Hales

“ In 1798 he procured from the government some troops who tranquillised the country round Killeshandra. Hales was a good parish priest, ‘equally pleasing,’ says his biographer, ‘to the gentry and the lower orders.’ He was a kind-hearted, well-informed man, who told anecdotes well. ”

“ Hales, Alexander of, a scholastic philosopher, surnamed “Doctor Irrefragabilis,” who flourished in the 15th century; author of “Summa Theologiæ.”
Hales, John, the “Ever-memorable,” canon of Windsor; a most scholarly man, liberal-minded and highly cultured; was professor of Greek at Oxford; suffered great hardships under the Puritan supremacy (1584-1656) . ”

“ HALES, JOHN (1584–1656) , the 'ever memorable,' was born in St. James's parish, Bath, on 19 April 1584. His father, John Hales, of an old Somersetshire stock, had an estate at Highchurch, near Bath, and was steward to the Horner family. After passing through the Bath grammar school, Hales went to Oxford on 16 April 1597 as a scholar of Corpus Christi College, and graduated B.A. on 9 July 1603 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., ii. iii. 243) . His remarkable learning and philosophic acumen brought him under the notice of Sir Henry Savile, and secured his election as fellow of Merton in 1605. ”

“ He is probably the ‘frater Thomas de Hales’ whom Adam de Marisco mentions as a friend (Mon. Franciscana, i. 395, in Rolls Series) . The date thus arrived at is corroborated by allusions in his love song to ‘Henri our king,’ i.e. Henry III (l. 82; cf. l. 101) , and by the dates of some of the manuscripts of his works which belong to the thirteenth century. Hales is said to have been a doctor of theology at the Sorbonne, and famous for his learning as well in France and Italy as in England; but nothing further is known as to his life. ”

“ She reached the table, paused, and gave Hales a slow appraising look. In appearance he was not quite as she had expected, not quite as he had seemed as she looked at him from the balcony. But she was intensely, prejudiced against him. She would pardon a man many things and some sins if he were one she liked; but she was imperiously unforgiving toward those who looked favorably upon women of Madame Renault's caste; and, from what she had overheard, the Washington Hall episode placed Hales pretty low in the scale of men. ”

“ They were curious, delighted with such a perfect take off of the street preacher, who nightly damned them all—and to whom many gave their contributions, for didn't he have a wife and baby, and have to live?
"Well, Preble, we didn't expect ever to see you in a house of Babylon!" a man shouted.
Hales, after a moment's hard look at this person who seemed to have a daring sense of humor and some ability at acting, glanced through the jostling crowd for the poor tatterdemalion. He saw her, standing alone, half shrinking, staring, rigid. ”

“ It was not difficult, during their absence, to lead the conversation, which always veered either to the life or the death of the late lord; and, on this occasion, Sir Edward Hales made more particular inquiries than he had ever done before as to the last words and actions of a son who had been the pride of his life, not less than the centre of his affections. ”

“ Hales also held the professorship of oriental languages in the university. His first published work was ‘Sonorum doctrina rationalis et experimentalis,’ London, 1778, 8vo, a vindication and confirmation from recent experiments of Newton's theory of sounds. In 1782 he published ‘De motibus Planetarum dissertatio,’ Dublin, 12mo, on the motions of the planets in eccentric orbits, according to the Newtonian theory. In 1784 he printed at his own expense ‘Analysis Aequationum,’ Dublin, 4to. ”

“ To return to Hales’ birth. It is of interest to note how he fits into the changing procession of lives, to see what great men overlap his youth, who were his contemporaries in his maturity, and who were appearing on the scientific stage as he was leaving it.
Sir Isaac Newton was the dominant figure in English science while Hales was developing. He died in 1727, the year in which Hales published his Vegetable Staticks, a book, which like the Origin of Species, appeared when its author was 50 years of age. ”

“ When the protector, the duke of Somerset, was deprived of his authority in 1550, Hales left England and lived for some time at Strassburg and Frankfort, returning to his own country on the accession of Elizabeth. ”

“ Laud evidently saw the mettle of the man with whom he had to deal, and what a very dangerous, rational opponent he was, so he made him his own chaplain, and got the king to offer him a canonry at Windsor in such a way that refusal, much to Hales's distaste, was out of the question thus binding him to silence in a manner that would make further speech ungracious. "And so," said Hales, quietly grumbling at his wealthy loss of independence, "I had a hundred and fifty more pounds a year than I cared to spend." ”

“ The authorities for the life of Hales are given in my article on him in the Dictionary of National Biography. Botanists in general probably take their knowledge of the main facts of his life from Sachs' History of Botany. It is therefore worth while to point out that both the original and the English translation (1890) contain the incorrect statement that Hales was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and that he held the living of Riddington, whereas he is one of the glories of Corpus, and was perpetual curate of Teddington. ”

“ Then jerking his head around for scarcely more than half of a backward glance at what he aimed, he shot; and, instantly, he faced about and shot again, point-blank into the body of Black Perry. The next moment Hales' gun was leveled at the head of the bartender, but the fellow had both hands in the air and his mouth open.
"Don't shoot! Ow, don't shoot!" he begged.
"The reason I don't shoot," said Hales, "is not because your hands are up, but because I want one of you alive to tell the miners just what you tried to do—and why? Why did you?" ”

“ The following extract from Plowden's ‘Report’ may confirm the conjecture that Shakespeare took a hint from this case: ‘Sir James Hales was dead, and how came he to his death? It may be answered by drowning; and who drowned him?—Sir James Hales; and when did he drown him?—in his lifetime. So that Sir James Hales being alive caused Sir James Hales to die; and the act of a living man was the death of a dead man. ”

“ But besides the conflict between the manufacturers and their employees, with which much of the book is concerned, there is the sharp contrast between the Hales, born and bred in the south of England, and the mill-owners in whose society they are placed. Mr. Hale, indecisive, inactive, in whom thought is more [Pg 284] powerful than reality, is as helpless as a child among these men of action, and utterly unable to cope with the problems they are facing. Margaret, the refined daughter of a poor clergyman, is contrasted with the proud Mrs. ”

“ Mr. John Hales dyed at Mris Powney's house, a widow-woman, in Eaton, opposite to the churchyard, adjoyning to the Christopher Inne southwards. 'Tis the howse where I sawe him.
She is a very good woman and of a gratefull spirit. She told me that when she was maried, Mr. Hales was very bountifull to them in helping them [1040] to live in the world. She was very gratefull to him and respectfull to him.
She told me that Mr. Hales was the common godfather there, and 'twas pretty to see, as he walked to Windsor, how his godchildren asked him blessing [1041] . ”

“ Professor Hales is very much of the opinion of Mr. Sala respecting the labours of the ``blunder fiend,'' and he sent an amusing letter to the Athenum, in which he pointed out a curious misprint in one of his own books. ”

“ In 1732 he was named one of a committee for establishing a colony in Georgia, and the next year he received the degree of doctor of divinity from Oxford. He was appointed almoner to the princess-dowager of Wales in 1750. On the death of Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, Hales was chosen foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences. ”

“ For summer tourists to handle these intricate problems in a theological spirit would be altogether absurd; but, for us, these great theologians were also architects who undertook to build a Church Intellectual, corresponding bit by bit to the Church Administrative, both expressing—and expressed by—the Church Architectural. Alexander Hales, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and the rest, were artists; ”

“ The black smoke of the now silenced guns drifted with slow whorling, weaving itself into a transparent, film-like shadow as it rose upward against the low ceiling; and the Magnolia was for a moment quiet as if all were dead.
Hales glanced at the caps on the chamber nipples of his revolver to see how many shots were left for what need he might have, and held the gun at his hip, muzzle up, thumb on the hammer, and peered watchfully through the smoke. The menace of his watchfulness kept men quiet and motionless as they waited, expectantly.
Don José slowly thrust his revolver into its holster. ”

“ Just when you are beginning to wonder if he has converted himself into a catherine-wheel or a corkscrew, he straightens himself out horizontally, remains poised for the millionth part of a second like a he-angel that has moulted his wings; then down he dives perpendicularly like a tornado in trousers, skinning forehead, nose, and chin as he kisses the drum-like surface of the hide. No, on the whole, I do not consider it healthy to try to fool with a married woman in a Boer fighting laager, apart altogether from the moral aspect of the affair. ”

“ They may have an intense respect and an unbounded love for the British—I have read scores of times that they have—but I beg leave to doubt it. Physically speaking they are a superb race of men, these sable subjects of our Queen. Their heads sit upon their necks with a bold, defiant poise, their throats are full, round, and muscular, their chests magnificent, broad and deep, tapering swiftly towards the waist. Their arms and legs are beautifully fashioned for strong, swift deeds. Strip an ordinary white man and put him amongst those black warriors, and he would look like a human clothes rack. ”

“ In England numerous Eclogues made their appearance. Amongst the earliest and the best of these were Spenser's. It would perhaps be unjust to treat this modern pastoral literature as altogether an affectation. However unreal, the pastoral world had its charms—a pleasant feeling imparted of emancipation, a deep quietude, a sweet tranquillity. If vulgar men discovered their new worlds, and trafficked and bustled there, why should not the poet discover his Arcadia, and repose at his ease in it, secure from the noises of feet coming and going over the roads of the earth? ”

“ It was the voice of millions, it was the great heart-beats of a mighty nation, it was a welcome and a warning—a welcome to the descendants of the 'prentice lads of Old London, a warning to the world. I caught the echoes in my hands, I hugged them to my heart, I let them pour into my brain, and this is the tale they told: "Sluggish we are, ye people, slow to wake, strong in the strength of conscious might. Jibe at us, jeer at us, flout us and threaten us; but beware the day we turn in our strength. ”

“ He here set forth special teachings of his great master Plato, and abandoned himself to the high spiritual contemplations he loved. But perhaps the finest of these four hymns is the second—that in honour of Beauty. Beauty was indeed the one worship of Spenser's life—not mere material beauty—not 'the goodly hew of white and red with which the cheekes are sprinkled,' or 'the sweete rosy leaves so fairly spred upon the lips,' or 'that golden wyre,' or 'those sparckling stars so bright,' but that inner spiritual beauty, of which fair hair and bright eyes are but external expressions. ”

“ Let us conclude our glance at this sad fall from harmony by quoting the excellent words of one who was a bitter opponent of Harvey in this as in other matters. 'The hexameter verse,' says Nash in his Fowre Letters Confuted, 1592, 'I graunt to be a gentleman of an auncient house (so is many an English beggar) , yet this clyme of ours hee cannot thrive in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in; hee goes twitching and hopping in our language like a man running upon quagmiers up the hill in one syllable and down the dale in another ”

“ There is nothing to justify the theory that the Edmund Spenser of the register was the poet. It is simply incredible that Spenser, one who, as has been said, poured out all his soul in his poems, should have wooed and won some fair lady to his wife, without ever a poetical allusion to his courtship and his triumph. It is not at all likely, as far as one can judge from their titles, that any one of his lost works was devoted to the celebration of any such successful passion. ”

“ The second of these collected poems—The Teares of the Muses—dedicated, as we have seen, to one of the poet's fair cousins, the Lady Strange, deplores the general intellectual condition of the time. It is doubtful whether Spenser fully conceived what a brilliant literary age was beginning about the year 1590. Perhaps his long absence in Ireland, the death of Sidney who was the great hope of England Spenser knew, the ecclesiastical controversies raging when he revisited England, may partly account for his despondent tone with reference to literature. ”