Part 247 (1/2)
HOPKINS, SAMUEL, an American divine, born at Waterbury, Connecticut; was pastor at Newport; was a Calvinist in theology, but of a special type, as he denied imputation and insisted on disinterested benevolence as the mark of a Christian; gave name to a party, Hopkinsians, as they were called, who held the same views (1721-1803).
HORATII. See CURIATII
HORATIUS FLACCUS or HORACE, Roman poet, born at Venusium, in Apulia; was educated at Rome and in Athens, and when there in his twenty-first year joined Marcus Brutus, became a military tribune, and fought at Philippi, after which he submitted to the conqueror and returned to Rome to find his estate forfeited; for a time afterwards he had to be content with a frugal life, but by-and-by he attracted the notice of Virgil, and he introduced him to Maecenas, who took him into his friends.h.i.+p and bestowed on him a small farm, to which he retired and on which he lived in comfort for the rest of his life; his works, all in verse, consist of odes, satires, and epistles, and reveal an easy-going man of the world, of great practical sagacity and wise remark; they abound in happy phrases and quotable pa.s.sages (65-8 B.C.).
HORN, CAPE, the most southern point of America, is a lofty, precipitous, and barren promontory of Hermit Island, in the Fuegian Archipelago.
HORN GATE, the gate of dreams which come true, as distinct from the Ivory Gate, through which the visions seen are shadowy and unreal.
HORNBOOK, was a sheet of vellum or paper used in early times for teaching the rudiments of education, on which were inscribed the alphabet in black or Roman letters, some monosyllables, the Lord's Prayer, and the Roman numerals; this sheet was covered with a slice of transparent horn, and was still in use in George II.'s reign.
HORROCKS, JEREMIAH, a celebrated astronomer, born at Toxteth, near Liverpool; pa.s.sed through Cambridge, took orders, and received the curacy of Hoole, Lancas.h.i.+re; was devoted to astronomy, and was the first to observe the transit of Venus, of which he gave an account in his treatise ”Venus in Sole Visa” (1619-1641).
HORSE-POWER, the unit of work of a steam-engine, being the power to raise 33,000 lbs. one foot in one minute.
HORSHAM (9), a market-town of Suss.e.x, 26 m. NW. of Brighton; has a fine specimen of an Early English church, and does a thriving trade in brewing, tanning, iron-founding, &c.
HORSLEY, SAMUEL, English prelate, born in London; celebrated as the champion of orthodoxy against the attacks of PRIESTLEY (q. v.), in which he showed great learning but much bitterness, which, however, brought him church preferment; was in succession bishop of St. Davids, Rochester, and St. Asaph (1733-1806).
HOSEA, a Hebrew prophet, a native of the northern kingdom of Israel, and a contemporary of Isaiah, the burden of whose prophecy is, Israel has by her idolatries and immoralities forsaken the Lord, and the Lord has forsaken Israel, in whom alone her salvation is to be found.
HOSHANGABAD (17), capital of a district of the same name in the Central Provinces, India, situated on the Nerbudda River, 40 m. SE. of Bhopal; is a military station, and has a considerable trade in cotton, grain, &c.
HOs.h.i.+ARPUR (22), a town in the Punjab, at the base of the Siwalik Hills, 90 m. E. of Lah.o.r.e; is capital of a district, and is the seat of an American mission.
HOSPITALLERS, the name given to several religious brotherhoods or orders of knights under vow to provide and care for the sick and wounded, originally in connection with pilgrimages and expeditions to Jerusalem.
HOSPODAR, a t.i.tle once borne by the kings of Poland and the governors of Moldavia and Wallachia.
HOSTILIUS, TULLUS, the third king of Rome from 670 to 638 B.C.; showed more zeal for conquest than for the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds, who in the end smote him and his whole house with fire.
HOTTENTOTS, a name somewhat indiscriminately applied to the first known inhabitants of Cape Colony, who, however, comprised two main tribes, the Khoikhoi and the Bushmen, in many respects dissimilar, but speaking languages characterised alike by harsh and clicking sounds, a circ.u.mstance which induced the early Dutch settlers to call them Hottentots, which means practically ”jabberers”; the great majority are semi-civilised now, and servile imitators of their conquerors.
HOUDON, JEAN-ANTOINE, an eminent French sculptor, born of humble parentage at Versailles; at 20 he won the _prix de Rome_, and for 10 years studied with enthusiasm the early masters at Rome, where he produced his great statue of St. Bruno; he was elected in turn a member of the Academy and of the Inst.i.tute, Paris, and in 1805 became professor at the ecole des Beaux-Arts; he was unrivalled in portraiture, and executed statues of Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Mirabeau, Was.h.i.+ngton, Napoleon, and others (1741-1828).
HOUGHTON, RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD, poet and patron of letters, born of good family at Fryston Hall, Pontefract; graduated at Cambridge; entered Parliament as a Conservative, but subsequently went over to the other side, and in 1863 was raised to the peerage by Palmerston; was a man of varied interests, a traveller, leader of society, philanthropist, and above all the friend and patron of authors; his works include various volumes of poetry, ”Life of Keats,” ”Monographs, Personal and Social,”