The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 231

HALLOWE'EN, the eve of All Saints' Day, 31st October, which it was customary, in Scotland particularly, to observe with ceremonies of a superst.i.tious character, presumed to have the power of eliciting certain interesting secrets of fate from wizard spirits of the earth and air, allowed, as believed, in that brief s.p.a.ce, to rove about and be accessible to the influence of the charms employed.

HALOGENS (i. e., salt producers), name given to the elementary bodies, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and fluorine as in composition with metals forming compounds similar to sea-salt.

HALS, FRANS, an eminent Dutch portrait-painter, born at Antwerp; is considered to be the founder of the Dutch school of _genre_-painting; his portraits are full of life and vigour; Vandyck alone among his contemporaries was considered his superior (1581-1666).

HALSBURY, HARDINGE STANLEY GIFFORD, LORD, Lord Chancellor of England, born in London; was called to the bar in 1850; he was Solicitor-General in the last Disraeli Government; entered Parliament in 1877, and in 1885 was raised to the peerage and made Lord-Chancellor, a position he has held in successive Conservative Governments; _b_. 1825.

HALYBURTON, THOMAS, Scottish divine, known as "Holy Halyburton,"

born at Dupplin, near Perth; was minister of Ceres, in Fife, and from 1710 professor of Divinity in St. Andrews; was the author of several widely-read religious works (1674-1712).

HAM, a son of Noah, and the Biblical ancestor of the southern dark races of the world as known to the ancients.

HAM, a town in the dep. of Somme, France, 70 m. NE. of Paris, with a fortress, used in recent times as a State prison, in which Louis Napoleon was confined from 1840 to 1846.

HAMADAN (30), an ancient Persian town, at the foot of Mount Elwend, 160 m. SW. of Teheran, is an important _entrepot_ of Persian trade, and has flouris.h.i.+ng tanneries; it is believed to stand on the site of ECBATANA (q. v.).

HAMADRYAD, a wood-nymph identified with a particular tree that was born with it and that died with it.

HAMAH (45), the Hamath of the Bible, an ancient city of Syria, on the Orontes, 110 m. NE. of Damascus; manufactures silk, cotton, and woollen fabrics; is one of the oldest cities of the world; has some trade with the Bedouins in woollen stuffs; during the Macedonian dynasty it was known as Epiphania; in 1812 Burckhardt discovered stones in it with Hitt.i.te inscriptions.

HAMAN, an enemy of the Jews in Persia, who persuaded the king to decree the destruction of them against a particular day, but whose purpose was defeated by the reversal of the sentence of doom.

HAMANN, JOHANN GEORG, a German thinker, born at Konigsberg; a man of genius, whose ideas were appreciated by such a man as Goethe, and whose writings deeply influenced the views of Herder (1730-1788).

HAMBURG, a small German State (623) which includes the free city of Hamburg (323; suburbs, 245), Bergedorf, and Cuxhaven; the city, the chief emporium of German commerce, is situated on the Elbe, 75 m. E. of the North Sea and 177 NW. of Berlin; was founded by Charlemagne in 808, and is to-day the fifth commercial city of the world; the old town is intersected by ca.n.a.ls, while the new portion, built since 1842, is s.p.a.ciously laid out; the town library, a fine building, contains 400,000 volumes; its princ.i.p.al manufactures embrace cigar-making, distilling, brewing, sugar-refining, &c.

HAMELN (14), a quaint old Prussian town and fortress in the province of Hanover, situated at the junction of the Hamel with the Weser, 25 m.

SW. of Hanover city; a.s.sociated with the legend of the Pied Piper; a fine chain bridge spans the Weser; there are prosperous iron, paper, and leather works, breweries, &c.

HaMERKIN or HaMMERLEIN, the paternal name of THOMAS a KEMPIS (q. v.).

HAMERLING, ROBERT, Austrian poet, born at Kirchberg in the Forest, Lower Austria; his health gave way while teaching at Trieste, and while for upwards of 30 years an invalid in bed, he devoted himself to poetical composition; his fame rests chiefly on his satirical epics and lyric compositions, among the former "The King of Iron," "The Seven Deadly Sins," and "Cupid and Psyche," and among the latter "Venus in Exile"

(1830-1889).

HAMERTON, PHILIP GILBERT, English critic, particularly of art; edited the Portfolio, an art magazine; author of a story of life in France ent.i.tled "Marmorne," and of a volume of essays ent.i.tled "The Intellectual Life" (1834-1894).

HAMILCAR BARCA, a Carthaginian general and one of the greatest, the father of Hannibal, commanded in Sicily, and held his ground there against the Romans for six years; concluded a peace with them and ended the First Punic War; invaded Spain with a view to invade Italy by the Alps, and after gaining a footing there fell in battle; had his son with him, a boy of nine, and made him swear upon the altar before he died eternal enmity to Rome; _d_. 229 B.C.

HAMILTON (25), a town of Lanarks.h.i.+re, on the Clyde, 10 m. SE. of Glasgow; mining is the chief industry. Also a city (49) of Canada, on Burlington Bay, at the west end of Lake Ontario, 40 m. SW. of Toronto; is an important railway centre, and has manufactories of iron, cotton, and woollen goods, &c.

HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, American soldier and statesman, born in West Indies; entered the American army, fought in the War of Independence, became commander-in-chief, represented New York State in Congress, contributed by his essays to the favourable reception of the federal const.i.tution, and under it did good service on behalf of his country; was mortally wounded in a duel (1757-1804).

HAMILTON, ELIZABETH, novelist and essayist, born, of Scottish parentage, in Belfast; is remembered for her early advocacy of the higher education of women and for her faithful pictures of lowly Scottish life; "Letters of a Hindoo Rajah" and "Modern Philosophers" were clever skits on the prevailing scepticism and republicanism of the time; "The Cottagers of Glenburnie" is her best novel (1758-1816).

HAMILTON, EMMA, LADY, _nee_ Amy Lyon or "Hart," born at Ness, Ches.h.i.+re, a labourer's daughter; appeared as the Lady in the charlatan Graham's "Temple of Health," London; became the mother of two illegitimate children, and subsequently was the "geliebte" of the Hon.

Charles Greville and of his uncle Sir Wm. Hamilton, whose wife she became in 1791; her notorious and lawless intimacy with Lord Nelson began in 1793, and in 1801 their daughter Horatia was born; although left a widow with a goodly fortune, she fell into debt and died in poverty (1763-1815).

HAMILTON, PATRICK, a Scottish martyr, born at the close of the 15th century, probably in Glasgow; returning from his continental studies at Paris and Louvain he came to St. Andrews University, where his Lutheran sympathies involved him in trouble; he escaped to the Continent, visited Wittenberg, the home of Luther, and then settled in Marburg, but returned to Scotland at the close of the same year (1527) and married; the following year he was burned at the stake in St. Andrews for heresy; his eager and winning nature and love of knowledge, together with his early martyrdom, have served to invest him with a special interest.

HAMILTON, WILLIAM, a minor Scottish poet, born near Uphall, Linlithgows.h.i.+re; was a contributor to Ramsay's _Tea-Table Miscellany_; became involved in the second Jacobite rising and fled to France; subsequently he was permitted to return and take possession of his father's estate of Bangour, near Uphall; his collected poems include the beautiful and pathetic ballad, "The Braes of Yarrow" (1704-1754).

HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM, distinguished philosopher of the Scotch school, born in Glasgow; studied there and in Oxford with distinction; bred for the bar, but hardly ever practised; contributed to the _Edinburgh Review_, having previously published "Discussions in Philosophy"; in 1836 he became professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Edinburgh University, in which capacity he exercised a great influence in the domain of philosophic speculation; his lectures were published after his death; his system was attacked by John Stuart Mill, and criticised in part by Dr. Hutchison Stirling, who, while deducting materially from his repute as an original thinker, describes his "writings as always brilliant, forcible, clear, and, where information is concerned, both entertaining and instructive"; was "almost the only _earnest_ man,"

Carlyle testifies, he found in Edinburgh on his visit from Craigenputtock to the city in 1833 (1788-1856).

HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM ROWAN, an eminent mathematician, born in Dublin; such was his precocity that at 13 he was versed in thirteen languages, and by 17 was an acknowledged master in mathematical science; while yet an undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin, he was appointed in 1827 professor of Astronomy in Dublin University, and Astronomer-Royal of Ireland; his mathematical works and treatises, of the most original and a far-reaching character, brought him a European reputation, and embraced his "Theory of Systems of Rays," "A General Method in Dynamics,"

and the invention of "Quaternions"; he was knighted in 1835 (1805-1865).

HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM, a system of teaching languages by interlinear translation.

HAMMER, German Orientalist and historian, born at Gratz; author of a "History of the Ottoman Empire" (1774-1856).

HAMMERFEST (2), the most northerly town in Europe; is situated on the barren island of Kvalo, and is the port of the Norwegian province of Finmark; fis.h.i.+ng is the staple industry; during two months in summer the sun never sets.

HAMMERSMITH (97), a parliamentary borough of Middles.e.x, on the N.

side of the Thames, forms a part of W. London.

HAMMOND, HENRY, English divine, born at Chertsey; suffered as an adherent of the royal cause, being chaplain to Charles I.; author of "Paraphrase and Annotations of the New Testament" (1605-1660).