Holt, possessed a small patrimonial estate, but in order to supplement his income had adopted the profession of law, in which he was not very successful, although he became sergeant in 1677, and afterwards for his political services to the “Tories” was rewarded with knighthood. After attending for some years the free school of the town of Abingdon, of which his father was recorder, young Holt in his sixteenth year entered Oriel College, Oxford. He is said to have spent a very dissipated youth, and even to have been in the habit of taking purses on the highway, but after entering Gray’s Inn about 1660 he applied himself with exemplary diligence to the study of law. He was called to the bar in 1663. An ardent supporter of civil and religious liberty, he distinguished himself in the state trials which were then so common by the able and courageous manner in which he supported the pleas of the defendants. In 1685-1686 he was appointed recorder of London, and about the same time he was made king’s sergeant and received the honour of knighthood. His giving a decision adverse to the pretensions of the king to exercise martial law in time of peace led to his dismissal from the office of recorder, but he was continued in the office of king’s sergeant in order to prevent him from becoming counsel for accused persons. Having been one of the judges who acted as assessors to the peers in the Convention parliament, he took a leading part in arranging the constitutional change by which William III. was called to the throne, and after his accession he was appointed lord chief justice of the King’s Bench. His merits as a judge are the more apparent and the more remarkable when contrasted with the qualities displayed by his predecessors in office. In judicial fairness, legal knowledge and ability, clearness of statement and unbending integrity he has had few if any superiors on the English bench. Over the civil rights of his countrymen he exercised a jealous watchfulness, more especially when presiding at the trial of state prosecutions, and he was especially careful that all accused persons should be treated with fairness and respect. He is, however, best known for the firmness with which he upheld his own prerogatives in opposition to the authority of the Houses of Parliament. On several occasions his physical as well as his moral courage was tried by extreme tests. Having been requested to supply a number of police to help the soldiery in quelling a riot, he assured the messenger that if any of the people were shot he would have the soldiers hanged, and proceeding himself to the scene of riot he was successful in preventing bloodshed. While steadfast in his sympathies with the Whig party, Holt maintained on the bench entire political impartiality, and always held himself aloof from political intrigue. On the retirement of Somers from the chancellorship in 1700 he was offered the great seal, but declined it. His death took place in London on the 5th of March 1710. He was buried in the chancel of Redgrave church.
Reports of Cases determined by Sir John Holt (1681-1710) appeared at London in 1738; and The Judgments delivered in the case of Ashby v. White and others, and in the case of John Paty and others, printed from original MSS., at London (1837). See Burnet’s Own Times; Tatler, No. xiv.; a Life, published in 1764; Welsby, Lives of Eminent English Judges of the 17th and 18th Centuries (1846); Campbell’s Lives of the Lord Chief Justices; and Foss, Lives of the Judges.
HOLTEI, KARL EDUARD VON (1798-1880), German poet and actor, was born at Breslau on the 24th of January 1798, the son of an officer of Hussars. Having served in the Prussian army as a volunteer in 1815, he shortly afterwards entered the university of Breslau as a student of law; but, attracted by the stage, he soon forsook academic life and made his début in the Breslau theatre as Mortimer in Schiller’s Maria Stuart. He led a wandering life for the next two years, appearing less on the stage as an actor than as a reciter of his own poems. In 1821 he married the actress Luise Rogée (1800-1825), and was appointed theatre-poet to the Breslau stage. He next removed to Berlin, where his wife fulfilled an engagement at the Court theatre. During his sojourn here he produced the vaudevilles Die Wiener in Berlin (1824), and Die Berliner in Wien (1825), pieces which enjoyed at the time great popular favour. In 1825 his wife died; but soon after her death he accepted an engagement at the Königsstädter theatre in Berlin, when he wrote a number of plays, notably Lenore (1829) and Der alte Feldherr (1829). In 1830 he married Julie Holzbecher (1809-1839), an actress engaged at the same theatre, and with her played in Darmstadt. Returning to Berlin in 1831 he wrote for the composer Franz Gläser (1798-1861) the text of the opera Des Adlers Horst (1835), and for Ludwig Devrient the drama, Der dumme Peter (1837). In 1833 Holtei again went on the stage and toured with his wife to various important cities, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich and Vienna. In the last his declamatory powers as a reciter, particularly of Shakespeare’s plays, made a furore, and the poet-actor was given the appointment of manager of the Josefstädter theatre in the last-named city. Though proud of his successes both as actor and reciter, Holtei left Vienna in 1836, and from 1837 to 1839 conducted the theatre in Riga. Here his second wife died, and after wandering through Germany reciting and accepting a short engagement at Breslau, he settled in 1847 at Graz, where he devoted himself to a literary life and produced the novels Die Vagabunden (1851), Christian Lammfell (1853) and Der letzte Komödiant (1863). The last years of his life were spent at Breslau, where being in poor circumstances he found a home in the Kloster der barmherzigen Brüder, and here he died on the 12th of February 1880.
As a dramatist Holtei may be said to have introduced the “vaudeville” into Germany; as an actor, although remaining behind the greater artists of his time, he contrived to fascinate his audience by the dramatic force of his exposition of character; as a reciter, especially of Shakespeare, he knew no rival. August 620 Lewald said of Holtei that by the energy of his poetic conception and plastic force he brought his audience round to his own ideas; and he added, “an eloquence such as his I have never met with in any other German.”
Holtei was not only a stage-poet but a lyric-writer of great charm. Notable among such productions are Schlesische Gedichte (1830; 20th ed., 1893), Gedichte (5th ed., 1861), Stimmen des Waldes (2nd ed., 1854). Mention ought also to be made of Holtei’s interesting autobiography, Vierzig Jahre (8 vols., 1843-1850; 3rd ed., 1862) with the supplementary volume Noch ein Jahr in Schlesien (1864).
Holtei’s Theater appeared in 6 vols. (1867); his Erzählende Schriften, 39 vols. (1861-1866). See M. Kurnick, Karl von Holtei, ein Lebensbild (1880); F. Wehl, Zeit und Menschen (1889); O. Storch, K. von Holtei (1898).
HÖLTY, LUDWIG HEINRICH CHRISTOPH (1748-1776), German poet, was born on the 21st of December 1748 at the village of Mariensee in Hanover, where his father was pastor. In 1769 he went to study theology at Göttingen. Here he formed a close friendship with J. M. Miller, J. H. Voss, H. Boie, the brothers Stolberg and others, and became one of the founders of the famous society of young poets known as the Göttinger Dichterbund or Hain. When in 1774 he left the university he had abandoned all intention of becoming a clergyman; but he was not destined to enter any other profession. He died of consumption on the 1st of September 1776 at Hanover. Hölty was the most gifted lyric poet of the Göttingen circle. He was influenced both by Uz and Klopstock, but his love for the Volkslied and his delight in nature preserved him from the artificiality of the one poet and the unworldliness of the other. A strain of melancholy runs through all his lyrics. His ballads are the pioneers of the rich ballad literature on English models, which sprang up in Germany during the next few years. Among his most familiar poems may be mentioned Üb’ immer Treu’ und Redlichkeit, Tanzt dem schönen Mai entgegen, Rosen auf dem Weg gestreut, and Wer wollte sich mit Grillen plagen?
Hölty’s Gedichte were published by his friends Count Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg and J. H. Voss (Hamburg, 1783); a new edition, enlarged by Voss, with a biography (1804); a more complete but still imperfect edition by F. Voigts (Hanover, 1857). The first complete edition was that of Karl Halm (Leipzig, 1870), who had access to MSS. not hitherto known. See H. Ruete, Hölty, sein Leben und Dichten (Guben, 1883), and A. Sauer, Der Göttinger Dichterbund, vol. ii. (Stuttgart, 1894), where an excellent selection of Hölty’s poetry will be found.
HOLTZENDORFF, JOACHIM WILHELM FRANZ PHILIPP VON (1829-1889), German jurist, born at Vietmannsdorf, in the Mark of Brandenburg, on the 14th of October 1829, was descended from a family of the old nobility. He was educated at Berlin and at Pforta, afterwards studying law at the universities of Bonn, Heidelberg and Berlin. The struggles of 1848 inspired him with youthful enthusiasm, and he remained for the rest of his life a strong advocate of political liberty. In 1852 he graduated LL.D. at Berlin; in 1857 he became a Privatdocent, and in 1860 he was nominated a professor extraordinary. The predominant party in Prussia regarded his political opinions with mistrust, and he was not offered an ordinary professorship until February 1873, after he had decided to accept a chair at the university of Munich. At Munich he passed the last nineteen years of his life. During the thirty years that he was professor he successively taught several branches of jurisprudence, but he was chiefly distinguished as an authority on criminal and international law. He was especially well fitted for organizing collective work, and he has associated his name with a series of publications of the first value. While acting as editor he often reserved for himself, among the independent monographs of which the work was composed, only those on subjects distasteful to his collaborators on account of their obscurity or lack of importance. Among the compilations which he superintended may be mentioned his Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft (Leipzig, 1870-1871, 2 vols.); his Handbuch des deutschen Strafrechts (Berlin, 1871-1877, 4 vols.), and his Handbuch des Völkerrechts auf Grundlage europäischer Staatspraxis (Berlin, 1885-1890, 4 vols.). Among his many independent works may be mentioned: Das irische Gefängnissystem (Leipzig, 1859), Französische Rechtszustände (Leipzig, 1859), Die Deportation als Strafmittel (Leipzig, 1859), Die Kürzungsfähigkeit der Freiheitsstrafen (Leipzig, 1861), Die Reform der Staatsanwaltschaft in Deutschland (Berlin, 1864), Die Umgestaltung der Staatsanwaltschaft (Berlin, 1865), Die Principien der Politik (Berlin, 1869), Das Verbrechen des Mordes und die Todesstrafe (Berlin, 1875), Rumäniens Uferrechte an der Donau (Leipzig, 1883; French edition, 1884). He also edited or assisted in editing a number of periodical publications on legal subjects. From 1866 to the time of his death he was associated with Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow in editing Sammlung gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher Vorträge (Berlin). Von Holtzendorff died at Munich on the 4th of February 1889.
HOLTZMANN, HEINRICH JULIUS (1832- ), German Protestant theologian, son of Karl Julius Holtzmann (1804-1877), was born on the 17th of May 1832 at Karlsruhe, where his father ultimately became prelate and counsellor to the supreme consistory. He studied at Berlin, and eventually (1874) was appointed professor ordinarius at Strassburg. A moderately liberal theologian, he became best known as a New Testament critic and exegete, being the author of the Commentary on the Synoptics (1889; 3rd ed., 1901), the Johannine books (1890; 2nd ed., 1893), and the Acts of the Apostles (1901), in the series Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament. On the question of the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels, Holtzmann in his early work, Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter (1863), presents a view which has been widely accepted, maintaining the priority of Mark, deriving Matthew in its present form from Mark and from Matthew’s earlier “collection of Sayings,” the Logia of Papias, and Luke from Matthew and Mark in the form in which we have them.
Other noteworthy works are the Lehrbuch der histor.-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament (1885, 3rd ed., 1892), and the Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie (2 vols., 1896-1897). He also collaborated with R. Zöpffel in the preparation of a small Lexikon für Theologie und Kirchenwesen (1882; 3rd ed., 1895), and in 1893 became editor of the Theol. Jahresbericht.
HOLUB, EMIL (1847-1902), Bohemian traveller in south-central Africa, was born at Holitz, eastern Bohemia, on the 7th of October 1847. He was educated at Prague University, where he graduated M.D. In 1872 he went to the Kimberley diamond-fields, and with the money earned by his practice as a surgeon undertook expeditions into the northern Transvaal, Mashonaland and through Bechuanaland to the Victoria Falls, making extensive natural history collections, which he brought to Europe in 1879 and distributed among over a hundred museums and schools. In 1883 he went back to South Africa with his wife, intending to cross the continent to Egypt. In June 1886 the party crossed the Zambezi west of the Victoria Falls, and explored the then almost unknown region between that river and its tributary the Kafue. When beyond the Kafue the camp was attacked by the Mashukulumbwe, and Holub was obliged to retrace his steps. He returned to Austria in 1887 with a collection of great scientific interest, of over 13,000 objects, now in various museums. Holub died at Vienna on the 21st of February 1902.
His principal works are: Eine Culturskizze des Marutse-Mambunda-reichs (Vienna, 1879); Sieben Jahre in Südafrika, &c. (2 vols., Vienna, 1880-1881), of which an English translation appeared; Die Colonisation Afrikas (Vienna, 1882); and Von der Kapstadt ins Land der Maschukulumbe (2 vols., Vienna, 1818-1890).
HOLY, sacred, devoted or set apart for religious worship or observance; a term characteristic of the attributes of perfection and sinlessness of the Persons of the Trinity, as the objects of human worship and reverence, and hence transferred to those human persons who, either by their devotion to a spiritual ascetic life or by their approximation to moral perfection, are considered worthy of reverence. The word in Old English was hálig, and is common to other Teutonic languages; cf. Ger. and Dutch heilig, Swed. helig, Dan. hellig. It is derived from hál, hale, whole, and cognate with “health.” The New English Dictionary suggests that the sense-development may be from “whole,” i.e. inviolate, from “health, 621 well-being,” or from “good-omen,” “augury.” It is impossible to get behind the Christian uses, in which from the earliest times it was employed as the equivalent of the Latin sacer and sanctus.
HOLY ALLIANCE, THE. The famous treaty, or declaration, known by this name was signed in the first instance by Alexander I., emperor of Russia, Francis I., emperor of Austria, and Frederick William III., king of Prussia, on the 26th of September 1815, and was proclaimed by the emperor Alexander the same day at a great review of the allied troops held on the Champ des Vertus near Paris. The English version of the text is as follows:—
In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity.
Holy Alliance of Sovereigns of Austria, Prussia and Russia.
Their Majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia, having, in consequence of the great events which have marked the course of the three last years in Europe, and especially of the blessings which it has pleased Divine Providence to shower down upon those States which place their confidence and their hope on it alone, acquired the intimate conviction of the necessity of settling the steps to be observed by the Powers, in their reciprocal relations, upon the sublime truths which the Holy Religion of our Saviour teaches;
Government and Political Relations.
They solemnly declare that the present Act has no other object than to publish, in the face of the whole world, their fixed resolution, both in the administration of their respective States, and in their political relations with every other Government, to take for their sole guide the precepts of that Holy Religion, namely, the precepts of Justice, Christian Charity and Peace, which, far from being applicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence on the councils of Princes, and guide all their steps, as being the only means of consolidating human institutions and remedying their imperfections. In consequence, their Majesties have agreed on the following Articles:—
Principles of the Christian Religion.
Art. I. Conformably to the words of the Holy Scriptures which command all men to consider each other as brethren, the Three contracting Monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity, and, considering each other as fellow countrymen, they will, on all occasions and in all places, lend each other aid and assistance; and, regarding themselves towards their subjects and armies as fathers of families, they will lead them, in the same spirit of fraternity with which they are animated, to protect Religion, Peace and Justice.
Fraternity and Affection.
Art. II. In consequence, the sole principle of force, whether between the said Governments or between their Subjects, shall be that of doing each other reciprocal service, and of testifying by unalterable good will the mutual affection with which they ought to be animated, to consider themselves all as members of one and the same Christian nation; the three allied Princes looking on themselves as merely delegated by Providence to govern three branches of the One family, namely, Austria, Prussia and Russia, thus confessing that the Christian world, of which they and their people form a part, has in reality no other Sovereign than Him to whom alone power really belongs, because in Him alone are found all the treasures of love, science and infinite wisdom, that is to say, God, our Divine Saviour, the Word of the Most High, the Word of Life. Their Majesties consequently recommend to their people, with the most tender solicitude, as the sole means of enjoying that Peace which arises from a good conscience, and which alone is durable, to strengthen themselves every day more and more in the principles and exercise of the duties which the Divine Saviour has taught to mankind.
Accession of Foreign Powers.
Art. III. All the Powers who shall choose solemnly to avow the sacred principles which have dictated the present Act, and shall acknowledge how important it is for the happiness of nations, too long agitated, that these truths should henceforth exercise over the destinies of mankind all the influence which belongs to them, will be received with equal ardour and affection into this Holy Alliance.
The credit for inspiring this singular document was claimed by the Baroness von Krüdener (q.v.); in any case it was the outcome of the tsar’s mood of evangelical exaltation, and was in its inception perfectly sincere. Neither Frederick William nor Francis signed willingly, the latter remarking that “if it was a question of politics, he must refer it to his chancellor, if of religion, to his confessor.” Metternich called it a “loud-sounding nothing,” Castlereagh, “a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense.” None the less, in accordance with its last article, the signatures of all the European sovereigns were invited to the instrument, the pope and the Ottoman sultan alone being excepted. The prince regent courteously declined to sign, on the constitutional ground that all acts of the British crown required the counter-signature of a minister, but he sent a letter expressing his “entire concurrence with the principles laid down by the ‘august sovereigns’ and stating that it would always be his endeavour to regulate his conduct by their ‘sacred maxims.’” With these exceptions, all the European sovereigns sooner or later appended their names.
In popular parlance, which has found its way into the language of serious historians, the “Holy Alliance” soon became synonymous with the combination of the great powers by whom Europe was ruled in concert during the period of the congresses, and associated with the policy of reaction which gradually dominated their counsels. For the understanding of the inner history of the diplomacy of this period, however, a clear distinction must be drawn between the Holy Alliance and the Grand, or Quadruple (Quintuple) Alliance. The Grand Alliance was established on definite treaties concluded for definite purposes, of which the chief was the preservation of peace on the basis of the territorial settlement of 1815. The Holy Alliance was a general treaty—hardly indeed a treaty at all—which bound its signatories to act on certain vague principles for no well-defined end; and in its essence it was so far from necessarily reactionary that the emperor Alexander at one time declared that it involved the grant of liberal constitutions by princes to their subjects. Its main significance was due to the persistent efforts of the tsar to make it the basis of the “universal union,” or general confederation of Europe, which he wished to substitute for the actual committee of the great powers, efforts which were frustrated by the vigorous diplomacy of Castlereagh, acting as the mouthpiece of the British government (see Europe: History; Alexander I. of Russia; Londonderry, Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquis of).
As a diplomatic instrument the Holy Alliance never, as a matter of fact, became effective. None the less, its principles and the fact of its signature powerfully affected the course of European diplomacy during the 19th century. It strongly influenced the emperor Nicholas I. of Russia, to whom the brotherhood of sovereigns by divine right was an article of faith, inspiring the principles of the convention of Berlin (between Russia, Austria and Prussia) in 1833, and the tsar’s intervention in 1849 to crush the Hungarian insurrection on behalf of his brother of Austria. That it had become synonymous with a conspiracy against popular liberties was, however, a mere accident of the point of view of those who interpreted its principles. It was capable of other and more noble interpretations, and it was avowedly the inspiration of the famous rescript of the emperor Nicholas II., embodied in the circular of Count Muraviev to the European courts (August 4th, 1898), which issued in the first international peace conference at the Hague in 1899.
HOLYHEAD (Caergybi, the fort of Cybi, the saint mentioned by Matthew Arnold as meeting St Seiriol of Penmôn, Anglesey), a seaport and market-town of Anglesey, N. Wales, situated on the small Holy Island, at the western end of the county. Pop. of urban district (1901) 10,079. Here the London and North-Western railway has a terminus, 263½ m. from London by rail. Holy Island is connected with Anglesey by an embankment, ¾ m. long, over which pass the railway and main road, the tide flowing fast under the central piers. Once a small fishing village, the town has since William IV.’s reign acquired importance as the Dublin mail steam station. Its magnificent harbour of refuge was begun in 1847 and opened in September 1873. The east breakwater scheme, which would have covered the Platter’s rocks—still very troublesome—and the Skinner’s, was abandoned for buoys which mark the spots. The north breakwater is 7860 ft. long (instead of 5360, as originally planned). The roadstead (400 acres) and enclosed area (267 acres) together make a magnificent shelter for shipping. The rubble mound of the breakwater was very costly to the railway company, as time after time it was swept away by storms. On it is a central 622 wall of some 38 ft. above low water, and on the wall a promenade sheltered by a parapet. The lighthouse is at the end of the breakwater, of which the whole cost was nearly 1½ million sterling. Additional works, begun in 1873 by the company, to extend the old harbour and lengthen the quay by 4000 ft., were opened by King Edward VII. (as prince of Wales) in 1880. These cost another half million. George IV. passed through Holyhead in 1821 on his way to Ireland, and there is a commemorative tablet on the old harbour pier. The church is said to occupy the site of the old monastery (6th or early 7th century) of St Cybi, of whom there is a rude figure in the porch. The churchyard wall, 6 ft. thick, is possibly partly Roman. On the south of the harbour is an obelisk in memory of Captain Skinner, of the steam packets, washed overboard in 1833. Pen Caergybi rises perpendicularly from the sea to the height of 719 ft., at some 2 m. from the town; it is a mass of serpentine rocks, off which lie the North and South Stacks, each with a lighthouse with a revolving light, visible for 20 m., and 197 ft. above high water on the South Stack. On the hill are traces of British fortification, including a circular building, probably a Roman watch-tower. Coasting trade and fishing, with some shipbuilding and the Irish traffic, occupy most of the inhabitants.
See Hon. W. Stanley’s Holy Island and Holyhead.
HOLY ISLAND, or Lindisfarne, an irregularly shaped island in the North Sea, 2 m. from the coast of Northumberland, in which county it is included. Pop. (1901) 405. It is joined to the mainland at low water by flat sands, over which a track, marked by wooden posts and practicable for vehicles, leads to the island. There is a station on the North-Eastern railway at Beak 9 m. S.E. of Berwick, opposite the island, but 1¼ m. inland. The island measures 3 m. from E. to W. and 1½ N. to S., extreme distances. Its total area is 1051 acres. On the N. it is sandy and barren, but on the S. very fertile and under cultivation. Large numbers of rabbits have their warrens among the sands, and, with fish, oysters and agricultural produce, are exported. There are several fresh springs on the island, and in the north-east is a lake of 6 acres. At the south-west angle is the little fishing village (formerly much larger) which is now a favourite summer watering-place. Here is the harbour, offering good shelter to small vessels. Holy Island derives its name from a monastery founded on it by St Aidan, and restored in 1082 as a cell of the Benedictine monastery at Durham. Its ruins, still extensive and carefully preserved, justify Scott’s description of it as a “solemn, huge and dark-red pile.” An islet, lying off the S.W. angle, has traces of a chapel upon it, and is believed to have offered a retreat to St Cuthbert and his successors. The castle, situated east of the village, on a basaltic rock about 90 ft. high, dates from c. 1500.
When St Aidan came at the request of King Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops St Cuthbert, but in 793 the Danes landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of St Cuthbert and other holy relics. The church and monastery were again destroyed and the bishop and monks, on account of the exposed situation of the island, determined not to return to it, and settled first at Chester-le-Street and finally at Durham. With the fall of the monastery the island appears to have become again untenanted, and probably continued so until the prior and convent of Durham established there a cell of monks from their own house. The inhabitants of Holy Island were governed by two bailiffs at least as early as the 14th century, and, according to J. Raine in his History of North Durham (1852), are called “burgesses or freemen” in a private paper dated 1728. In 1323 the bailiffs and community of Holy Island were commanded to cause all ships of the burthen of thirty tons or over to go to Ereswell with their ships provisioned for a month at least and under double manning to be ready to set out on the kings service. Towards the end of the 16th century the fort on Holy Island was garrisoned for fear of foreign invasion by Sir William Read, who found it very much in need of repair, the guns being so decayed that the gunners “dare not give fire but by trayne,” and the master gunner had been “miserably slain” in discharging one of them. During the Civil Wars the castle was held for the king until 1646, when it was taken and garrisoned by the parliamentarians. The only other historical event connected with the island is the attempt made by two Jacobites in 1715 to hold it for the Pretender.
HOLYOAKE, GEORGE JACOB (1817-1906), English secularist and co-operator, was born at Birmingham, on the 13th of April 1817. At an early age he became an Owenite lecturer, and in 1841 was the last person convicted for blasphemy in a public lecture, though this had no theological character and the incriminating words were merely a reply to a question addressed to him from the body of the meeting. He nevertheless underwent six months’ imprisonment, and upon his release invented the inoffensive term “secularism” as descriptive of his opinions, and established the Reasoner in their support. He was also the last person indicted for publishing an unstamped newspaper, but the prosecution dropped upon the repeal of the tax. His later years were chiefly devoted to the promotion of the co-operative movement among the working classes. He wrote the history of the Rochdale Pioneers (1857), The History of Co-operation in England (1875; revised ed., 1906), and The Co-operative Movement of To-day (1891). He also published (1892) his autobiography, under the title of Sixty Years of an Agitator’s Life, and in 1905 two volumes of reminiscences, Bygones worth Remembering. He died at Brighton on the 22nd of January 1906.
See J. McCabe, Life and Letters of G. J. Holyoake (2 vols., 1908); C. W. F. Goss, Descriptive Bibliography of the Writings of G. J. Holyoake (1908).
HOLYOKE, a city of Hampden county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in a bend of the Connecticut river, about 8 m. N. of Springfield. Pop. (1880) 21,915; (1890) 35,637; (1900) 45,712; (1910 census) 57,730. Of the total population in 1900, 18,921 were foreign-born, including 6991 French-Canadians, 5650 Irish, 1602 Germans and 1118 English; and 33,626 were of foreign parentage (both parents foreign-born), including 12,370 of Irish and 11,050 of French-Canadian parentage. The city’s area is about 17 sq. m. The city is served by the Boston & Maine, and the New York, New Haven & Hartford railways, and by an interurban line. Holyoke is characteristically an industrial and mercantile city; it has some handsome public buildings (the city hall and the public library, founded in 1870, being especially noteworthy) and attractive environs. Holyoke is the railway station for Mt Holyoke College, in South Hadley, about 4 m. N. by E. of Holyoke; the city is connected with South Hadley by an electric line. Just above Holyoke the Connecticut leaves the rugged highlands through a rift between Mt Tom (1214 ft.; ascended by a mountain-railway from Holyoke) and Mt Holyoke (954 ft.), and begins a meandering valley course, falling (in the Hadley halls) in great volume some 60 ft. in about 1½ m. The water-power was unutilized until 1849, when a great dam (1017 ft. long) was completed, which enabled vast power to be developed along a series of canals laid out from the river. This was, in its day, a colossal undertaking; and its success transformed Holyoke from a farming village into a great manufacturing centre—in 1900 and 1905 the ninth largest of the commonwealth. In 1900 a stone dam (1020 ft.), said to be the second largest in New England, was completed at a cost of about $750,000. Cotton manufactures first, and later paper products were chief in importance, and Holyoke now leads all the cities in the United States in the manufacture of fine paper. In 1905 the total value of all factory products was $30,731,332, of which $10,620,255 (or 34.6% of the total) represented paper and wood pulp; $5,019,817, cotton goods; $1,318,409, woollen goods; $1,756,473, book binding and blank books, and $2,022,759, foundry and machine-shop 623 products. Silk and worsted goods are other important manufactures. Opposite Holyoke, in Hampshire county, is South Hadley Falls. The municipality owns and operates the gas and electric-lighting plants and the water works (the water-supply being derived from natural ponds, some of which are outside the city limits), and owns and leases (to the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad) a railway extending (10.3 m.) to Westfield, Mass. Holyoke was originally a part of Springfield, and after 1774 of West Springfield. In 1850 it was incorporated as a township, and in 1873 was chartered as a city.
HOLYSTONE, a soft kind of sandstone used by sailors for scrubbing and cleaning the decks of ships. The origin of the word is doubtful. Some authorities hold that it arose from the general practice of scrubbing the decks for Sunday service; while others think the name arises from the fact that the stone so employed is naturally porous and full of holes. A small flint or stone having a natural hole in it, and worn as a charm, is also called a holystone.
HOLY WATER, technically the water with which Christian believers sign the cross on their foreheads on entering or leaving church. The edict of Gratian lays down that it should be exorcized and blessed by the priest and sprinkled with exorcized salt. This rite is found in the Gelasian, Gregorian and other sacramentaries. In the East the water was blessed once a month, in the Latin Church it is now blessed every Sunday. In the 4th century in the East it was usual to wash the hands on entering the church (see Ablution).
In the early church water was not expressly consecrated for baptisms and other lustrations. “Water,” says Tertullian in his tract on baptism, “was the abode at the first of the divine Spirit, being more acceptable then (to God) than the other elements.” He pictures the world in the beginning: “total darkness, formless as yet, without tending of stars, the melancholy abyss, the earth unprepared, the heaven undevelopt. The liquid alone an ever perfect material, smiling, simple, pure in its own right, as a worthy vehicle underlay the God.” Water was similarly pure in itself in the old Persian religion.
The Canons of Hippolytus, or Egyptian church order, of about A.D. 250, give no prayer for consecration of fonts, but enact that “at cock crow the baptismal party shall take their stand near waving water, pure, prepared, sacred, of the sea.” The Teaching of the Apostles, c. 100, merely insists on “living,” that is, clear and running water. The ancient feeling, especially Jewish, was that in lustrations the same water must not pass twice over the body. A stagnant pool was useless. Bubbling waters too seemed to have a spirit in them.
Either because running water was not always at hand, or as part of the growing tendency of the church to multiply ceremonies, rituals arose late in the 3rd century for consecrating water. The sacramentary of Serapion, c. 350, provides a prayer asking that the divine Word may descend into the water and hallow it, as of old it hallowed the Jordan. In the Roman order of baptism the priest prays that “the font may receive the grace of the only begotten Son from the holy Spirit, and that the latter may impregnate with hidden admixture of His light this water prepared for the regeneration of mankind, to the end that man through a sanctification conceived from the immaculate womb of the divine font, may emerge a heavenly offspring reborn as a new creature.” The water is then exorcized and evil spirits warned off, and lastly blessed. During the prayer the priest twice signs the water with the cross, and once blows upon it.
The first mention of a special consecration of water for other ends than baptism is in the Acts of Thomas (? A.D. 200); it is for the purgation of a youth already baptized who had killed his mistress because she would not live chastely with him. The apostle prays: “Fountain sent unto us from Rest, Power of Salvation from that Power proceeding which overcomes and subjects all to its own will, come and dwell within these waters, that the Charisma (gift) of the holy Spirit may be fully perfected through them.” The youth then washes his hands, which on touching the sacrament had withered up, and is healed.
The church shared the universal belief that holiness or the holy Spirit is quasi-material and capable of being held in suspense in water, just as sin is a half material infection, absorbed and carried away by it. So Tertullian writes: “The water which carried the Spirit of God (probably regarded as a shadow or reflection-soul) borrowed holiness from that which was carried upon it; for every underlying matter must needs absorb and take up the quality of that matter which overhangs it; especially does a corporeal so absorb a spiritual, as this can easily penetrate and settle into it owing to the subtlety of its substance.”
“Water,” he continues, “was generically hallowed by the Spirit of God brooding over it at creation, and therefore all special waters are holy, and at once obtain the sacrament of sanctification when God is invoked (over them.) For the Spirit from heaven instantly supervenes and is upon the waters, hallowing them out of itself, and being so hallowed they drink up a power of hallowing.”
What is done in material semblance, he then argues, is repeated in the unseen medium of the Spirit. The stains of idolatry, vice and fraud are not visible on the flesh, yet they resemble real dirt. “The waters are medicated in a manner through the intervention of the angel, and the Spirit is corporeally washed in the water and the flesh is spiritually purified in the same.”
Tertullian believed that an angel was sent down, when God was invoked, like that which stirred the pool of Bethesda. As regards rival Isiac and Mithraic baptisms, he asserts that their waters are destitute of divine power; nay, are rather tenanted by the devil who in this matter sets himself to rival God. “Without any religious rite at all,” he urges, “unclean spirits brood upon waters, aspiring to repeat that primordial gestation of the divine Spirit.” And he instances the “darkling springs and lonely rivers which are said to snatch, to wit by force of a harmful spirit.” In the sequel he defines the rôle of the angel of baptism who does not infuse himself in waters, already holy from the first; but merely presides over the washing of the faithful, and ensures their being made pure for the reception of the holy Spirit in the rite of confirmation which immediately follows. “The devil who till now ruled over us, we leave behind overwhelmed in the water.”
From all this we conclude that what is poetry to us—akin to the folk-lore of water-sprites, naiads, kelpies, river-gods and water-worship in general—was to Tertullian and to the generations of believers who fashioned the baptismal rites, ablutions and beliefs of the church, nothing less than grim reality and unquestionable fact.
See John, marquess of Bute, and E. A. Wallis Budge, The Blessing of the Waters (London, 1901); E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London, 1903).
HOLY WEEK (ἑβδομὰς μεγάλη, ἁγία or τῶν ἁγίων, ξηροφαγίας, ἄπρακτος, also ἡμέραι παθημάτων, ἡμέραι σταυρώσιμαι: hebdomas [or septimana] major, sancta, authentica [i.e. canonizata, du Cange], ultima, poenosa, luctuosa, nigra, inofficiosa, muta, crucis, lamentationum, indulgentiae), in the Christian ecclesiastical year the week immediately preceding Easter. The earliest allusion to the custom of marking this week as a whole with special observances is to be found in the Apostolical Constitutions (v. 18, 19), dating from the latter half of the 3rd century A.D. Abstinence from wine and flesh is there commanded for all the days, while for the Friday and Saturday an absolute fast is enjoined. Dionysius Alexandrinus also, in his canonical epistle (260 A.D.), refers to the six fasting days (ἕξ τῶν νηστειῶν ἡμέραι) in a manner which implies that the observance of them had already become an established usage in his time. There is some doubt about the genuineness of an ordinance attributed to Constantine, in which abstinence from public business was enforced for the seven days immediately preceding Easter Sunday, and also for the seven which followed it; the Codex Theodosianus, however, is explicit in ordering that all actions at law should cease, and the doors of all courts of law be closed during those fifteen days (l. ii. tit. viii.). Of the particular days of the “great week” the earliest to emerge into special prominence was naturally Good Friday. Next came the Sabbatum Magnum (Holy Saturday or Easter Eve) with its vigil, which 624 in the early church was associated with an expectation that the second advent would occur on an Easter Sunday.
For details of the ceremonial observed in the Roman Catholic Church during this week, reference must be made to the Missal and Breviary. In the Eastern Church the week is marked by similar practices, but with less elaboration and differentiation of rite. See also Easter, Good Friday, Maundy Thursday, Palm Sunday and Passion Week.
HOLYWELL (Tre’ffynnon, well-town), a market town and contributory parliamentary borough of Flintshire, N. Wales, situated on a height near the left bank of the Dee estuary, 196 m. from London by the London & North-Western railway (the station being 2 m. distant). Pop. of urban district (1901) 2652. The parish church (1769) has some columns of an earlier building, interesting brasses and strong embattled tower. The remains of Basingwerk Abbey (Maes glas, green field), partly Saxon and partly Early English, are near the station. It is of uncertain origin but was used as a monastery before 1119. In 1131 Ranulph, 2nd earl of Chester, introduced the Cistercians. In 1535, when Its revenues were £150, 7s. 3d., it was dissolved, but revived under Mary I. and used as a Roman Catholic burial place in 1647. Scarcely any traces remain of Basingwerk castle, an old fort. Small up to the beginning of the 19th century, Holywell has increasingly prospered, thanks to lime quarries, lead, copper and zinc mines, smelting works, a shot manufactory, copper, brass, iron and zinc works; brewing, tanning and mineral water, flannel and cement works. St Winifred’s holy well, one of the wonders of Wales, sends up water at the rate of 21 tons a minute, of an almost unvarying temperature, higher than that of ordinary spring water. To its curative powers many crutches and ex voto objects, hung round the well, as in the Lourdes Grot, bear ample witness. The stones at the bottom are slightly reddish, owing to vegetable substances. The well itself is covered by a fine Gothic building, said to have been erected by Margaret, countess of Richmond and mother of Henry VII., with some portions of earlier date. The chapel (restored) is used for public service. Catholics and others visit it in great numbers. There are swimming baths for general use. In 1870 a hospice for poorer pilgrims was erected. Other public buildings are St Winifred’s (Catholic) church and a convent, a town hall and a market-hall. The export trade is expedited by quays on the Dee.
HOLYWOOD, a seaport of county Down, Ireland, on the east shore of Belfast Lough, 4½ m. N.E. from Belfast by the Belfast & County Down railway. Its pleasant situation renders it a favourite residential locality of the wealthier classes in Belfast. There was a religious settlement here from the 7th century, which subsequently became a Franciscan monastery. The old church dating from the late 12th or early 13th century marks its site. A Solemn League and Covenant was signed here in 1644 for the defence of the kingdom, and the document is preserved at Belfast.
HOLZMINDEN, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, on the right bank of the Weser, at the foot of the Sollinger Mountains, at the junction of the railways Scherfede-Holzminden and Soest-Börssum, 56 m. S.W. of Brunswick. Pop. (1905) 9938. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, a gymnasium, an architectural school and a school of engineering. The prosperity of the town depends chiefly on agriculture and the manufacture of iron and steel wares, and of chemicals, but weaving and the making of pottery are also carried on, and there are baryta mills and polishing-mills for sandstone. By means of the Weser it carries on a lively trade. Holzminden obtained municipal rights from Count Otto of Eberstein in 1245, and in 1410 it came into the possession of Brunswick.
HOLZTROMPETE (Wooden Trumpet), an instrument somewhat resembling the Alpenhorn (q.v.) in tone-quality, designed by Richard Wagner for representing the natural pipe of the peasant in Tristan and Isolde. This instrument is not unlike the cor anglais in rough outline, being a conical tube of approximately the same length, terminating in a small globular bell, but having neither holes nor keys; it is blown through a cup-shaped mouthpiece made of horn. The Holztrompete is in the key of C; the scale is produced by overblowing, whereby the upper partials from the 2nd to the 6th are produced. A single piston placed at a third of the distance from the mouthpiece to the bell gives the notes D and F. Wagner inserted a note in the score concerning the cor anglais for which the part was originally scored, and advised the use of oboe or clarinet to reinforce the latter, the effect intended being that of a powerful natural instrument, unless a wooden instrument with a natural scale be specially made for the part, which would be preferable. The Holztrompete was used at Munich for the first performance of Tristan and Isolde, and was still in use there in 1897. At Bayreuth it was also used for the Tristan performances at the festivals of 1886 and 1889, but in 1891 W. Heckel’s clarina, an instrument partaking of the nature of both oboe and clarinet, was substituted for the Holztrompete and has been retained ever since, having been found more effective.1
1 Communicated by Madame Wagner, December 28th, 1897.
HOMAGE (from homo, through the Low Lat. hominaticum, which occurs in a document of 1035), one of the ceremonies used in the granting of a fief, and indicating the submission of a vassal to his lord. It could be received only by the suzerain in person. With head uncovered the vassal humbly requested to be allowed to enter into the feudal relation; he then laid aside his sword and spurs, ungirt his belt, and kneeling before his lord, and holding his hands extended and joined between the hands of his lord, uttered words to this effect: “I become your man from this day forth, of life and limb, and will hold faith to you for the lands I claim to hold of you.” The oath of fealty, which could be received by proxy, followed the act of homage; then came the ceremony of investiture, either directly on the ground or by the delivery of a turf, a handful of earth, a stone, or some other symbolical object. Homage was done not only by the vassal to whom feudal lands were first granted but by every one in turn by whom they were inherited, since they were not granted absolutely but only on condition of military and other service. An infant might do homage, but he did not thus enter into full possession of his lands. The ceremony was of a preliminary nature, securing that the fief would not be alienated; but the vassal had to take the oath of fealty, and to be formally invested, when he reached his majority. The obligations involved in the act of homage were more general than those associated with the oath of fealty, but they provided a strong moral sanction for more specific engagements. They essentially resembled the obligations undertaken towards a Teutonic chief by the members of his “comitatus” or “gefolge,” one of the institutions from which feudalism directly sprang. Besides homagium ligeum, there was a kind of homage which imposed no feudal duty; this was homagium per paragium, such as the dukes of Normandy rendered to the kings of France, and as the dukes of Normandy received from the dukes of Brittany. The act of liege homage to a particular lord did not interfere with the vassal’s allegiance as a subject to his sovereign, or with his duty to any other suzerain of whom he might hold lands.
The word is also used of the body of tenants attending a manorial court, or of the court in a court baron (consisting of the tenants that do homage and make inquiries and presentments, termed a homage jury).
HOMBERG, WILHELM (1652-1715), Dutch natural philosopher, was the son of an officer of the Dutch East India Company, and was born at Batavia (Java) on the 8th of January 1652. Coming to Europe with his family in 1670, he studied law at Jena and Leipzig, and in 1674 became an advocate at Magdeburg. In that town he made the acquaintance of Otto von Guericke, and under his influence determined to devote himself to natural science. He, therefore, travelled in various parts of Europe for study, and after graduating in medicine at Wittenberg, settled in Paris in 1682. From 1685 to 1690 he practised as a physician at Rome; then returning to Paris in 1691, he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences and appointed director of 625 its chemical laboratory. Subsequently he became teacher of physics and chemistry (1702), and private physician (1705) to the duke of Orleans. His death occurred at Paris on the 24th of September 1715. Homberg was not free from alchemistical tendencies, but he made many solid contributions to chemical and physical knowledge, recording observations on the preparation of Kunkel’s phosphorus, on the green colour produced in flames by copper, on the crystallization of common salt, on the salts of plants, on the saturation of bases by acids, on the freezing of water and its evaporation in vacuo, &c. Much of his work was published in the Recueil de l’Académie des Sciences from 1692 to 1714. The Sal Sedativum Hombergi is boracic acid, which he discovered in 1702, and “Homberg’s phosphorus” is prepared by fusing sal-ammoniac with quick lime.
HOMBURG-VOR-DER-HÖHE, a town and watering-place of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, prettily situated at the south-east foot of the Taunus Mountains, 12 m. N. of Frankfort-on-Main, with which it is connected by rail. Pop. (1905) 13,740. Homburg consists of an old and a new town, the latter, founded by the landgrave of Hesse-Homburg Frederick II. (d. 1708), being regular and well-built. Besides the palatial edifices erected in connexion with the mineral water-cure, there are churches of various denominations, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Russian-Greek and Anglican, schools and benevolent institutions. On a neighbouring hill stands the palace of the former landgraves, built in 1680 and subsequently enlarged and improved. The White Tower, 183 ft. in height, is said to date from Roman times, and certainly existed under the lords of Eppstein, who held the district in the 12th century. The palace is surrounded by extensive grounds, laid out in the manner of an English park. The eight mineral springs which form the attraction of the town to strangers belong to the class of saline acidulous chalybeates and contain a considerable proportion of carbonate of lime. Their use is beneficial for diseases of the stomach and intestines, and externally, for diseases of the skin and rheumatism. The establishments connected with the springs are arranged on a scale of great magnificence, and include the Kurhaus (built 1841-1843), with a theatre, the Kaiser Wilhelmsbad and the Kurhausbad. They lie grouped round a pretty park which also furnishes the visitors with facilities for various recreations, such as lawn tennis, croquet, polo and other games. The industries of Homburg embrace iron founding and the manufacture of leather and hats, but they are comparatively unimportant, the prosperity of the town being almost entirely due to the annual influx of visitors, which during the season from May to October inclusive averages 12,000. In the beautiful neighbourhood lies the ancient Roman castle of Saalburg, which can be reached by an electric tramway.
Homburg first came into repute as a watering-place in 1834, and owing to its gaming-tables, which were set up soon after, it rapidly became one of the favourite and most fashionable health-resorts of Europe. In 1849 the town was occupied by Austrian troops for the purpose of enforcing the imperial decree against gambling establishments, but immediately on their withdrawal the bank was again opened, and play continued unchecked until 1872, when the Prussian government refused to renew the lease for gambling purposes, which then expired. As the capital of the former landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg, the town shared the vicissitudes of that state.
Homburg is also the name of a town in Bavaria. Pop. (1900) 4785. It has a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, and manufactures of iron goods. In the neighbourhood are the ruins of the castles of Karlsberg and of Hohenburg. The family of the counts of Homburg became extinct in the 15th century. The town came into the possession of Zweibrücken in 1755 and later into that of Bavaria.
See Supp, Bad Homburg (7th ed., Homburg, 1903); Baumstark, Bad Homburg und seine Heilquellen (Wiesbaden, 1901); Schiek, Homburg und Umgebung (Homburg, 1896); Will, Der Kurort Homburg, seine Mineralquellen (Homburg, 1880); Hoeben, Bad Homburg und sein Heilapparat (Homburg, 1901); and N. E. Yorke-Davies, Homburg and its Waters (London, 1897).
HOME, EARLS OF. Alexander Home or Hume, 1st earl of Home (c. 1566-1619), was the son of Alexander, 5th Lord Home (d. 1575), who fought against Mary, queen of Scots, at Carberry Hill and at Langside, but was afterwards one of her most stalwart supporters, being taken prisoner when defending Edinburgh castle in her interests in 1573 and probably dying in captivity. He belonged to an old and famous border family, an early member of which, Sir Alexander Home, was killed at the battle of Verneuil in 1424. This Sir Alexander was the father of Sir Alexander Home (d. 1456), warden of the marches and the founder of the family fortunes, whose son, another Sir Alexander (d. 1491), was created a lord of parliament as Lord Home in 1473, being one of the band of nobles who defeated the forces of King James III. at the battle of Sauchieburn in 1488. Other distinguished members of the family were: the first lord’s grandson and successor, Alexander, 2nd Lord Home (d. 1506), chamberlain of Scotland; and the latter’s son, Alexander, 3rd Lord Home (d. 1516), a person of great importance during the reign of James IV., whom he served as chamberlain. He fought at Flodden, but before the death of the king he had led his men away to plunder. During the minority of the new king, James V., he was engaged in quarrelling with the regent, John Stewart, duke of Albany, and in intriguing with England. In September 1516 he was seized, was charged with treachery and beheaded, his title and estates being restored to his brother George in 1522. George, who was killed in September 1547 during a skirmish just before the battle of Pinkie, was the father of Alexander, the 5th lord.
Alexander Home became 6th Lord Home on his father’s death in August 1575, and took part in many of the turbulent incidents which marked the reign of James VI. He was warden of the east marches, and was often at variance with the Hepburns, a rival border family whose head was the earl of Bothwell; the feud between the Homes and the Hepburns was an old one, and it was probably the main reason why Home’s father, the 5th lord, sided with the enemies of Mary during the period of her intimacy with Bothwell. Home accompanied James to England in 1603 and was created earl of Home in 1605; he died in April 1619.
His son James, the 2nd earl, died childless in 1633 when his titles passed to a distant kinsman, Sir James Home of Coldingknows (d. 1666), a descendant of the 1st Lord Home. This earl was in the Scottish ranks at the battle of Preston and lost his estates under the Commonwealth, but these were restored to him in 1661. His descendant, William, the 8th earl (d. 1761) fought on the English side at Prestonpans, and from his brother Alexander, the 9th earl (d. 1786), the present earl of Home is descended. In 1875 Cospatrick Alexander, the 11th earl (1799-1881), was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Douglas, and his son Charles Alexander, the 12th earl (b. 1834), took the additional name of Douglas. The principal strongholds of the Homes were Douglas castle in Haddington and Home castle in Berwickshire.
See H. Drummond, Histories of Noble British Families (1846).