FOOTNOTES:

[1] In many parts of England it is generally called a

"hernser"--being a corruption of "heronsewe," which, as Professor

Skeat states (_Etymol. Dictionary_, p. 264), is a perfectly distinct

word from "heronshaw," commonly confounded with it. The further

corruption of "hernser" into "handsaw," as in the well-known proverb,

was easy in the mouth of men to whom hawking the heronsewe was

unfamiliar.

[2] It is the "Squacco-Heron" of modern British authors--the

distinctive name, given "Sguacco" by Willughby and Ray from

Aldrovandus, having been misspelt by Latham.

[3] The last-recorded instance of the bittern breeding in England was

in 1868, as mentioned by Stevenson (_Birds of Norfolk_, ii. 164).

[4] Richardson, a most accurate observer, asserts (_Fauna

Boreali-Americana_, ii. 374) that its booming (whence the epithet)

exactly resembles that of its Old-World congener, but American

ornithologists seem only to have heard the croaking note it makes

when disturbed.

[5] The very wonderful shoe-bird (_Balaeniceps_) has been regarded by

many authorities as allied to _Cancroma_; but there can be little

doubt that it is more nearly related to the genus _Scopus_ belonging

to the storks. The sun-bittern (_Eurypyga_) forms a family of itself,

allied to the rails and cranes.

HERPES (from the Gr. [Greek: herpein], to creep) an inflammation of the

true skin resulting from a lesion of the underlying nerve or its

ganglion, attended with the formation of isolated or grouped vesicles of

various sizes upon a reddened base. They contain a clear fluid, and

either rupture or dry up. Two well-marked varieties of herpes are

frequently met with. (a) In _herpes labialis et nasalis_ the eruption

occurs about the lips and nose. It is seen in cases of certain acute

febrile ailments, such as fevers, inflammation of the lungs or even in a

severe cold. It soon passes off. (b) In the _herpes zoster, zona_ or

"shingles" the eruption occurs in the course of one or more cutaneous

nerves, often on one side of the trunk, but it may be on the face, limbs

or other parts. It may occur at any age, but is probably more frequently

met with in elderly people. The appearance of the eruption is usually

preceded by severe stinging neuralgic pains for several days, and, not

only during the continuance of the herpetic spots, but long after they

have dried up and disappeared, these pains sometimes continue and give

rise to great suffering. The disease seldom recurs. The most that can be

done for its relief is to protect the parts with cotton wool or some

dusting powder, while the pain may be allayed by opiates or bromide of

potassium. Quinine internally is often of service.

HERRERA, FERNANDO DE (c. 1534-1597), Spanish lyrical poet, was born at

Seville. Although in minor orders, he addressed many impassioned poems

to the countess of Gelves, wife of Alvaro Colon de Portugal; but it is

suggested that these should be regarded as Platonic literary exercises

in the manner of Petrarch. As is shown by his _Anotaciones a las obras

de Garcilaso de la Vega_ (1580), Herrera had a boundless admiration for

the Italian poets, and continued the work of Boscan in naturalizing the

Italian metrical system in Spain. His commentary on Garcilaso involved

him in a series of literary polemics, and his verbal innovations laid

him open to attack. But, even if his amatory sonnets are condemned as

insincere in sentiment, their workmanship is admirable, while his odes

on the battle of Lepanto, on Don John of Austria, and the elegy on King

Sebastian of Portugal entitle him to rank as the greatest of Andalusian

poets and as the most important of the followers of Garcilaso de la Vega

(see VEGA). His poems were published in 1582, and reprinted with

additions in 1619; they are reissued in the _Biblioteca de autores

espanoles_, vol. xxxii. Of Herrera's prose works only the _Vida y muerta

de Tomas Moro_ (1592) survives; it is a translation of the life in

Thomas Stapleton's _Tres Thomae_ (1588).

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--E. Bourciez, "Les Sonnets de Fernando de Herrera,"

_Annales de la Faculte des Lettres de Bordeaux_ (1891); _Fernando de

Herrera, controversia sobre sus anotaciones a les obras de Garcilaso

de la Vega_ (Seville, 1870); A. Morel-Fatio, _L'Hymne sur Lepante_

(Paris, 1893).

HERRERA, FRANCISCO (1576-1656), surnamed el Viejo (the old), Spanish

historical and fresco painter, studied under Luis Fernandez in Seville,

his native city, where he spent most of his life. Although so rough and

coarse in manners that neither scholar nor child could remain with him,

the great talents of Herrera, and the promptitude with which he used

them, brought him abundant commissions. He was also a skilful worker in

bronze, an accomplishment that led to his being charged with coining

base money. From this accusation, whether true or false, he sought

sanctuary in the Jesuit college of San Hermenegildo, which he adorned

with a fine picture of its patron saint. Philip IV., on his visit to

Seville in 1624, having seen this picture, and learned the position of

the artist, pardoned him at once, warning him, however, that such powers

as his should not be degraded. In 1650 Herrera removed to Madrid, where

he lived in great honour till his death in 1656. Herrera was the first

to relinquish the timid Italian manner of the old Spanish school of

painting, and to initiate the free, vigorous touch and style which

reached such perfection in Velazquez, who had been for a short time his

pupil. His pictures are marked by an energy of design and freedom of

execution quite in keeping with his bold, rough character. He is said to

have used very long brushes in his painting; and it is also said that,

when pupils failed, his servant used to dash the colours on the canvas

with a broom under his directions, and that he worked them up into his

designs before they dried. The drawing in his pictures is correct, and

the colouring original and skilfully managed, so that the figures stand

out in striking relief. What has been considered his best easel-work,

the "Last Judgment," in the church of San Bernardo at Seville, is an

original and striking composition, showing in its treatment of the nude

how ill-founded the common belief was that Spanish painters, through

ignorance of anatomy, understood only the draped figure. Perhaps his

best fresco is that on the dome of the church of San Buenaventura; but

many of his frescoes have perished, some by the effects of the weather

and others by the artist's own carelessness in preparing his surfaces.

He has, however, preserved several of his own designs in etchings. For

his easel-works Herrera often chose such humble subjects as fairs,

carnivals, ale-houses and the like.

His son FRANCISCO HERRARA (1622-1685), surnamed el Mozo (the young), was

also an historical and fresco painter. Unable to endure his father's

cruelty, the younger Herrera, seizing what money he could find, fled

from Seville to Rome. There, instead of devoting himself to the

antiquities and the works of the old Italian masters, he gave himself up

to the study of architecture and perspective, with the view of becoming

a fresco-painter. He did not altogether neglect easel-work, but became

renowned for his pictures of still-life, flowers and fruit, and from his

skill in painting fish was called by the Italians _Lo Spagnuolo degli

pesci_. In later life he painted portraits with great success. He

returned to Seville on hearing of his father's death, and in 1660 was

appointed subdirector of the new academy there under Murillo. His

vanity, however, brooked the superiority of no one; and throwing up his

appointment he went to Madrid. There he was employed to paint a San

Hermenegildo for the barefooted Carmelites, and to decorate in fresco

the roof of the choir of San Felipe el Real. The success of this last

work procured for him a commission from Philip IV. to paint in fresco

the roof of the Atocha church. He chose as his subject for this the

Assumption of the Virgin. Soon afterwards he was rewarded with the title

of painter to the king, and was appointed superintendent of the royal

buildings. He died at Madrid in 1685. Herrera el Mozo was of a somewhat

similar temperament to his father, and offended many people by his

inordinate vanity and suspicious jealousy. His pictures are inferior to

the older Herrera's both in design and in execution; but in some of them

traces of the vigour of his father, who was his first teacher, are

visible. He was by no means an unskilful colourist, and was especially

master of the effects of chiaroscuro. As his best picture Sir Edmund

Head in his _Handbook_ names his "San Francisco," in Seville Cathedral.

An elder brother, known as Herrera el Rubio (the ruddy), who died very

young, gave great promise as a painter.

HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, ANTONIO DE (1549-1625), Spanish historian, was

born at Cuellar, in the province of Segovia in Spain. His father,

Roderigo de Tordesillas, and his mother, Agnes de Herrera, were both of

good family. After studying for some time in his native country, Herrera

proceeded to Italy, and there became secretary to Vespasian Gonzago,

with whom, on his appointment as viceroy of Navarre, he returned to

Spain. Gonzago, sensible of his secretary's abilities, commended him to

Philip II. of Spain; and that monarch appointed Herrera first

historiographer of the Indies, and one of the historiographers of

Castile. Placed thus in the enjoyment of an ample salary, Herrera

devoted the rest of his life to the pursuit of literature, retaining his

offices until the reign of Philip IV., by whom he was appointed

secretary of state very shortly before his death, which took place at

Madrid on the 29th of March 1625. Of Herrera's writings, the most

valuable is his _Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en

las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano_ (Madrid, 1601-1615, 4 vols.), a

work which relates the history of the Spanish-American colonies from

1492 to 1554. The author's official position gave him access to the

state papers and to other authentic sources not attainable by other

writers, while he did not scruple to borrow largely from other MSS.,

especially from that of Bartolome de Las Casas. He used his facilities

carefully and judiciously; and the result is a work on the whole

accurate and unprejudiced, and quite indispensable to the student either

of the history of the early colonies, or of the institutions and

customs of the aboriginal American peoples. Although it is written in

the form of annals, mistakes are not wanting, and several glaring

anachronisms have been pointed out by M. J. Quintana. "If," to quote Dr

Robertson, "by attempting to relate the various occurrences in the New

World in a strict chronological order, the arrangement of events in his

work had not been rendered so perplexed, disconnected and obscure that

it is an unpleasant task to collect from different parts of his book and

piece together the detached shreds of a story, he might justly have been

ranked among the most eminent historians of his country." This work was

republished in 1730, and has been translated into English by J. Stevens

(London, 1740), and into other European languages.

Herrera's other works are the following: _Historia de lo sucedido en

Escocia e Inglaterra en quarenta y quatro anos que vivio la reyna

Maria Estuarda_ (Madrid, 1589); _Cinco libros de la historia de

Portugal, y conquista de las islas de los Acores, 1582-1583_ (Madrid,

1591); _Historia de lo sucedido en Francia, 1585-1594_ (Madrid, 1598);

_Historia general del mundo del tiempo del rey Felipe II, desde 1559

hasta su muerte_ (Madrid, 1601-1612, 3 vols.); _Tratado, relacion, y

discurso historico de los movimientos de Aragon_ (Madrid, 1612);

_Comentarios de los hechos de los Espanoles, Franceses, y Venecianos

en Italia, &c., 1281-1559_ (Madrid, 1624, seq.). See W. H. Prescott,

_History of the Conquest of Mexico_, vol. ii.

HERRICK, ROBERT (1591-1674), English poet, was born at Cheapside,

London, and baptized on the 24th of August 1591. He belonged to an old

Leicestershire family which had settled in London. He was the seventh

child of Nicholas Herrick, goldsmith, of the city of London, who died in

1592, under suspicion of suicide. The children were brought up by their

uncle, Sir William Herrick, one of the richest goldsmiths of the day, to

whom in 1607 Robert was bound apprentice. He had probably been educated

at Westminster school, and in 1614 he proceeded to Cambridge; and it was

no doubt during his apprenticeship that the young poet was introduced to

that circle of wits which he was afterwards to adorn. He seems to have

been present at the first performance of _The Alchemist_ in 1610, and it

was probably about this time that Ben Jonson adopted him as his poetical

"son." He entered the university as fellow-commoner of St John's

College, and he remained there until, in 1616, upon taking his degree,

he removed to Trinity Hall. A lively series of fourteen letters to his

uncle, mainly begging for money, exists at Beaumanoir, and shows that

Herrick suffered much from poverty at the university. He took his B.A.

in 1617, and in 1620 he became master of arts. From this date until 1627

we entirely lose sight of him; it has been variously conjectured that he

spent these years preparing for the ministry at Cambridge, or in much

looser pursuits in London. In 1629 (September 30) he was presented by

the king to the vicarage of Dean Prior, not far from Totnes in

Devonshire. At Dean Prior he resided quietly until 1648, when he was

ejected by the Puritans. The solitude there oppressed him at first; the

village was dull and remote, and he felt very bitterly that he was cut

off from all literary and social associations; but soon the quiet

existence in Devonshire soothed and delighted him. He was pleased with

the rural and semi-pagan customs that survived in the village, and in

some of his most charming verses he has immortalized the morris-dances,

wakes and quintains, the Christmas mummers and the Twelfth Night

revellings, that diversified the quiet of Dean Prior. Herrick never

married, but lived at the vicarage surrounded by a happy family of pets,

and tended by an excellent old servant named Prudence Baldwin. His first

appearance in print was in some verses he contributed to _A Description

of the King and Queen of Fairies_, in 1635. In 1650 a volume of _Wit's

Recreations_ contained sixty-two small poems afterwards acknowledged by

Herrick in the _Hesperides_, and one not reprinted until our own day.

These partial appearances make it probable that he visited London from

time to time. We have few hints of his life as a clergyman. Anthony Wood

says that Herricks's sermons were florid and witty, and that he was

"beloved by the neighbouring gentry." A very aged woman, one Dorothy

King, stated that the poet once threw his sermon at his congregation,

cursing them for their inattention. The same old woman recollected his

favourite pig, which he taught to drink out of a tankard. He was a

devotedly loyal supporter of the king during the Civil War, and

immediately upon his ejection in 1648 he published his celebrated

collection of lyrical poems, entitled _Hesperides; or the Works both

Human and Divine of Robert Herrick_. The "divine works" bore the title

of _Noble Numbers_ and the date 1647. That he was reduced to great

poverty in London has been stated, but there is no evidence of the fact.

In August 1662 Herrick returned to Dean Prior, supplanting his own

supplanter, Dr John Syms. He died in his eighty-fourth year, and was

buried at Dean Prior, October 15, 1674. A monument was erected to his

memory in the parish church in 1857, by Mr Perry Herrick, a descendant

of a collateral branch of the family. The _Hesperides_ (and _Noble

Numbers_) is the only volume which Herrick published, but he contributed

poems to _Lachrymae Musarum_ (1649) and to _Wit's Recreations_.

As a pastoral lyrist Herrick stands first among English poets. His

genius is limited in scope, and comparatively unambitious, but in its

own field it is unrivalled. His tiny poems--and of the thirteen hundred

that he has left behind him not one is long--are like jewels of various

value, heaped together in a casket. Some are of the purest water,

radiant with light and colour, some were originally set in false metal

that has tarnished, some were rude and repulsive from the first. Out of

the unarranged, heterogeneous mass the student has to select what is not

worth reading, but, after he has cast aside all the rubbish, he is

astonished at the amount of excellent and exquisite work that remains.

Herrick has himself summed up, very correctly, the themes of his sylvan

muse when he says:--

"I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,

Of April, May, of June and July flowers,

I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,

Of bridegrooms, brides and of their bridal-cakes."

He saw the picturesqueness of English homely life as no one before him

had seen it, and he described it in his verse with a certain purple glow

of Arcadian romance over it, in tones of immortal vigour and freshness.

His love poems are still more beautiful; the best of them have an ardour

and tender sweetness which give them a place in the forefront of modern

lyrical poetry, and remind us of what was best in Horace and in the

poets of the Greek anthology.

After suffering complete extinction for more than a century, the fame

of Herrick was revived by John Nichols, who introduced his poems to

the readers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1796 and 1797. Dr Drake

followed in 1798 with considerable enthusiasm. By 1810 interest had so

far revived in the forgotten poet that Dr Nott ventured to print a

selection from his poems, which attracted the favourable notice of the

_Quarterly Review_. In 1823 the _Hesperides_ and the _Noble Numbers_

were for the first time edited by Mr T. Maitland, afterwards Lord

Dundrennan. Since then the reprints of Herrick's have been too

numerous to be mentioned here; there are few English poets of the 17th

century whose writings are now more accessible. See F. W. Moorman,

_Robert Herrick_ (1910). (E. G.)

HERRIES, JOHN CHARLES (1778-1855), English politician, son of a London

merchant, began his career as a junior clerk in the treasury, and became

known for his financial abilities as private secretary to successive

ministers. He was appointed commissary-in-chief (1811), and, on the

abolition of that office (1816), auditor of the civil list. In 1823 he

entered parliament as secretary to the treasury, and in 1827 became

chancellor of the exchequer under Lord Goderich; but in consequence of

internal differences, arising partly out of a slight put upon Herries,

the ministry was broken up, and in 1828 he was appointed master of the

mint. In 1830 he became president of the board of trade, and for the

earlier months of 1835 he was secretary at war. From 1841 to 1847 he was

out of parliament, but during 1852 he was president of the board of

control under Lord Derby. He was a consistent and upright Tory of the

old school, who carried weight as an authority on financial subjects.

His eldest son, SIR CHARLES JOHN HERRIES (1815-1882), was chairman of

the board of inland revenue.

See the _Life_ by his younger son, Edward Herries (1880).

HERRIES, JOHN MAXWELL, 4TH LORD (c. 1512-1583), Scottish politician, was

the second son of Robert Maxwell, 4th Lord Maxwell (d. 1546). In 1547 he

married Agnes (d. 1594), daughter of William Herries, 3rd Lord Herries

(d. 1543), a grandson of Herbert Herries (d. c. 1500) of Terregles,

Kirkcudbrightshire, who was created a lord of the Scottish parliament

about 1490, and in 1567 he obtained the title of Lord Herries. But

before this event Maxwell had become prominent among the men who rallied

round Mary queen of Scots, although during the earlier part of his

public life he had been associated with the religious reformers and had

been imprisoned by the regent, Mary of Lorraine. He was, moreover--at

least until 1563--very friendly with John Knox, who calls him "a man

zealous and stout in God's cause." But the transition from one party to

the other was gradually accomplished, and from March 1566, when Maxwell

joined Mary at Dunbar after the murder of David Rizzio and her escape

from Holyrood, he remained one of her staunchest friends, although he

disliked her marriage with Bothwell. He led her cavalry at Langside, and

after this battle she committed herself to his care. Herries rode with

the queen into England in May 1568, and he and John Lesley, bishop of

Ross, were her chief commissioners at the conferences at York. He

continued to labour in Mary's cause after returning to Scotland, and was

imprisoned by the regent Murray; he also incurred Elizabeth's

displeasure by harbouring the rebel Leonard Dacres, but he soon made his

peace with the English queen. He showed himself in general hostile to

the regent Morton, but he was among the supporters of the regent Lennox

until his death on the 20th of January 1583. His son William, 5th Lord

Herries (d. 1604), was, like his father, warden of the west marches.

William's grandson John, 7th Lord Herries (d. 1677), became 3rd earl of

Nithsdale in succession to his cousin Robert Maxwell, the 2nd earl, in

1667. John's grandson was William, 5th earl of Nithsdale, the Jacobite

(see NITHSDALE). William was deprived of his honours in 1716, but in

1858 the House of Lords decided that his descendant William

Constable-Maxwell (1804-1876) was rightly Lord Herries of Terregles. In

1876 William's son Marmaduke Constable-Maxwell (b. 1837) became 12th

Lord Herries, and in 1884 he was created a baron of the United Kingdom.

HERRING (_Clupea harengus_, _Haring_ in German, _le hareng_ in French,

_sill_ in Swedish), a fish belonging to the genus _Clupea_, of which

more than sixty different species are known in various parts of the

globe. The sprat, pilchard or sardine and shad are species of the same

genus. Of all sea-fishes _Clupeae_ are the most abundant; for although

other genera may comprise a greater variety of species, they are far

surpassed by _Clupea_ with regard to the number of individuals. The

majority of the species of _Clupea_ are of greater or less utility to

man; it is only a few tropical species that acquire, probably from their

food, highly poisonous properties, so as to be dangerous to persons

eating them. But no other species equals the common herring in

importance as an article of food or commerce. It inhabits in incredible

numbers the North Sea, the northern parts of the Atlantic and the seas

north of Asia. The herring inhabiting the corresponding latitudes of the

North Pacific is another species, but most closely allied to that of the

eastern hemisphere. Formerly it was the general belief that the herring

inhabits the open ocean close to the Arctic Circle, and that it migrates

at certain seasons towards the northern coasts of Europe and America.

This view has been proved to be erroneous, and we know now that this

fish lives throughout the year in the vicinity of our shores, but at a

greater depth, and at a greater distance from the coast, than at the

time when it approaches land for the purpose of spawning.

Herrings are readily recognized and distinguished from the other species

of _Clupea_ by having an ovate patch of very small teeth on the vomer

(that is, the centre of the palate). In the dorsal fin they have from 17

to 20 rays, and in the anal fin from 16 to 18; there are from 53 to 59

scales in the lateral line and 54 to 56 vertebrae in the vertebral

column. They have a smooth gill-cover, without those radiating ridges of

bone which are so conspicuous in the pilchard and other _Clupeae_. The

sprat cannot be confounded with the herring, as it has no teeth on the

vomer and only 47 or 48 scales in the lateral line.

The spawn of the herring is adhesive, and is deposited on rough

gravelly ground at varying distances from the coast and always in

comparatively shallow water. The season of spawning is different in

different places, and even in the same district, e.g. the east coast of

Scotland, there are herrings spawning in spring and others in autumn.

These are not the same fish but different races. Those which breed in

winter or spring deposit their spawn near the coast at the mouths of

estuaries, and ascend the estuaries to a considerable distance at

certain times, as in the Firths of Forth and Clyde, while those which

spawn in summer or autumn belong more to the open sea, e.g. the great

shoals that visit the North Sea annually.

Herrings grow very rapidly; according to H. A. Meyer's observations,

they attain a length of from 17 to 18 mm. during the first month after

hatching, 34 to 36 mm. during the second, 45 to 50 mm. during the third,

55 to 61 mm. during the fourth, and 65 to 72 mm. during the fifth. The

size which they finally attain and their general condition depend

chiefly on the abundance of food (which consists of crustaceans and

other small marine animals), on the temperature of the water, on the

season at which they have been hatched, &c. Their usual size is about 12

in., but in some particularly suitable localities they grow to a length

of 15 in., and instances of specimens measuring 17 in. are on record. In

the Baltic, where the water is gradually losing its saline constituents,

thus becoming less adapted for the development of marine species, the

herring continues to exist in large numbers, but as a dwarfed form, not

growing either to the size or to the condition of the North-Sea herring.

The herring of the American side of the Atlantic is specifically

identical with that of Europe. A second species (_Clupea leachii_) has

been supposed to exist on the British coast; but it comprises only

individuals of a smaller size, the produce of an early or late spawn.

Also the so-called "white-bait" is not a distinct species, but consists

chiefly of the fry or the young of herrings and sprats, and is obtained

"in perfection" at localities where these small fishes find an abundance

of food, as in the estuary of the Thames.

Several excellent accounts of the herring have been published, as by

Valenciennes in the 20th vol. of the _Histoire naturelle des

poissons_, and more especially by Mr J. M. Mitchell, _The Herring, its

Natural History and National Importance_ (Edinburgh, 1864). Recent

investigations are described in the Reports of the Fishery _Board for

Scotland_, and in the reports of the German _Kommission zur

Untersuchung der Deutschen Meere_ (published at Kiel). (J. T. C.)

HERRING-BONE, a term in architecture applied to alternate courses of

bricks or stone, which are laid diagonally with binding courses above

and below: this is said to give a better bond to the wall, especially

when the stone employed is stratified, such as Stonefield stone, and too

thin to be laid in horizontal courses. Although it is only occasionally

found in modern buildings, it was a type of construction constantly

employed in Roman, Byzantine and Romanesque work, and in the latter is

regarded as a test of very early date. It is frequently found in the

Byzantine walls in Asia Minor, and in Byzantine churches was employed

decoratively to give variety to the wall surface. Sometimes the diagonal

courses are reversed one above the other. Examples in France exist in

the churches at Querqueville in Normandy and St Christophe at Suevres

(Loir et Cher), both dating from the 10th century, and in England

herring-bone masonry is found in the walls of castles, such as at

Guildford, Colchester and Tamworth. The term is also applied to the

paving of stable yards with bricks laid flat diagonally and alternating

so that the head of one brick butts against the side of another; and the

effect is more pleasing than when laid in parallel courses.

HERRINGS, BATTLE OF THE, the name applied to the action of Rouvray,

fought in 1429 between the French (and Scots) and the English, who,

under Sir John Falstolfe (or Falstaff), were convoying Lenten

provisions, chiefly herrings, to the besiegers of Orleans. (See ORLEANS

and HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.)

HERRNHUT, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, 18 m. S.E. of

Bautzen, and situated on the Lobau-Zittau railway. Pop. 1200. It is

chiefly known as the principal seat of the Moravian or Bohemian

brotherhood, the members of which are called _Herrnhuter_. A colony of

these people, fleeing from persecution in Moravia, settled at Herrnhut

in 1722 on a site presented by Count Zinzendorf. The buildings of the

society include a church, a school and houses for the brethren, the

sisters and the widowed of both sexes, while it possesses an

ethnographical museum and other collections of interest. The town is

remarkable for its ordered, regular life and its scrupulous cleanliness.

Linen, paper (to varieties of which Herrnhut gives its name), tobacco

and various minor articles are manufactured. The Hutberg, at the foot of

which the town lies, commands a pleasant view. Berthelsdorf, a village

about a mile distant, has been the seat of the directorate of the

community since about 1789.

HERSCHEL, CAROLINE LUCRETIA (1750-1848), English astronomer, sister of

Sir William Herschel, the eighth child and fourth daughter of her

parents, was born at Hanover on the 16th of March 1750. On account of

the prejudices of her mother, who did not desire her to know more than

was necessary for being useful in the family, she received, in youth

only the first elements of education. After the death of her father in

1767 she obtained permission to learn millinery and dressmaking with a

view to earning her bread, but continued to assist her mother in the

management of the household until the autumn of 1772, when she joined

her brother William, who had established himself as a teacher of music

at Bath. At once she became a valuable co-operator with him both in his

professional duties and in the astronomical researches to which he had

already begun to devote all his spare time. She was the principal singer

at his oratorio concerts, and acquired such a reputation as a vocalist

that she was offered an engagement for the Birmingham festival, which,

however, she declined. When her brother accepted the office of

astronomer to George III., she became his constant assistant in his

observations, and also executed the laborious calculations which were

connected with them. For these services she received from the king in

1787 a salary of L50 a year. Her chief amusement during her leisure

hours was sweeping the heavens with a small Newtonian telescope. By this

means she detected in 1783 three remarkable nebulae, and during the

eleven years 1786-1797 eight comets, five of them with unquestioned

priority. In 1797 she presented to the Royal Society an Index to

Flamsteed's observations, together with a catalogue of 561 stars

accidentally omitted from the "British Catalogue," and a list of the

errata in that publication. Though she returned to Hanover in 1822 she

did not abandon her astronomical studies, and in 1828 she completed the

reduction, to January 1800, of 2500 nebulae discovered by her brother.

In 1828 the Astronomical Society, to mark their sense of the benefits

conferred on science by such a series of laborious exertions,

unanimously resolved to present her with their gold medal, and in 1835

elected her an honorary member of the society. In 1846 she received a

gold medal from the king of Prussia. She died on the 9th of January

1848.

See _The Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel_, by Mrs John

Herschel (1876).

HERSCHEL, SIR FREDERICK WILLIAM (1738-1822), generally known as Sir

William Herschel, English astronomer, was born at Hanover on the 15th of

November 1738. His father was a musician employed as hautboy player in

the Hanoverian guard. The family had quitted Moravia for Saxony in the

early part of the 17th century on account of religious troubles, they

themselves being Protestants. Herschel's earlier education was

necessarily of a very limited character, chiefly owing to the warlike

commotions of his country; but being at all times an indomitable

student, he, by his own exertions, more than repaired this deficiency.

He became a very skilful musician, both theoretical and practical; while

his attainments as a self-taught mathematician were fully adequate to

the prosecution of those branches of astronomy which he so eminently

advanced and adorned. Whatever he did he did methodically and

thoroughly; and in this methodical thoroughness lay the secret of what

Arago very properly termed his astonishing scientific success.

In 1752, at the age of fourteen, he joined the band of the Hanoverian

guard, and with his detachment visited England in 1755, accompanied by

his father and eldest brother; in the following year he returned to his

native country; but the hardships of campaigning during the Seven Years'

War imperilling his health, his parents privately removed him from the

regiment, and on the 26th of July 1757 despatched him to England. There,

as might have been expected, the earlier part of his career was attended

with formidable difficulties and much privation. We find him engaged in

several towns in the north of England as organist and teacher of music,

which were not lucrative occupations. But the tide of his fortunes began

to flow when he obtained in 1766 the appointment of organist to the

Octagon chapel in Bath, at that time the resort of the wealth and

fashion of the city.

During the next five or six years he became the leading musical

authority, and the director of all the chief public musical

entertainments at Bath. His circumstances having thus become easier, he

revisited Hanover for the purpose of bringing back with him his sister

Caroline, whose services he much needed in his multifarious

undertakings. She arrived in Bath in August 1772, being at that time in

her twenty-third year. She thus describes her brother's life soon after

her arrival: "He used to retire to bed with a bason of milk or a glass

of water, with Smith's _Harmonics_ and Ferguson's _Astronomy_, &c., and

so went to sleep buried under his favourite authors; and his first

thoughts on waking were how to obtain instruments for viewing those

objects himself of which he had been reading." It is not without

significance that we find him thus reading Smith's _Harmonics_; to that

study loyalty to his profession would impel him; as a reward for his

thoroughness this led him to Smith's _Optics_; and this, by a natural

sequence, again led him to astronomy, for the purposes of which the

chief optical instruments were devised. It was in this way that he was

introduced to the writings of Ferguson and Keill, and subsequently to

those of Lalande, whereby he educated himself to become an astronomer of

undying fame. In those days telescopes were very rare, very expensive

and not very efficient, for the Dollonds had not as yet perfected even

their beautiful little achromatics of 2(3/4) in. aperture. So Herschel

was obliged to content himself with hiring a small Gregorian reflector

of about 2 in. aperture, which he had seen exposed for loan in a

tradesman's shop. Not satisfied with this implement, he procured a small

lens of about 18 ft. focal length, and set his sister to work on a

pasteboard tube to match it, so as to make him a telescope. This

unsatisfactory material was soon replaced by tin, and thus a sorry sort

of vision was obtained of Jupiter, Saturn and the moon. He then sought

in London for a reflector of much larger dimensions; but no such

instrument was on sale; and the terms demanded for the construction of a

reflecting telescope of 5 or 6 ft. focal length he regarded as too

exorbitant even for the gratification of such desires as his own. So he

was driven to the only alternative that remained; he must himself build

a large telescope. His first step in this direction was to purchase the

debris of an amateur's implements for grinding and polishing small

mirrors; and thus, by slow degrees, and by indomitable perseverance, he

in 1774 had, as he says, the satisfaction of viewing the heavens with a

Newtonian telescope of 6 ft. focal length made by his own hands. But he

was not contented to be a mere star-gazer; on the contrary, he had from

the very first conceived the gigantic project of surveying the entire

heavens, and, if possible, of ascertaining the plan of their general

structure by a settled mode of procedure, if only he could provide

himself with adequate instrumental means. For this purpose he, his

brother and his sister toiled for many years at the grinding and

polishing of hundreds of specula, always retaining the best and

recasting the others, until the most perfect of the earlier products had

been surpassed. This was the work of the daylight in those seasons of

the year when the fashionable visitors of Bath had quitted the place,

and had thus freed the family from professional duties. After 1774 every

available hour of the night was devoted to the long-hoped-for scrutiny

of the skies. In those days no machinery had been invented for the

construction of telescopic mirrors; the man who had the hardihood to

undertake polishing them doomed himself to walk leisurely and uniformly

round an upright post for many hours, without removing his hands from

the mirror, until his work was done. On these occasions Herschel

received his food from the hands of his faithful sister. But his reward

was nigh.

In May 1780 his first two papers containing some results of his

observations on the variable star "Mira" and the mountains of the moon

were communicated to the Royal Society through the influential

introduction of Dr William Watson. Herschel had made his acquaintance in

a characteristic manner. In order to obtain a sight of the moon the

astronomer had taken his telescope into the street opposite his house;

the celebrated physician happening to pass at the time, and seeing his

eye removed for a moment from the instrument, requested permission to

take his place. The mutual courtesies and intelligent conversation which

ensued soon ripened this casual acquaintance into a solid and enduring

regard.

The phenomena of variable stars were examined by Herschel as a guide to

what might be occurring in our own sun. The sun, he knew, rotated on its

axis, and he knew that dark spots often exist on its photosphere; the

questions that he put to himself were--Are there dark spots also on

variable stars? Do the stars also rotate on their axes? or are they

sometimes partially eclipsed by the intervention of opaque bodies? And

he went on to enquire, What are these singular spots upon the sun? and

have they any practical relation to the inhabitants of this planet? To

these questions he applied his telescopes and his thoughts; and he

communicated the results to the Royal Society in no less than six

memoirs, occupying very many pages in the _Philosophical Transactions_,

and extending in date from 1780 to 1801. It was in the latter year that

these remarkable papers culminated in the inquiry whether any relation

could be traced in the recurrence of sun-spots, regarded as evidences of

solar activity, and the varying seasons of our planet, as exhibited by

the varying price of corn. Herschel's reply was inconclusive; nor has a

final solution of the related problems yet been obtained.

In 1781 he communicated to the Royal Society the first of a series of

papers on the rotation of the planets and of their several satellites.

The object which he had in view was not so much to ascertain the times

of their rotation as to discover whether those rotations are strictly

uniform. From the result he expected to gather, by analogy, the

probability of an alteration in the length of our own day. These

inquiries occupy the greater part of seven memoirs extending from 1781

to 1797. While engaged on them he noticed the curious appearance of a

white spot near to each of the poles of the planet Mars. On

investigating the inclination of its axis to the plane of its orbit, and

finding that it differed little from that of the earth, he concluded

that its changes of climate also would resemble our own, and that these

white patches were probably polar snow. Modern researches have confirmed

his conclusion. He also discovered that, as far as his observations

extended, the times of the rotations of the various satellites round

their axes conform to the analogy of our moon by equalling the times of

their revolution round their primaries. Here again we perceive that his

discoveries arose out of the systematic and comprehensive nature of his

investigation. Nothing with such a man is accidental.

In the same year (1781) Herschel made a discovery which completely

altered the character of his professional life. In the course of a

methodical review of the heavens he lighted on an object which at first

he supposed to be a comet, but which, by its subsequent motions and

appearance, averred itself to be a new planet, moving outside the orbit

of Saturn. The name of Georgium Sidus was by him assigned to it, but has

by general consent been laid aside in favour of Uranus. The object was

detected with a 7-ft. reflector having an aperture of 6(1/2) in.;

subsequently, when he had provided himself with a much more powerful

telescope, of 20 ft. focal length, he discovered, as he believed, no

less than six Uranian satellites. Modern observations, while abolishing

four of these supposed attendants, have added two others apparently not

observed by Herschel. Seven memoirs on the subject were communicated by

him to the Royal Society, extending from the date of the discovery in

1781 to 1815. A noteworthy peculiarity in Herschel's mode of observation

led to the discovery of this planet. He had observed that the spurious

diameters of stars are not much affected by increasing the magnifying

powers, but that the case is different with other celestial objects;

hence if anything in his telescopic field struck him as unusual in

aspect, he immediately varied the magnifying power in order to decide

its nature. Thus Uranus was discovered; and had a similar method been

applied to Neptune, that planet would have been found at Cambridge some

months before it was recognized at Berlin.

We now come to the beginning of Herschel's most important series of

observations, culminating in what ought probably to be regarded as his

capital discovery. A material part of the task which he had set himself

embraced the determination of the relative distances of the stars from

our sun and from each other. Now, in the course of his scrutiny of the

heavens, he had observed many stars in apparently very close contiguity,

but often differing greatly in relative brightness. He concluded that,

on the average, the brighter star would be the nearer to us, the smaller

enormously more distant; and considering that an astronomer on the

earth, in consequence of its immense orbital displacement of some 180

millions of miles every six months, would see such a pair of stars under

different perspective aspects, he perceived that the measurement of

these changes should lead to an approximate determination of the stars'

relative distances. He therefore mapped down the places and aspects of

all the double stars that he met with, and communicated in 1782 and 1785

very extensive catalogues of the results. Indeed, his very last

scientific memoir, sent to the Royal Astronomical Society in the year

1822, when he was its first president and already in the eighty-fourth

year of his age, related to these investigations. In the memoir of 1782

he threw out the hint that these apparently contiguous stars might be

genuine pairs in mutual revolution; but he significantly added that the

time had not yet arrived for settling the question. Eleven years

afterwards (1793), he remeasured the relative positions of many such

couples, and we may conceive what his feelings must have been at finding

his prediction verified. For he ascertained that some of these stars

circulated round each other, after the manner required by the laws of

gravitation, and thus demonstrated the action among the distant members

of the starry firmament of the same mechanical laws which bind together

the harmonious motions of our solar system. This sublime discovery,

announced in 1802, would of itself suffice to immortalize his memory. If

only he had lived long enough to learn the approximate distances of some

of these binary combinations, he would at once have been able to

calculate their masses relative to that of our own sun; and the

quantities being, as we now know, strictly comparable, he would have

found another of his analogical conjectures realized.

In the year 1782 Herschel was invited to Windsor by George III., and

accepted the king's offer to become his private astronomer, and

henceforth devote himself wholly to a scientific career. His salary was

fixed at L200 per annum, to which an addition of L50 per annum was

subsequently made for the astronomical assistance of his sister. Dr

Watson, to whom alone the amount was mentioned, made the natural remark,

"Never before was honour purchased by a monarch at so cheap a rate." In

this way the great astronomer removed from Bath, first to Datchet and

soon afterwards permanently to Slough, within easy access of his royal

patron at Windsor.

The old pursuits at Bath were soon resumed at Slough, but with renewed

vigour and without the former professional interruptions. The greater

part, in fact, of the papers already referred to are dated from Datchet

and Slough; for the magnificent astronomical speculations in which he

was engaged, though for the most part conceived in the earlier portion

of his philosophical career, required years of patient observation

before they could be fully examined and realized.

It was at Slough in 1783 that he wrote his first memorable paper on the

"Motion of the Solar System in Space,"--a sublime speculation, yet

through his genius realized by considerations of the utmost simplicity.

He returned to the same subject with fuller details in 1805. It was also

after his removal to Slough that he published his first memoir on the

construction of the heavens, which from the first had been the inspiring

idea of his varied toils. In a long series of remarkable papers,

addressed as usual to the Royal Society, and extending from the year

1784 to 1818, when he was eighty years of age, he demonstrated the fact

that our sun is a star situated not far from the bifurcation of the

Milky Way, and that all the stars visible to us lie more or less in

clusters scattered throughout a comparatively thin, but immensely

extended stratum. At one time he imagined that his powerful instruments

had pierced through this stellar stratum, and that he had approximately

determined the form of some of its boundaries. In the last of his

memoirs, having convinced himself of his error, he admitted that to his

telescopes the Milky Way was "fathomless." On either side of this

assemblage of stars, presumably in ceaseless motion round their common

centre of gravity, Herschel discovered a canopy of discrete nebulous

masses, such as those from the condensation of which he supposed the

whole stellar universe to have been formed,--a magnificent conception,

pursued with a force of genius and put to the practical test of

observation with an industry almost incredible.

Hitherto we have said nothing about the great reflecting telescope, of

40 ft. focal length and 4 ft. aperture, the construction of which is

often, though mistakenly, regarded as his chief performance. The full

description of this celebrated instrument will be found in the 85th

volume of the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society. On the day that it

was finished (August 28, 1789) Herschel saw at the first view, in a

grandeur not witnessed before, the Saturnian system with six satellites,

five of which had been discovered long before by C. Huygens and G. D.

Cassini, while the sixth, subsequently named Enceladus, he had, two

years before, sighted by glimpses in his exquisite little telescope of

6(1/2) in. aperture, but now saw in unmistakable brightness with the

towering giant he had just completed. On the 17th of September he

discovered a seventh, which proved to be the nearest to the globe of

Saturn. It has since received the name of Mimas. It is somewhat

remarkable that, notwithstanding his long and repeated scrutinies of

this planet, the eighth satellite, Hyperion, and the crape ring should

have escaped him.

Herschel married, on the 8th of May 1788, the widow of Mr John Pitt, a

wealthy London merchant, by whom he had an only son, John Frederick

William. The prince regent conferred a Hanoverian knighthood upon him in

1816. But a far more valued and less tardy distinction was the Copley

medal assigned to him by his associates in the Royal Society in 1781.

He died at Slough on the 25th of August 1822, in the eighty-fourth year

of his age, and was buried under the tower of St Laurence's Church,

Upton, within a few hundred yards of the old site of the 40-ft.

telescope. A mural tablet on the wall of the church bears a Latin

inscription from the pen of the late Dr Goodall, provost of Eton

College.

See Mrs John Herschel, _Memoir of Caroline Herschel_ (1876); E. S.

Holden, _Herschel, his Life and Works_ (1881); A. M. Clerke, _The

Herschels and Modern Astronomy_ (1895); E. S. Holden and C. S.

Hastings, _Synopsis of the Scientific Writings of Sir William

Herschel_ (Washington, 1881); Baron Laurier, _Eloge historique_, Paris

Memoirs (1823), p. lxi.; F. Arago, _Analyse historique, Annuaire du

Bureau des Longitudes_ (1842), p. 249; Arago, _Biographies of

Scientific Men_, p. 167; Madame d'Arblay's _Diary, passim; Public

Characters_ (1798-1799), p. 384 (with portrait); J. Sime, _William

Herschel and his Work_ (1900). Herschel's photometric Star Catalogues

were discussed and reduced by E. C. Pickering in _Harvard Annals_,

vols. xiv. p. 345, xxiii. p. 185, and xxiv. (C. P.; A. M. C.)

HERSCHEL, SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM, BART. (1792-1871), English

astronomer, the only son of Sir William Herschel, was born at Slough,

Bucks, on the 7th of March 1792. His scholastic education commenced at

Eton, but maternal fears or prejudices soon removed him to the house of

a private tutor. Thence, at the early age of seventeen, he was sent to

St John's College, Cambridge, and the form and method of the

mathematical instruction he there received exercised a material

influence on the whole complexion of his scientific career. In due time

the young student won the highest academical distinction of his year,

graduating as senior wrangler in 1813. It was during his

undergraduateship that he and two of his fellow-students who

subsequently attained to very high eminence, Dean Peacock and Charles

Babbage, entered into a compact that they would "do their best to leave

the world wiser than they found it,"--a compact loyally and successfully

carried out by all three to the end. As a commencement of this laudable

attempt we find Herschel associated with these two friends in the

production of a work on the differential calculus, and on cognate

branches of mathematical science, which changed the style and aspect of

mathematical learning in England, and brought it up to the level of the

Continental methods. Two or three memoirs communicated to the Royal

Society on new applications of mathematical analysis at once placed him

in the front rank of the cultivators of this branch of knowledge. Of

these his father had the gratification of introducing the first, but the

others were presented in his own right as a fellow.

With the intention of being called to the bar, he entered his name at

Lincoln's Inn on the 24th of January 1814, and placed himself under the

guidance of an eminent special pleader. Probably this temporary choice

of a profession was inspired by the extraordinary success in legal

pursuits which had attended the efforts of some noted Cambridge

mathematicians. Be that as it may, an early acquaintance with Dr

Wollaston in London soon changed the direction of his studies. He

experimented in physical optics; took up astronomy in 1816; and in 1820,

assisted by his father, he completed for a reflecting telescope a mirror

of 18 in. diameter and 20 ft. focal length. This, subsequently improved

by his own hands, became the instrument which enabled him to effect the

astronomical observations forming the chief basis of his fame. In

1821-1823 we find him associated with Sir James South in the

re-examination of his father's double stars, by the aid of two excellent

refractors, of 7 and 5 ft. focal length respectively. For this work he

was presented in 1826 with the Astronomical Society's gold medal; and

with the Lalande medal of the French Institute in 1825; while the Royal

Society had in 1821 bestowed upon him the Copley medal for his

mathematical contributions to their _Transactions_. From 1824 to 1827 he

held the responsible post of secretary to that society; and was in 1827

elected to the chair of the Astronomical Society, which office he also

filled on two subsequent occasions. In the discharge of his duties to

the last-named society he delivered presidential addresses and wrote

obituary notices of deceased fellows, memorable for their combination of

eloquence and wisdom. In 1831 the honour of knighthood was conferred on

him by William IV., and two years later he again received the

recognition of the Royal Society by the award of one of their medals for

his memoir "On the Investigation of the Orbits of Revolving Double

Stars." The award significantly commemorated his completion of his

father's discovery of gravitational stellar systems by the invention of

a graphical method whereby the eye could as it were see the two

component stars of the binary system revolving under the prescription of

the Newtonian law.

Before the end of the year 1833, being then about forty years of age,

Sir John Herschel had re-examined all his father's double stars and

nebulae, and had added many similar bodies to his own lists; thus

accomplishing, under the conditions then prevailing, the full work of a

lifetime. For it should be remembered that astronomers were not as yet

provided with those valuable automatic contrivances which at present

materially abridge the labour and increase the accuracy of their

determinations. Equatorially mounted instruments actuated by clockwork,

electrical chronographs for recording the times of the phenomena

observed, were not available to Sir John Herschel; and he had no

assistant.

His scientific life now entered upon another and very characteristic

phase. The bias of his mind, as he subsequently was wont to declare, was

towards chemistry and the phenomena of light, rather than towards

astronomy. Indeed, very shortly after taking his degree at Cambridge, he

proposed himself as a candidate for the vacant chair of chemistry in

that university; but, as he said with some humour, the result of the

election was to leave him in a glorious minority of one. In fact

Herschel had become an astronomer from a sense of duty, and it was by

filial loyalty to his father's memory that he was now impelled to

undertake the completion of the work nobly begun at Slough. William

Herschel had searched the northern heavens; John Herschel determined to

explore the southern, besides re-exploring northern skies. "I resolved,"

he said, "to attempt the completion of a survey of the whole surface of

the heavens; and for this purpose to transport into the other hemisphere

the same instrument which had been employed in this, so as to give a

unity to the results of both portions of the survey, and to render them

comparable with each other." In accordance with this resolution, he and

his family embarked for the Cape on the 13th November 1833; they arrived

in Table Bay on the 15th January 1834; and proceedings, he says, "were

pushed forward with such effect that on the 22nd of February I was

enabled to gratify my curiosity by a view of [kappa] Crucis, the nebula

about [eta] Argus, and some other remarkable objects in the 20-ft.

reflector, and on the night of the 4th of March to commence a regular

course of sweeping."

To give an adequate description of the vast mass of labour completed

during the next four busy years of his life at Feldhausen would

require the transcription of a considerable portion of the _Cape

Observations_, a volume of unsurpassed interest and importance;

although it might perhaps be equalled by a judicious selection from

Sir William's "Memoirs," now scattered through some thirty volumes of

the _Philosophical Transactions_. It was published, at the sole

expense of the late duke of Northumberland, but not till 1847, nine

years after the author's return to England, for the cogent reason,

that as he said, "The whole of the observations, as well as the entire

work of reducing, arranging and preparing them for the press, have

been executed by myself." There are 164 pages of catalogues of

southern nebulae and clusters of stars. There are then careful and

elaborate drawings of the great nebula in Orion, and of the region

surrounding the remarkable star in Argo. The labour and the thought

bestowed upon some of these objects are almost incredible; several

months were spent upon a minute spot in the heavens containing 1216

stars, but which an ordinary spangle, held at a distance of an arm's

length, would eclipse. These catalogues and charts being completed, he

proceeded to discuss their significance. He confirmed his father's

hypothesis that these wonderful masses of glowing vapours are not

irregularly scattered over the visible heavens, but are collected in a

sort of canopy, whose vertex is at the pole of that vast stratum of

stars in which our solar system finds itself buried, as Herschel

supposed, at a depth not greater than that of the average distance

from us of an eleventh magnitude star. Then follows his catalogue of

the relative positions and magnitudes of the southern double stars, to

one of which, [gamma] Virginis, he applied the beautiful method of

orbital determination invented by himself, and he had the satisfaction

of witnessing the fulfilment of his prediction that the components

would, in the course of their revolution, appear to close up into a

single star, inseparable by any telescopic power. In the next chapter

he proceeded to describe his observations on the varying and relative

brightness of the stars. It has been already detailed how his father

began his scientific career by similar observations on stellar

light-fluctuations, and how his remarks culminated years afterwards in

the question whether the radiative changes of our sun, due to the

presence or absence of sun-spots, affected our harvests and the price

of corn. Sir John carried speculation still farther, pointing out that

variations to the extent of half a magnitude in the sun's brightness

would account for those strange alternations of semi-arctic and

semi-tropical climates which geological researches show to have

occurred in various regions of our globe.

Herschel returned to his English home in the spring of 1838. As was

natural and right, he was welcomed with an enthusiastic greeting. By the

queen at her coronation he was created a baronet; and, what to him was

better than all such rewards, other men caught the contagion of his

example, and laboured in fields similar to his own, with an adequate

portion of his success.

Herschel was a highly accomplished chemist. His discovery in 1819 of the

solvent power of hyposulphite of soda on the otherwise insoluble salts

of silver was the prelude to its use as a fixing agent in photography;

and he invented in 1839, independently of Fox Talbot, the process of

photography on sensitized paper. He was the first person to apply the

now well-known terms _positive_ and _negative_ to photographic images,

and to imprint them upon glass prepared by the deposit of a sensitive

film. He also paved the way for Sir George Stokes's discovery of

fluorescence, by his addition of the lavender rays to the spectrum, and

by his announcement in 1845 of "epipolic dispersion," as exhibited by

sulphate of quinine. Several other important researches connected with

the undulatory theory of light are embodied in his treatise on "Light"

published in the _Encyclopaedia metropolitana_.

Perhaps no man can become a truly great mathematician or philosopher if

devoid of imaginative power. John Herschel possessed this endowment to a

large extent; and he solaced his declining years with the translation of

the _Iliad_ into verse, having earlier executed a similar version of

Schiller's _Walk_. But the main work of his later life was the

collection of all his father's catalogues of nebulae and double stars

combined with his own observations and those of other astronomers each

into a single volume. He lived to complete the former, to present it to

the Royal Society, and to see it published in a separate form in the

_Philosophical Transactions_, vol. cliv. The latter work he left

unfinished, bequeathing it, in its imperfect form, to the Astronomical

Society. That society printed a portion of it, which serves as an index

to the observations of various astronomers on double stars up to the

year 1866.

A complete list of his contributions to learned societies will be found

in the Royal Society's great catalogue, and from them may be gathered

most of the records of his busy scientific life. Sir John Herschel met

with an amount of public recognition which was unusual in the time of

his illustrious father. Naturally he was a member of almost every

important learned society in both hemispheres. For five years he held

the same office of master of the mint, which more than a century before

had belonged to Sir Isaac Newton; his friends also offered to propose

him as president of the Royal Society and again as member of parliament

for the university of Cambridge, but neither position was desired by

him.

In private life Sir John Herschel was a firm and most active friend; he

had no jealousies; he avoided all scientific feuds; he gladly lent a

helping hand to those who consulted him in scientific difficulties; he

never discouraged, and still less disparaged, men younger than or

inferior to himself; he was pleased by appreciation of his work without

being solicitous for applause; it was said of him by a discriminating

critic, and without extravagance, that "his was a life full of serenity

of the sage and the docile innocence of a child."

He died at Collingwood, his residence near Hawkhurst in Kent, on the

11th of May 1871, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, and his remains

are interred in Westminster Abbey close to the grave of Sir Isaac

Newton.

Besides the laborious _Cape Observations_, Sir John Herschel was the

author of several books, one of which at least, _On the Study of

Natural Philosophy_ (1830), possesses an interest which no future

advances of the subjects on which he wrote can obliterate. In 1849

came the _Outlines of Astronomy_, a volume still replete with charm

and instruction. His articles, "Meteorology," "Physical Geography,"

and "Telescope," contributed to the 8th edition of the _Encyclopaedia

Britannica_, were afterwards published separately. When he was at the

Cape he was more than once assisted in the attempts there made to

diffuse a love of knowledge among men not engaged in literary

pursuits; and with the same purpose he, on his return to England,

published, in _Good Words_ and elsewhere, a series of papers on

interesting points of natural philosophy, subsequently collected in a

volume called _Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects_. Another less

widely known volume is his _Collected Addresses_, in which he is seen

in his happiest and most instructive mood.

See also Mrs John Herschel, "Memoir of Caroline Herschel," _Month.

Notices Roy. Astr. Society_, xxxii. 122 (C. Pritchard); _Proceedings

Roy. Society_, xx. p. xvii. (T. Romney Robinson); _Proceedings Roy.

Society of Edinburgh_ vii. 543 (P. G. Tait); _Nature_ iv. 69; E.

Dunkin, _Obituary Notices_, p. 47; _Report Brit. Association_ (1871),

p. lxxxv. (Lord Kelvin); _The Times_. (May 13, 1871); R. Grant,

_History of Phys. Astronomy_; A. M. Clerke, _Popular Hist. of

Astronomy_; A. M. Clerke, _The Herschels and Modern Astronomy_; J. H.

Madler, _Geschichte der Himmelskunde_, Bd. ii.; _Memoires de la

Societe Physique de Geneve_, xxi. 586 (E. Gautier). Reductions, based

on standard magnitudes of 919 southern stars, observed by Herschel in

sequences of relative brightness, were published by W. Doberck in the

_Astrophysical Journal_, xi. 192, 270, and in _Harvard Annals_, vol.

xli., No. viii. (C. P.; A. M. C.)

HERSCHELL, FARRER HERSCHELL, 1ST BARON (1837-1899), lord chancellor of

England, was born on the 2nd of November 1837. His father was the Rev.

Ridley Haim Herschell, a native of Strzelno, in Prussian Poland, who,

when a young man, exchanged the Jewish faith for Christianity, took a

leading part in founding the British Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel among the Jews, and, after many journeyings, settled down to the

charge of a Nonconformist chapel near the Edgware Road, in London, where

he ministered to a large congregation. His mother was a daughter of

William Mowbray, a merchant of Leith. He was educated at a private

school and at University College, London. In 1857 he took his B.A.

degree at the University of London. He was reckoned the best speaker in

the school debating society, and he displayed there the same command of

language and lucidity of thought which were his characteristics during

his official life. The reputation which Herschell enjoyed during his

school days was maintained after he became a law-student at Lincoln's

Inn. In 1858 he entered the chambers of Thomas Chitty, the famous common

law pleader, father of the late Lord Justice Chitty. His fellow pupils,

amongst whom were A. L. Smith, afterwards master of the rolls, and

Arthur Charles, afterwards judge of the queen's bench division, gave him

the sobriquet of "the chief baron" in recognition of his superiority. He

subsequently read with James Hannen, afterwards Lord Hannen. In 1860 he

was called to the bar and joined the northern circuit, then in its palmy

days of undividedness. For four or five years he did not obtain much

work. Fortunately, he was never a poor man, and so was not forced into

journalism, or other paths of literature, in order to earn a living. Two

of his contemporaries, each of whom achieved great eminence, found

themselves in like case. One of these, Charles Russell, became lord

chief justice of England; the other, William Court Gully, speaker of the

House of Commons. It is said that these three friends, dining together

during a Liverpool assize some years after they had been called, agreed

that their prospects were anything but cheerful. Certain it is that

about this time Herschell meditated quitting England for Shanghai and

practising in the consular courts there. Herschell, however, soon made

himself useful to Edward James, the then leader of the northern circuit,

and to John Richard Quain, the leading stuff-gownsman. For the latter he

was content to note briefs and draft opinions, and when, in 1866, Quain

donned "silk," it was on Herschell that a large portion of his mantle

descended.

In 1872 Herschell was made a queen's counsel. He had all the necessary

qualifications for a leader--a clear, though not resonant voice; a calm,

logical mind; a sound knowledge of legal principles; and (greatest gift

of all) an abundance of common sense. He never wearied the judges by

arguing at undue length, and he knew how to retire with dignity from a

hopeless cause. His only weak point was cross-examination. In handling a

hostile witness he had neither the insidious persuasiveness of a Hawkins

nor the compelling, dominating power of a Russell. But he made up for

all by his speech to the jury, marshalling such facts as told in his

client's favour with the most consummate skill. He very seldom made use

of notes, but trusted to his memory, which he had carefully trained. By

this means he was able to conceal his art, and to appear less as a paid

advocate than as an outsider interested in the case anxious to assist

the jury in arriving at the truth. By 1874 Herschell's business had

become so good that he turned his thoughts to parliament. In February of

that year there was a general election, with the result that the

Conservative party came into power with a majority of fifty. The usual

crop of petitions followed. The two Radicals (Thompson and Henderson)

who had been returned for Durham city were unseated, and an attack was

then made on the seats of two other Radicals (Bell and Palmer) who had

been returned for Durham county. For one of these last Herschell was

briefed. He made so excellent an impression on the local Radical leaders

that they asked him to stand for Durham city; and after a fortnight's

electioneering, he was elected as junior member. Between 1874 and 1880

Herschell was most assiduous in his attendance in the House of Commons.

He was not a frequent speaker, but a few great efforts sufficed in his

case to gain for him a reputation as a debater. The best examples of his

style as a private member will be found in _Hansard_ under the dates

18th February 1876, 23rd May 1878, 6th May 1879. On the last occasion he

carried a resolution in favour of abolishing actions for breach of

promise of marriage except when actual pecuniary loss had ensued, the

damages in such cases to be measured by the amount of such loss. The

grace of manner and solid reasoning with which he acquitted himself

during these displays obtained for him the notice of Gladstone, who in

1880 appointed Herschell solicitor-general.

Herschell's public services from 1880 to 1885 were of great value,

particularly in dealing with the "cases for opinion" submitted by the

Foreign Office and other departments. He was also very helpful in

speeding government measures through the House, notably the Irish Land

Act 1881, the Corrupt Practices and Bankruptcy Acts 1883, the County

Franchise Act 1884 and the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. This last

was a bitter pill for Herschell, since it halved the representation of

Durham city, and so gave him statutory notice to quit. Reckoning on the

local support of the Cavendish family, he contested the North Lonsdale

division of Lancashire; but in spite of the powerful influence of Lord

Hartington, he was badly beaten at the poll, though Mr Gladstone again

obtained a majority in the country. Herschell now thought he saw the

solicitor-generalship slipping away from him, and along with it all

prospect of high promotion. Lord Selborne and Sir Henry James, however,

successively declined Gladstone's offer of the Woolsack, and in 1886

Herschell, by a sudden turn of fortune's wheel, found himself in his

forty-ninth year lord chancellor.

Herschell's chancellorship lasted barely six months, for in August 1886

Gladstone's Home Rule Bill was rejected in the Commons and his

administration fell. In August 1892, when Gladstone returned to power,

Herschell again became lord chancellor. In September 1893, when the

second Home Rule Bill came on for second reading in the House of Lords,

Herschell took advantage of the opportunity to justify the "sudden

conversion" to Home Rule of himself and his colleagues in 1885 by

comparing it to the duke of Wellington's conversion to Catholic

Emancipation in 1829 and to that of Sir Robert Peel to Free Trade in

1846. In 1895, however, his second chancellorship came to an end with

the defeat of the Rosebery ministry.

Whether sitting at the royal courts in the Strand, on the judicial

committee of the privy council, or in the House of Lords, Lord

Herschell's judgments were distinguished for their acute and subtle

reasoning, for their grasp of legal principles, and, whenever the

occasion arose, for their broad treatment of constitutional and social

questions. He was not a profound lawyer, but his quickness of

apprehension was such that it was an excellent substitute for great

learning. In construing a real property will or any other document, his

first impulse was to read it by the light of nature, and to decline to

be influenced by the construction put by the judges on similar phrases

occurring elsewhere. But when he discovered that certain expressions had

acquired a technical meaning which could not be disturbed without

fluttering the dovecotes of the conveyancers, he would yield to the

established rule, even though he did not agree with it. He was perhaps

seen at his judicial best in _Vagliano_ v. _Bank of England_ (1891) and

_Allen_ v. _Flood_ (1898). Latterly he showed a tendency, which seems to

grow on some judges, to interrupt counsel overmuch. The case last

mentioned furnishes an example of this. The question involved was what

constituted a molestation of a man in the pursuit of his lawful calling.

At the close of the argument of counsel, whom he had frequently

interrupted, one of their lordships, noted for his pretty wit, observed

that although there might be a doubt as to what amounted to such

molestation in point of law, the House could well understand, after that

day's proceedings, what it was in actual practice. In addition to his

political and judicial work, Herschell rendered many public services. In

1888 he presided over an inquiry directed by the House of Commons with

regard to the Metropolitan Board of Works. He acted as chairman of two

royal commissions, one on Indian currency, the other on vaccination. He

took a great interest in the National Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Children, not only promoting the acts of 1889 and 1894, but

also bestowing a good deal of time in sifting the truth of certain

allegations which had been brought against the management of that

society. In June 1893 he was appointed chancellor of the university of

London in succession to the earl of Derby, and he entered on his new

duties with the usual thoroughness. "His views of reform," according to

Victor Dickins, the accomplished registrar of the university, "were

always most liberal and most frankly stated, though at first they were

not altogether popular with an important section of university opinion.

He disarmed opposition by his intellectual power, rather than

conciliated it by compromise, and sometimes was perhaps a little

masterful, after a fashion of his own, in his treatment of the various

burning questions that agitated the university during his tenure of

office. His characteristic power of detachment was well illustrated by

his treatment of the proposal to remove the university to the site of

the Imperial Institute at South Kensington. Although he was at that time

chairman of the Institute, the most irreconcilable opponent of the

removal never questioned his absolute impartiality." With the Imperial

Institute Herschell had been officially connected from its inception. He

was chairman of the provisional committee appointed by the prince of

Wales to formulate a scheme for its organization, and he took an active

part in the preparation of its charter and constitution in conjunction

with Lord Thring, Lord James, Sir Frederick Abel and Mr John Hollams. He

was the first chairman of its council, and, except during his tour in

India in 1888, when he brought the Institute under the notice of the

Indian authorities, he was hardly absent from a single meeting. For his

special services in this connexion he was made G.C.B. in 1893, this

being the only instance of a lord chancellor being decorated with an

order.

In 1897 he was appointed, jointly with Lord Justice Collins, to

represent Great Britain on the Venezuela Boundary Commission, which

assembled in Paris in the spring of 1899. So complicated a business

involved a great deal of preparation and a careful study of maps and

historic documents. Not content with this, he accepted in 1898 a seat on

the joint high commission appointed to adjust certain boundary and other

important questions pending between Great Britain and Canada on the one

hand and the United States on the other hand. He started for America in

July of that year, and was received most cordially at Washington. His

fellow commissioners elected him their president. In February 1899,

while the commission was in full swing, he had the misfortune to slip in

the street and in falling to fracture a hip bone. His constitution,

which at one time was a robust one, had been undermined by constant hard

work, and proved unequal to sustaining the shock. On the 1st of March,

only a fortnight after the accident, he died at the Shoreham Hotel,

Washington, a _post-mortem_ examination revealing disease of the heart.

Mr Hay, secretary of state, at once telegraphed to Mr Choate, the United

States ambassador in London, the "deep sorrow" felt by President

McKinley; and Sir Wilfred Laurier said the next day, in the parliament

chamber at Ottawa, that he regarded Herschell's death "as a misfortune

to Canada and to the British Empire." A funeral service held in St

John's Episcopal Church, Washington, was attended by the president and

vice-president of the United States, by the cabinet ministers, the

judges of the Supreme Court, the members of the joint high commission,

and a large number of senators and other representative men. The body

was brought to London in a British man-of-war, and a second funeral

service was held in Westminster Abbey before it was conveyed to its

final resting-place at Tincleton, Dorset, in the parish church of which

he had been married. Herschell left a widow, granddaughter of

Vice-Chancellor Kindersley; a son, Richard Farrer (b. 1878), who

succeeded him as second baron; and two daughters.

A "reminiscence" of Herschell by Mr Speaker Gully (Lord Selby) will be

found in _The Law Quarterly Review_ for April 1899. _The Journal of

the Society of Comparative Legislation_ (of which he had been

president from its formation in 1893) contains, in its part for July

of the same year, notices of him by Lord James of Hereford, Lord

Davey, Mr Victor Williamson (his executor and intimate friend), and

also by Mr Justice D. J. Brewer and Senator C. W. Fairbanks (both of

the United States). (M. H. C.)

HERSENT, LOUIS (1777-1860), French painter, was born at Paris on the

10th of March 1777, and becoming a pupil of David, obtained the Prix de

Rome in 1797; in the Salon of 1802 appeared his "Metamorphosis of

Narcissus," and he continued to exhibit with rare interruptions up to

1831. His most considerable works under the empire were "Achilles

parting from Briseis," and "Atala dying in the arms of Chactas" (both

engraved in Landon's _Annales du Musee_); an "Incident of the life of

Fenelon," painted in 1810, found a place at Malmaison, and "Passage of

the Bridge at Landshut," which belongs to the same date, is now at

Versailles. Hersent's typical works, however, belong to the period of

the Restoration; "Louis XVI. relieving the Afflicted" (Versailles) and

"Daphnis and Chloe" (engraved by Langier and by Gelee) were both in the

Salon of 1817; at that of 1819 the "Abdication of Gustavus Vasa" brought

to Hersent a medal of honour, but the picture, purchased by the duke of

Orleans, was destroyed at the Palais Royal in 1848, and the engraving by

Henriquel-Dupont is now its sole record. "Ruth," produced in 1822,

became the property of Louis XVIII., who from the moment that Hersent

rallied to the Restoration jealously patronized him, made him officer of

the legion of honour, and pressed his claims at the Institute, where he

replaced van Spaendonck. He continued in favour under Charles X., for

whom was executed "Monks of Mount St Gotthard," exhibited in 1824. In

1831 Hersent made his last appearance at the Salon with portraits of

Louis Philippe, Marie-Amelie and the duke of Montpensier; that of the

king though good, is not equal to the portrait of Spontini (Berlin),

which is probably Hersent's _chef-d'oeuvre_. After this date Hersent

ceased to exhibit at the yearly salons. Although in 1846 he sent an

excellent likeness of Delphine Gay and one or two other works to the

rooms of the Societe d'Artistes, he could not be tempted from his usual

reserve even by the international contest of 1855. He died on the 2nd of

October 1860.

HERSFELD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau,

is pleasantly situated at the confluence of the Geis and Haun with the

Fulda, on the railway from Frankfort-on-Main to Bebra, 24 m. N.N.E. of

Fulda. Pop. (1905) 8688. Some of the old fortifications of the town

remain, but the ramparts and ditches have been laid out as promenades.

The principal buildings are the Stadt Kirche, a beautiful Gothic

building, erected about 1320 and restored in 1899, with a fine tower and

a large bell; the old and interesting town hall (Rathaus) and the ruins

of the abbey church. This church was erected on the site of the

cathedral in the beginning of the 12th century; it was built in the

Byzantine style and was burnt down by the French in 1761. Outside the

town are the Frauenberg and the Johannesberg, on both of which are

monastic ruins. Among the public institutions are a gymnasium and a

military school. The town has important manufactures of cloth, leather

and machinery; it has also dye-works, worsted mills and soap-boiling

works.

Hersfeld owes its existence to the Benedictine abbey (see below). It

became a town in the 12th century and in 1370 the burghers, having

meanwhile shaken off the authority of the abbots, placed themselves

under the protection of the landgraves of Hesse. It was taken and

retaken during the Thirty Years' War and later it suffered from the

attacks of the French.

The Benedictine abbey of Hersfeld was founded by Lullus, afterwards

archbishop of Mainz, about 769. It was richly endowed by Charlemagne and

became an ecclesiastical principality in the 12th century, passing under

the protection of the landgraves of Hesse in 1423. It was secularized in

1648, having been previously administered for some years by a member of

the ruling family of Hesse. As a secular principality Hersfeld passed to

Hesse, and with electoral Hesse was united with Prussia in 1866. In the

middle ages the abbey was famous for its library.

See Vigelius, _Denkwurdigkeiten von Hersfeld_ (Hersfeld, 1888); Demme,

_Nachrichten und Urkunden zur Chronik von Hersfeld_ (Hersfeld,

1891-1901), and P. Hafner, _Die Reichsabtei Hersfeld bis zur Mitte des

13ten Jahrhunderts_ (Hersfeld, 1889).

HERSTAL, or HERISTAL, a town of Belgium, less than 2 m. N. of Liege and

practically one of its suburbs. The name is supposed to be derived from

_Heerstelle_, i.e. "Permanent Camp." The second Pippin was born here,

and this mayor of the palace acquired the control of the kingdom of the

Franks. His grandson, Pippin the Short, died at Herstal in A.D. 768, and

it disputes with Aix la Chapelle the honour of being the birthplace of

Charlemagne. It is now a very active centre of iron and steel

manufactures. The Belgian national small arms factory and cannon foundry

are fixed here. Pop. (1904) 20,114.

HERTFORD, EARLS AND MARQUESSES OF. The English earldom of Hertford was

held by members of the powerful family of Clare from about 1138, when

Gilbert de Clare was created earl of Hertford, to 1314 when another earl

Gilbert was killed at Bannockburn. In 1537 EDWARD SEYMOUR, viscount

Beauchamp, a brother of Henry VIII.'s queen, Jane Seymour, was created

earl of Hertford, being advanced ten years later to the dignity of duke

of Somerset and becoming protector of England. His son EDWARD (c.

1540-1621) was styled earl of Hertford from 1547 until the protector's

attainder and death in January 1552, when the title was forfeited; in

1559, however, he was created earl of Hertford. In 1560 he was secretly

married to Lady Catherine Grey (c. 1538-1568), daughter of Henry Grey,

duke of Suffolk, and a descendant of Henry VII. Queen Elizabeth greatly

disliked this union, and both husband and wife were imprisoned, while

the validity of their marriage was questioned. Catherine died on the

27th of January 1568 and Hertford on the 6th of April 1621. Their son

Edward, Lord Beauchamp (1561-1612), who inherited his mother's title to

the English throne, predeceased his father; and the latter was succeeded

in the earldom by his grandson WILLIAM SEYMOUR (1588-1660), who was

created marquess of Hertford in 1640 and was restored to his ancestor's

dukedom of Somerset in 1660. The title of marquess of Hertford became

extinct when JOHN, 4th duke of Somerset, died in 1675, and the earldom

when ALGERNON, the 7th duke, died in February 1750.

In August 1750 FRANCIS SEYMOUR CONWAY, 2nd Baron Conway (1718-1794), who

was a direct descendant of the protector Somerset, was created earl of

Hertford; this nobleman was the son of Francis Seymour Conway

(1679-1732), who had taken the name of Conway in addition to that of

Seymour, and was the brother of Field-marshal Henry Seymour Conway.

Hertford was ambassador to France from 1763 to 1765; was lord-lieutenant

of Ireland in 1765 and 1766; and lord chamberlain of the household from

1766 to 1782. Horace Walpole speaks of his "decorum and piety" and

refers to him as a "perfect courtier," but says that he had "too great

propensity to heap emoluments on his children." In 1793 he became earl

of Yarmouth and marquess of Hertford, and he died on the 14th of June

1794. His son, FRANCIS INGRAM SEYMOUR CONWAY (1743-1822), who was known

during his father's lifetime as Lord Beauchamp, took a prominent part in

the debates of the House of Commons from 1766 until he succeeded to the

marquessate in 1794. He was sent as ambassador to Berlin and Vienna in

1793 and from 1812 to 1821 he was lord chamberlain. His son FRANCIS

CHARLES, the 3rd marquess (1777-1842), was an intimate friend of the

prince regent, afterwards George IV., and is the original of the

"Marquis of Steyne" in Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_ and of "Lord Monmouth"

in Disraeli's _Coningsby_. The 4th marquess was his son, RICHARD

(1800-1870), whose mother was the great heiress, Maria Emily Fagniani,

and whose brother was Lord Henry Seymour (1805-1859), the founder of the

Jockey Club at Paris. When Richard died unmarried in Paris in August

1870 his title passed to his kinsman, FRANCIS HUGH GEORGE SEYMOUR

(1812-1884), a descendant of the 1st marquess, whose son, HUGH DE GREY

(b. 1843) became 6th marquess in 1884. The 4th marquess left his great

wealth and his priceless collection of art treasures to Sir Richard

Wallace (1818-1890), his reputed half-brother, and Wallace's widow, who

died in 1897, bequeathed the collection to the British nation. It is now

in Hertford House, formerly the London residence of the marquesses of

Hertford.

HERTFORD, a market-town and municipal borough, and the county town of

Hertfordshire, England, in the Hertford parliamentary division of the

county, 24 m. N. from London, the terminus of branch lines of the Great

Eastern and Great Northern railways. Pop. (1901) 9322. It is pleasantly

situated in the valley of the river Lea. The chief buildings are the

modern churches of St Andrew and of All Saints, on the sites of old

ones, a town hall, corn exchange, public library, school of art and the

old castle, which retains the wall and part of a tower dating from the

Norman period, and is represented by a picturesque Jacobean building of

brick, largely modernized. There are several educational establishments,

including the preparatory school for Christ's Hospital, a picturesque

building (in great part, however, rebuilt) at the east end of the town,

Hale's grammar school, the Cowper Testimonial school, and a Green-coat

school for boys and girls. Two miles S.E. is Haileybury College, one of

the principal public schools of England, founded in 1805 by the East

India Company for their civil service students, who were then

temporarily housed in Hertford Castle. The school lies high above the

Lea valley, towards Hoddesdon, in the midst of a stretch of

finely-wooded country. Hertford has a considerable agricultural trade,

and there are maltings, breweries, iron foundries, and oriental printing

works. The town is governed by a mayor, 5 aldermen and 15 councillors.

Area, 1134 acres.

Hertford (_Herutford_, _Heorotford_, _Hurtford_) was the scene of a

synod in 673. Its communication with London by way of the Lea and the

Thames gave it strategic importance during the Danish occupation of East

Anglia. In 1066 and later it was a royal garrison and burgh. It made

separate payments for aids to the Norman and Angevin kings; and in 1331

was governed by a bailiff annually elected by the commonalty. A charter

incorporated the bailiffs and burgesses in 1555, and was confirmed under

Elizabeth and in 1606. A charter of 1680 to the mayor, aldermen and

commonalty was effective until the Municipal Corporation Act. Hertford

returned two burgesses to the parliament of 1298, and to others until,

after 1375/6, such right became abeyant, to be restored by order of

parliament in 1623/4. One representative was lost by the Representation

Act in 1868, and separate representation by the Redistribution Act in

1885. A grant of fairs in 1226 probably originated or confirmed those

held in 1331 on the feasts of the Assumption and of St Simon and St

Jude, their vigils and morrows, which fairs were confirmed by Elizabeth

and Charles II. Another on the vigil, morrow and feast of the Nativity

of the Virgin was granted by Elizabeth: its date was changed to May-day

under James I. Modern fairs are on the third Saturday before Easter, the

12th of May, the 5th of July and the 8th of November. Markets were held

in 1331 on Wednesday and Saturday; after 1368 on Thursday and Saturday;

and they returned to Wednesdays and Saturdays in 1680.