The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 233

HARDICANUTE, king of England and Denmark, the son of Canute and his successor on the Danish throne; was king of England only in part till the death of his brother Harold, whom he survived only two years, but long enough to alienate his subjects by the re-imposition of the Danegelt; _d_. 1642.

HARDING, JOHN, or HARDYNG, an English rhyming chronicler in the reign of Edward IV.; had been a soldier, and fought at Agincourt (1378-1465).

HARDING, STEPHEN, a Benedictine monk, born in Devonshire, of n.o.ble descent, a born ascetic, who set himself to restore his order to its primitive austerity; retired with a few others into a dismal secluded place at Citeaux, and became abbot; was joined there by the great St.

Bernard, his kindred, and followers, to the great aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of the order; _d_. 1134.

HARDINGE, HENRY, VISCOUNT, a distinguished soldier and Governor-General of India, born at Wrotham, Kent; joined the army in 1798, and served through the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns, but wounded at Ligny he was unable to take part in the final struggle with Napoleon; he now turned his attention to politics; was Secretary of War under Wellington, and subsequently twice Chief Secretary for Ireland; in 1844 he was appointed Governor-General of India, and later distinguished himself under Gough in the first Sikh War; a viscountship and pension followed in 1845, and seven years later he succeeded Wellington as Commander-in-Chief of the British army (1785-1856).

HARDOUIN, JEAN, a French cla.s.sical scholar, born at Quimper, Brittany; early entered the Jesuit order; was from 1683 librarian of the College of Louis le Grand in Paris; he is chiefly remembered for his wild a.s.sertion that the bulk of cla.s.sical literature was spurious, and the work of 13th-century monks; Virgil's "aeneid" he declared to be an allegorical account of St. Peter's journey to Rome, and the original language of the New Testament to be Latin; his edition of Pliny, however, evinces real scholarship (1646-1729).

HARDWaR, a town on the Ganges, 39 m. NE. of Saharunpur, North-West Provinces; famous for its large annual influx of pilgrims seeking ablution in the sacred river; a sacred festival held every twelfth year attracts some 300,000 persons.

HARDY, THOMAS, novelist, born in Dorsetshire, with whose scenery he has made his readers familiar; bred an architect; first earned popularity in 1874 by his "Far from the Madding Crowd," which was followed by, among others, "The Return of the Native," "The Woodlanders," and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," the last in 1892, books which require to be read in order to appreciate the genius of the author; _b_. 1840.

HARDY, SIR THOMAS DUFFUS, an eminent palaeographer, born in Jamaica; he acquired his skill in MS. deciphering as a clerk in the Record Office in the Tower; in 1861 he was elected deputy-keeper of the Public Records, and nine years later received a knighthood; his great learning is displayed in his editions of various "Rolls" for the Record Commission, in his "Descriptive Catalogue of MSS.," &c. (1804-1878).

HARDY, SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN, BART., a brave naval officer, whose name is a.s.sociated with the closing scene of Nelson's life, born at Portisham, in Dorsetshire; as a commander in the battle of the Nile he greatly distinguished himself, and gained his post-commission to Nelson's flagship, the _Vanguard_; at Trafalgar he commanded the _Victory_, and subsequently brought Nelson's body to England; he received a baronetcy, and saw further service, eventually attaining to the rank of vice-admiral (1769-1839).

HARE, JULIUS CHARLES, archdeacon of Lewes, born at Vicenza; took orders in the Church, and in 1832 became, in succession to his uncle, rector of Hurstmonceaux, in Suss.e.x, the advowson of which was in his family, in which rectory he laboured till his death; he was of the school of Maurice; wrote "The Mission of the Comforter," and with his brother Augustus "Guesses at Truth"; had John Sterling as his curate for a short time, and edited his remains as well as wrote his Life, the latter in so exclusively ecclesiastical a reference as to dissatisfy Carlyle, his joint-trustee, and provoke him, as in duty bound, to write another which should exhibit their common friend in the more interesting light of a man earnestly struggling with the great burning problems of the time, calling for some wise solution by all of us, church and no church (1795-1855).

HAREM, the apartment or suite of apartments in a Mohammedan's house for the female inmates and their attendants, and the name given to the collective body of them.

HARFLEUR, a village in France with a strong fortress, 4 m. S. of Havre, taken by Henry V. in 1415, and retaken afterwards by both French and English, becoming finally French in 1450.

HARGRAVES, EDMUND, discoverer of the gold-field in Australia, born at Gosport, Devon; had been to California, concluded that as the geological formation was the same in Australia where he had come from, he would find gold there too and found it in New South Wales in 1851, for which the Government gave him 10,000 (1818-1890).

HARGREAVES, JAMES, inventor of the spinning-jenny, born at Standhill, near Blackburn; was a poor and illiterate weaver when in 1760 he, in conjunction with Robert Peel, brought out a carding-machine; in 1766 he invented the spinning-jenny, a machine which has since revolutionised the cotton-weaving industry, but which at the time evoked the angry resentment of the hand-weaver; he was driven from his native town and settled in Nottingham, where he started a spinning-mill; he failed to get his machine patented, and died in comparative poverty (1745-1778).

HARI-KARI, called also a "happy despatch," a form of suicide, now obsolete, permitted to offenders of high rank to escape the indignity of a public execution; the nature of it may be gathered from the name, "a gash in the belly."

HaRING, WILHELM, German novelist, born at Breslau; bred for law, but abandoned it for literature; wrote two romances, "Walladmor" and "Schloss Avalon," under the pseudonym of "Walter Scott," which imposed upon some; he afterwards a.s.sumed the name of Wilibald Alexis, a name by which he was long honourably known (1797-1871).

HARINGTON, SIR JOHN, courtier and miscellaneous writer, translated by desire of Queen Elizabeth Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" (1561-1612).

HARIRI, Arabic philologist and poet of the 11th century, born at Ba.s.sorah; celebrated far and wide as the author of "Makameat," a collection of tales in verse, the central figure in which is one Abu Seid, a clever and amusing production, and evincing a unique mastery of Arabic.

HARLAW, BATTLE OF, a battle fought at Harlaw, 18 m. NW. of Aberdeen, on 24th July 1411, which decided the supremacy of the Lowland Scots over the Highland.

HARLECH, an old Welsh town in Merionethshire, facing the sea, 10 m.

N. of Barmouth; its grim old castle by the sh.o.r.e was a Lancastrian fortress during the Wars of the Roses, and its capture by the Yorkists in 1468 was the occasion of the well-known song, "The March of the Men of Harlech."

HARLEQUIN, a character in a Christmas pantomime, in love with Columbine, presumed to be invisible, and deft at tricks to frustrate those of the clown, who is his rival lover.

HARLEY, ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD, a celebrated English politician, born of good family; entered Parliament shortly after the Revolution (1688) as a Whig, but after a period of vacillation threw in his lot with Tories and in 1701 became Speaker of the House; in 1704 he was a.s.sociated with St. John (Bolingbroke) in the Cabinet as Secretary of State, and set about undermining the influence of G.o.dolphin and Marlborough; he became Chancellor of the Exchequer and head of the Government; was created Earl of Oxford and Lord High Treasurer; from this point his power began to wane; was displaced by Bolingbroke at last in 1715; was impeached for intriguing with the Jacobites and sent to the Tower; two years later he was released, and the remainder of his life was spent in the pursuit of letters and in the building up of his famous collection of MSS., now deposited in the British Museum (1661-1724).

HARMATTAN, a hot withering wind blowing over the coast of Guinea to the Atlantic from the interior of Africa, more or less from December to February.

HARMODIUS, an Athenian who in 514 B.C. conspired with Aristogeiton, his friend, against Hipparchus and his brother Hippias, the tyrant, but being betrayed were put to death; they figured in the traditions of Athens as political martyrs, and as such were honoured with statues.

HARNACK, ADOLF, a German theologian, born at Dorpat; professor successively at Giessen, Marburg, and Berlin; has written on the history of dogma in the Christian Church, on Gnosticism, early Christian literature, and the Apostles' Creed, on the latter offensively to the orthodox; B. 1851.

HAROLD I., king of England from 1035 to 1040, younger son of c.n.u.t; the kingdom was practically divided between him and his brother Harthac.n.u.t; but the latter remaining in Denmark to protect his possessions there, England pa.s.sed into Harold's hands.

HAROLD II., the last of the Saxon kings of England, held the crown for a few months in 1066, was the second son of the great EARL G.o.dWIN (q. v.); in 1053 he succeeded his father in the earldom of the West Saxons, and during the later years of Edward's feeble rule was virtual administrator of the kingdom; on his accession to the throne his t.i.tle was immediately challenged by his brother Tostig, and William, Duke of Normandy; having crushed his brother's invasion at Stamford Bridge, he immediately hurried S. to meet the forces of William at Hastings. Norman strategy won the day, and Harold fell in the battle pierced through the eye by an arrow; historians unite in ascribing to him every kingly quality--a n.o.ble presence, sagacity, and a brave yet gentle nature.

HAROLD I. OF NORWAY, surnamed _Haarf.a.ger_ (fair-haired), by him the petty kingdoms of Norway were all conquered and knit into one compact realm; the story goes that he undertook this work to win the hand of his lady-love, and that he swore an oath neither to cut nor comb his hair till his task was done; _d_. 930.

HAROUN-AL-RASCHID ("Aaron the Orthodox or Just"), the most renowned of the Abbaside caliphs; succeeded to the caliphate in 786 on the death of his elder brother, El Hadi, and had for grand-vizier the Barmacide Yahya, to whom with his four sons he committed the administration of affairs, he the while making his court a centre of attraction to wise men, scholars, and artists, so that under him Bagdad became the capital of the civilised world; his glory was tarnished by one foul blot towards the end of his reign, and that was the ma.s.sacre out of jealousy of the Barmacide family, members of which had contributed so much to his fame, an act which he had soon occasion to repent, for it was followed by an insurrection which cost him his life; the halo that invests his memory otherwise was, however, more fabulous than real, and history shows him at his best to have been avaricious, resentful, and cruel.

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.

HARRINGTON, JAMES, political writer; author of a political romance ent.i.tled "The Commonwealth of Oceana," in which he argued that all secure government must be based on property, and for a democracy on this basis (1611-1677).

HARRIS, HOWEL, a noted Welsh Methodist, born at Trevecca, Brecon; embracing Calvinism, he at the age of 21 became an itinerant preacher, confining himself chiefly to Wales; in 1752 he took up his abode at Trevecca, where he erected a large house to accommodate those who sought his ministrations (1714-1773).

HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER, American writer, born in Georgia, U.S.; author of "Uncle Remus," his chief work a study of negro folk-lore, followed by interesting sketches and stories; _b_. 1848.