James Wood

“ Harpies, fabulous ravenous creatures, living in filth and defiling everything they touch, with the head and breast of a woman, the wings and claws of a bird, and a face pale with hunger, the personification of whirlwinds and storms, conceived of as merely ravening, wasting powers. ”

“ 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” ”

“ Primary education is free, but not compulsory. Religion is not established, but about two-thirds of the people are Protestants, the remainder Roman Catholics. The birth of Holland as an independent European power took place in the 16th century, when, after an heroic and protracted struggle, it freed itself from the yoke of Spain, then the most powerful nation in the world.
Holland, Henry Richard Fox Vassall-Holland, Baron, statesman, born in Wilts; succeeded to the title in 1774; entered on a public career as a Whig under the patronage of his uncle Charles James Fox ”

“ Stirling calls “The Secret of Hegel,” and an open secret it is, for he finds it pervading the whole system; “open where you will in Hegel,” he says, “you find him always engaged in saying pretty well the same thing”; always identity by otherness passing into selfness, or making that for itself which is at first in itself;—a philosophy which is anticipated by the doctrine of St. Paul, which represents God as the One from whom are all things as Father, and through whom are all things as Son, and to whom are all things as Spirit, the One who is thus All ”

“ Holland no longer is the premier shipping country of Europe, a position it held in the 17th century, but it still maintains a busy carrying trade with all parts of the world, especially with its many rich colonies in the East and West Indies, which comprise an area 64 times larger than Holland itself. The government is a limited monarchy ”

“ Harvard University, the oldest and premier educational institution in the United States, is located at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 3 m. W. of Boston; it is named after the Rev. John Harvard, a graduate of Cambridge, who by the bequest of his library and small fortune helped to launch the institution in 1638; it was originally intended for the training of youths for the Puritan ministry, but it has during the present century been extended into a university of the first rank, under emancipation from all sectarian control ”

“ Henry of Huntingdon, a noted English chronicler of the 12th century, who became archdeacon of Huntingdon, and wrote a Latin history of England down to the death of Stephen in 1154.
Henry the Navigator, son of John I., king of Portugal, born at Oporto; an able, enterprising man, animated with a zeal for maritime discovery, and who at his own expense sent out voyagers who discovered the Madeira Islands and explored the coast of Africa as far as Cape Blanco; is said to have been the first to employ the compass for purposes of navigation ”

“ Hong-Kong (222) , an island lying off the mouth of the Canton River, South China; was ceded to Britain in 1842; is hilly and unproductive, but is well watered and tolerably healthy; it owes its great importance as a commercial centre to its favourable position, its magnificent harbour, and to its having been made a free port and the head-quarters of the European banks; opium is the chief import, silk and tea the principal exports; Victoria, a handsome city on the N. side, is the capital, seat of the British governor, &c. ”

“ Holbein, Hans, a German painter, born at Augsburg, trained by his father; attracted the attention of Erasmus, who took a great interest in him, and persuaded him to go to England, and introduced him to Sir Thomas More, who in turn introduced him to Henry VIII.; here under Henry's patronage he remained, executing numerous portraits of his courtiers, till his death of the plague; his “Last Supper” and “Dance of Death” are well known (1497-1554) . ”

“ Holmes, Oliver Wendell, a celebrated American author, born the son of a Congregational minister, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and graduated in arts and medicine at Harvard; became professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth College, but resigned and settled in Boston as a general practitioner; in 1847 he was elected to the chair of Anatomy in Harvard, a position he held till his resignation in 1882; a successful professor, it is as an essayist, novelist, and poet that he is remembered ”

“ Holberg, Ludwig, Baron, an eminent Danish author, born at Bergen, in Norway; graduated at Copenhagen, where, after travel, he became professor of Metaphysics; subsequently he held in turn the chairs of Eloquence and of History; he was an author of great versatility, excelling as a writer of satires, comedies, and as historian of Church and State; his autobiography is an interesting work, and many of his plays and other works are among the accepted classics of Danish literature (1684-1754) .
Holcroft, Thomas, journalist and political novelist, born in London; began life as an actor ”

“ Herkomer, Hubert, artist, born at Waal, Bavaria; his father removing to England in 1857, young Hubert became a distinguished student of the Southampton School of Art; he has been a prolific artist, and many of his portraits have become celebrated; the “Last Muster” (1875) is reckoned his finest work; he has been twice Slade professor at Oxford, and in 1890 was elected R.A.; the School of Art at Bushey was founded by him, and he has displayed his versatility of talent in carving, engraving, and writing, as well as in painting ”

“ Honduras broke away from Spain in 1821, and became an independent State in 1839; the Government is vested in a President and six ministers, and the legislative power in a Congress of 37 members; the population is, with the exception of a few thousands, composed of blacks; Tegucigalpa (12) is the capital.
Hone, William, miscellaneous writer and political satirist, born at Bath; threw up his position as a law clerk in London and started a print and book shop; became a busy contributor to newspapers, and involved himself in serious trouble by the freedom of his political parodies and satires ”

“ Hecker, Friedrich Karl Franz, a German revolutionary, born at Eichtersheim, Baden; practised as an advocate in Mannheim, and in 1842 became an active democrat and Socialist; frustrated in an attempt during the '48 Revolution to create a republican assembly, he headed a revolutionary attack upon Baden, was defeated, and subsequently settled in the United States, where he took to farming; took part in the Civil War at the head of a regiment of Germans, and became a commander of a brigade (1811-1881) . ”

“ German since 1890; consists of the Oberland, a plateau, with some 400 houses, and the Unterland on the shore, 206 ft. beneath, with a group of 70 dwellings. In the summer it is crowded with visitors, bathing being the chief attraction; fishing is the staple industry of the native Frisians.
Heliodorus, the most noted and earliest of the Greek romancists, born at Emesa, Syria; flourished in the second half of the 3rd century A.D.; his romance “Æthiopica” is a love tale of great beauty and told with naïve simplicity ”

“ Hobart (25) , capital of Tasmania, is situated on the estuary of the Derwent, at the base of Mount Wellington; is handsomely laid out in the form of a square; is the seat of government, and has many fine public buildings; has a splendid natural harbour; the manufacture of flour, jam, leather, besides brewing, shipbuilding, and iron-founding, are its chief industries; it has extensive suburbs, and is a favourite health resort.
Hobart Pasha, Turkish admiral; was a son of the Duke of Buckingham; distinguished himself in the British navy before he entered the Turkish service ”

“ Heem, Jan Davidsz van, a famous Dutch painter, born at Utrecht; had a prosperous and uneventful career in Antwerp, where in 1635 he became a member of the Guild of Painters; he is considered the greatest of the “still life” painters; his pictures, masterpieces of colouring and chiaroscuro, have a great monetary value, and are to be found in the famous galleries of Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, &c. (1606-1684) .
Heeren, Ludwig, a German historian; professor of History at Göttingen ”

“ Hastings, Warren, first Governor-General of India, born at Churchill, Oxfordshire; early left an orphan, he was maintained at Westminster School by his uncle, and at 17 received a clerkship in the East India Company; for 14 years his life was occupied in mercantile and political work, at the close of which time he returned to England; in 1769 he was back in India as a member of the Madras Council; married the divorced wife of Baron Imhoff, and in 1772 was appointed President of the Council in Bengal ”

“ Hayti (Hispaniola or Santo Domingo) , next to Cuba the largest of the W. Indian Islands, in the group of the Greater Antilles, lies midway between Cuba on the W. and Porto Rico on the E.; its area, somewhat larger than Scotland, is apportioned between the negro Republic of Hayti in the E. and the mulatto Dominican Republic in the W.; the island is mountainous, and forests of valuable timber abound; a warm, moist climate favours rice, cotton, &c., and minerals are plentiful; but during this century, under native government, the island has been retrogressive ”

“ Hercules, the typical hero of the Greeks, son of Zeus and Alkmene, and the tried therefore of Hera, who persecuted him from his cradle, sending two serpents to devour him as he lay there, but which he strangled with his arms; grown into manhood, and distinguished for his stature and strength, was doomed by the artifice of Hera to a series of perilous adventures before he could claim his rights as a son of his father ”

“ However individualistic in feature, as working through the conscience, it yet relates itself to the whole moral world, and however it may express itself, it beats in accord with the pulse of eternity. ”

“ 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 Lanarkshire, on the Clyde, 10 m. SE. of Glasgow; mining is the chief industry. ”

“ Hooghly or Hûgli, 1, the most important and most westerly of the several branches into which the Ganges divides on approaching the sea, breaks away from the main channel near Santipur, and flowing in a southerly direction past Calcutta, reaches the Bay of Bengal after a course of 145 m.; navigation is rendered hazardous by the accumulating and shifting silt; the “bore” rushes up with great rapidity, and attains a height of 7 ft. 2, A city (33) on the western bank of the river, 25 m. N. of Calcutta; is capital of a district, and has a college for English and Asiatic literature. ”

“ Henry V., king of England from 1413 to 1422, son of preceding, born at Monmouth; during the wars of his father's reign he gave evidence of his abilities as a soldier, distinguishing himself specially by his conquest of Wales; on his accession to the throne he renewed the claims put forward by Edward III. to the French crown, and with the support of his people embarked on his great struggle to win the kingdom of France ”

“ Hesiod, one of the earliest Greek poets, born in Boeotia, lived in the 8th century B.C., chiefly at Orchomenos, probably of humble birth; of the works ascribed to him the principal were the “Works and Days” the “Theogony,” and the “Shield of Hercules”; his poems treat of the quiet pursuits of ordinary life, the origin of the world, the gods and heroes, while those of Homer are occupied with the restless and active enterprises of the heroic age. ”

“ Harry, Blind, a famous Scottish minstrel who flourished in the 15th century; the few particulars of his life which have come down to us represent him as a blind and vagrant poet, living by reciting poems “before princes and peers”; to him is attributed the celebrated poem, “The Life of that Noble Champion of Scotland, Sir William Wallace, Knight,” completed about 1488, a spirited, if partly apocryphal, account of Wallace, running to 11,861 lines in length. ”

“ Herod, the name of a family of Idumæan origin but Jewish creed, who rose into power in Judea shortly prior to the dissolution of the Jewish nationality; the chief members of which were Herod The Great, king of the Jews by favour of the Romans, who made away with all his rivals, caused his own children to be strangled on suspicion of their conspiring against him, and died a painful death ”

“ NE. of London; it is an important packet station for Holland, has a good harbour and docks, with an increasing commerce.
Harz Mountains, a mountain range of N. Germany, stretching for 57 m. between the Weser and the Elbe to the S. of Brunswick; it forms a picturesque and diversified highland, is a favourite resort of tourists, and rises to its greatest elevation in the far-famed Brocken (q. v.) ; the scene of the Walpurgisnacht in “Faust”; silver, iron, and other metals are found in considerable quantities, and, with the extensive forests, give rise to a prosperous mining and timber industry. ”