[1] Kaspar van Baerle (1584-1648), professor of rhetoric at
Amsterdam, and famous as a Latin poet.
HOOGSTRATEN, SAMUEL DIRKSZ VAN, Dutch painter, was born, it is said, in
1627 at the Hague, and died at Dort on the 19th of October 1678. This
artist, who was first a pupil of his father, lived at the Hague and at
Dort till about 1640, when on the death of Dirk Hoogstraten he changed
his residence to Amsterdam and entered the school of Rembrandt. A short
time afterwards he started as a master and painter of portraits, set out
on a round of travels which took him (1651) to Vienna, Rome and London,
and finally retired to Dort, where he married in 1656, and held an
appointment as "provost of the mint." Hoogstraten's works are scarce;
but a sufficient number of them has been preserved to show that he
strove to imitate different styles at different times. In a portrait
dated 1645 in the Lichtenstein collection at Vienna he imitates
Rembrandt; and he continues in this vein as late as 1653, when he
produced that wonderful figure of a Jew looking out of a casement, which
is one of the most characteristic examples of his manner in the
Belvedere at Vienna. A view of the Vienna Hofburg, dated 1652, in the
same gallery displays his skill as a painter of architecture, whilst in
a piece at the Hague representing a Lady Reading a Letter as she crosses
a Courtyard, or a Lady Consulting a Doctor, in the Van der Hoop Museum
at Amsterdam, he imitates de Hooch. One of his latest works is a
portrait of Mathys van den Brouck, dated 1670, in the gallery of
Amsterdam. The scarcity of Hoogstraten's pictures is probably due to his
versatility. Besides directing a mint, he devoted some time to literary
labours, wrote a book on the theory of painting (1678) and composed
sonnets and a tragedy. We are indebted to him for some of the familiar
sayings of Rembrandt. He was an etcher too, and some of his plates are
still preserved. His portrait, engraved by himself at the age of fifty,
still exists.
HOOK, JAMES CLARKE (1819-1907), English painter, was born in London on
the 21st of November 1819. His father, James Hook, a Northumbrian by
descent, Judge Arbitrator of Sierra Leone, married the second daughter of
Dr Adam Clarke, the commentator on the Bible, who gave to the painter his
second name. Young Hook's first taste of the sea was on board the Berwick
smacks which took him on his way to Wooler. He drew with rare facility,
and determined to become an artist; and accordingly, without any
supervision, he set to work for more than a year in the sculpture
galleries of the British Museum. In 1836 he was admitted a student of the
Royal Academy, where he worked for three years, and elsewhere learned a
good deal of the scientific technique of painting from a nephew of Opie.
His first picture, called "The Hard Task," was exhibited in 1837, and
represented a girl helping her sister with a lesson. Unusual facility in
portraiture and a desire to earn his own living took the student into
Ireland to paint likenesses of the Waterford family and others; here he
produced landscapes of the Vale of Avoca, and much developed his taste
for pastoral art; later, he was similarly engaged in Kent and
Somersetshire. In 1842 his second exhibited work was a portrait of
"Master J. Finch Smith": in this year he gained silver medals at the
Royal Academy, and in 1843 he was one of the competitors in the
exhibition of cartoons in Westminster Hall, with a 10 by 7 ft. design of
"Satan in Paradise." In 1844 the Academy contained a picture of a kind
with which his name was long associated, an illustration of the
_Decameron_, called "Pamphilius relating his Story," a meadow scene in
bright light, with sumptuous ladies, richly clad, reclining on the grass.
The British Institution, 1844 and 1845, set forth two of Hook's idylls,
subjects taken from Shakespeare and Burns, which, with the above, showed
him to be cultivating those veins of romantic sentiment and the
picturesque which were then in vogue, but in a characteristically fresh
and vigorous manner. "The Song of Olden Times" (Royal Academy, 1845)
marked the artist's future path distinctly in most technical respects. It
was in this year Hook won the Academy gold medal for an oil picture of
"The Finding the Body of Harold." The travelling studentship in painting
was awarded to him for "Rizpah watching the Dead Sons of Saul" in 1846;
and he went for three years to Italy, having married Miss Rosalie Burton
before he left England. Hook passed through Paris, worked diligently for
some time in the Louvre, traversed Switzerland, and, though he stayed
only part of three years in Italy, gained much from studies of Titian,
Tintoret, Carpaccio, Mansueti and other Venetians. Their influence
thenceforth dominated the coloration of his pictures, and enabled him to
apply the principles to which they had attained to the representation (as
Bonington before him had done) of romantic subjects and to those English
themes of the land and sea with which the name of the artist is
inseparably associated. "A Dream of Ancient Venice" (R.A., 1848)--the
first fruit of these Italian studies--"Bayard of Brescia" (R.A., 1849),
"Venice" (B.I., 1849) and other works assured for Hook the Associateship
of the Royal Academy in 1851. Soon afterwards an incomparable series of
English subjects was begun, in many pastorals and fine brilliant idylls
of the sea and rocks. "A Rest by the Wayside" and "A Few Minutes to Wait
before Twelve o'clock" proved his title to appear, in 1854, as a new and
original painter. After these came "A Signal on the Horizon" (1857), "A
Widow's Son going to Sea," "The Ship-boy's Letter," "Children's Children
are the Crown of Old Men," "A Coast-boy gathering Eggs," a scene at
Lundy; the perfect "Luff, Boy!" (1859), about which Ruskin broke into a
dithyrambic chant, "The Brook," "Stand Clear!" "O Well for the
Fisherman's Boy!" (1860), "Leaving Cornwall for the Whitby Fishing," "Sea
Urchins," and a score more as fine as these. The artist was elected a
full Academician on the 6th of March 1860, in the place of James Ward. He
died on the 14th of April 1907.
See A. H. Palmer, "J. C. Hook, R.A.," _Portfolio_ (1888); F. G.
Stephens, "J. C. Hook, Royal Academician: His Life and Work," _Art
Annual_ (London, 1888); P. G. Hamerton, _Etching and Etchers_ (London,
1877).
HOOK, THEODORE EDWARD (1788-1841), English author, was born in London on
the 22nd of September 1788. He spent a year at Harrow, and subsequently
matriculated at Oxford, but he never actually resided at the university.
His father, James Hook (1746-1827), the composer of numerous popular
songs, took great delight in exhibiting the boy's extraordinary musical
and metrical gifts, and the precocious Theodore became "the little pet
lion of the green room." At the age of sixteen, in conjunction with his
father, he scored a dramatic success with _The Soldier's Return_, a
comic opera, and this he rapidly followed up with a series of over a
dozen sparkling ventures, the instant popularity of which was hardly
dependent on the inimitable acting of John Liston and Charles Mathews.
But Hook gave himself up for some ten of the best years of his life to
the pleasures of the town, winning a foremost place in the world of
fashion by his matchless powers of improvisation and mimicry, and
startling the public by the audacity of his practical jokes. His unique
gift of improvising the words and the music of songs eventually charmed
the prince Regent into a declaration that "something must be done for
Hook." The prince was as good as his word, and Hook, in spite of a total
ignorance of accounts, was appointed accountant-general and treasurer of
the Mauritius with a salary of L2000 a year. For five delightful years
he was the life and soul of the island, but in 1817, a serious
deficiency having been discovered in the treasury accounts, he was
arrested and brought to England on a criminal charge. A sum of about
L12,000 had been abstracted by a deputy official, and for this amount
Hook was held responsible.
During the tardy scrutiny of the audit board he lived obscurely and
maintained himself by writing for magazines and newspapers. In 1820 he
launched the newspaper _John Bull_, the champion of high Toryism and the
virulent detractor of Queen Caroline. Witty, incisive criticism and
pitiless invective secured it a large circulation, and from this source
alone Hook derived, for the first year at least, an income of L2000. He
was, however, arrested for the second time on account of his debt to the
state, which he made no effort to defray. In a sponging-house, where he
was confined for two years, he wrote the nine volumes of stories
afterwards collected under the title of _Sayings and Doings_
(1826-1829). In the remaining twenty-three years of his life he poured
forth no fewer than thirty-eight volumes, besides numberless articles,
squibs and sketches. His novels are not works of enduring interest, but
they are saved from mediocrity by frequent passages of racy narrative
and vivid portraiture. The best are _Maxwell_ (1830), _Love and Pride_
(1833), the autobiographic _Gilbert Gurney_ (1836), _Jack Brag_ (1837),
_Gurney Married_ (1838), and _Peregrine Bunce_ (1842). Incessant work
had already begun to tell on his health, when Hook returned to his old
social habits, and a prolonged attempt to combine industry and
dissipation resulted in the confession that he was "done up in purse, in
mind and in body too at last." He died on the 24th of August 1841. His
writings in great part are of a purely ephemeral character; and the
greatest triumphs of the improvisatore may be said to have been writ in
wine. Putting aside, however, his claim to literary greatness, Hook will
be remembered as one of the most brilliant, genial and original figures
of Georgian times.
See the Rev. R. H. D. Barham's _Life and Remains of Hook_ (3rd ed.,
1877); and an article by J. G. Lockhart in the _Quarterly Review_ (May
1843).
HOOK, WALTER FARQUHAR (1798-1875), English divine, nephew of the witty
Theodore, was born in London on the 13th of March 1798. Educated at
Tiverton and Winchester, he graduated at Oxford (Christ Church) in 1821,
and after holding an incumbency in Coventry, 1829-1837, and in Leeds,
1837-1859, was nominated dean of Chichester by Lord Derby. He received
the degree of D.D. in 1837. His friendship towards the Tractarians
exposed him to considerable persecution, but his simple manly character
and zealous devotion to parochial work gained him the support of widely
divergent classes. His stay in Leeds was marked by vigorous and
far-reaching church extension, and his views on education were far in
advance of his time. Among his many writings are _An Ecclesiastical
Biography, containing the Lives of Ancient Fathers and Modern Divines_
(8 vols., 1845-1852), _A Church Dictionary, The Means of Rendering more
Effectual the Education of the People, The Cross of Christ_ (1873), _The
Church and its Ordinances_ (sermons, 4 vols., 1876), and _Lives of the
Archbishops of Canterbury_ (12 vols., 1860-1876). He died on the 20th of
October 1875.
See _Life and Letters of Dean Hook_, by his son-in-law, W. R. W.
Stephens (2 vols., 1878).
HOOKAH (the English spelling of the Persian and Hindustani _huqqu_, an
adaptation of the Arabic _huqqah_, a vase or casket, and by transference
a pipe for smoking, probably derived from the Arabie _huqq_, a hollow
place), a pipe with a long flexible tube attached to a large bowl
containing water, often scented, and resting upon a tripod or stand. The
smoke of the tobacco is made to pass through the water in the bowl, and
is thus cooled before reaching the smoker. The _narghile_ of India is in
principle the same as that of the hookah; the word is derived from
_nargil_, an Indian name for the coco-nut tree, as when the _narghile_
was first made the water was placed in a coco-nut. This receptacle is
now often made of porcelain, glass or metal. In the _hubble-bubble_ the
pipe is so contrived that the water in the bowl makes a bubbling noise
while the pipe is being smoked. This pipe is common in India, Egypt and
the East generally.
HOOKE, ROBERT (1635-1703), English experimental philosopher, was born on
the 18th of July 1635 at Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, where his
father, John Hooke, was minister of the parish. After working for a
short time with Sir Peter Lely, he went to Westminster school; and in
1653 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, as servitor. After 1655 he was
employed and patronized by the Hon. Robert Boyle, who turned his skill
to account in the construction of his air-pump. On the 12th of November
1662 he was appointed curator of experiments to the Royal Society, of
which he was elected a fellow in 1663, and filled the office during the
remainder of his life. In 1664 Sir John Cutler instituted for his
benefit a mechanical lectureship of L50 a year, and in the following
year he was nominated professor of geometry in Gresham College, where he
subsequently resided. After the Great Fire of 1666 he constructed a
model for the rebuilding of this city, which was highly approved,
although the design of Sir C. Wren was preferred. During the progress of
the works, however, he acted as surveyor, and accumulated in that
lucrative employment a sum of several thousand pounds, discovered after
his death in an old iron chest, which had evidently lain unopened for
above thirty years. He fulfilled the duties of secretary to the Royal
Society during five years after the death of Henry Oldenburg in 1677,
publishing in 1681-1682 the papers read before that body under the title
of _Philosophical Collections_. A protracted controversy with Johann
Hevelius, in which Hooke urged the advantages of telescopic over plain
sights, brought him little but discredit. His reasons were good; but his
offensive style of argument rendered them unpalatable and himself
unpopular. Many circumstances concurred to embitter the latter years of
his life. The death, in 1687, of his niece, Mrs Grace Hooke, who had
lived with him for many years, caused him deep affliction; a law-suit
with Sir John Cutler about his salary (decided, however, in his favour
in 1696) occasioned him prolonged anxiety; and the repeated anticipation
of his discoveries inspired him with a morbid jealousy. Marks of public
respect were not indeed wanting to him. A degree of M.D. was conferred
on him at Doctors' Commons in 1691, and the Royal Society made him, in
1696, a grant to enable him to complete his philosophical inventions.
While engaged on this task he died, worn out with disease, on the 3rd of
March 1703 in London, and was buried in St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate
Street.
In personal appearance Hooke made but a sorry show. His figure was
crooked, his limbs shrunken; his hair hung in dishevelled locks over his
haggard countenance. His temper was irritable, his habits penurious and
solitary. He was, however, blameless in morals and reverent in religion.
His scientific achievements would probably have been more striking if
they had been less varied. He originated much, but perfected little. His
optical investigations led him to adopt in an imperfect form the
undulatory theory of light, to anticipate the doctrine of interference,
and to observe, independently of though subsequently to F. M. Grimaldi
(1618-1663), the phenomenon of diffraction. He was the first to state
clearly that the motions of the heavenly bodies must be regarded as a
mechanical problem, and he approached in a remarkable manner the
discovery of universal gravitation. He invented the wheel barometer,
discussed the application of barometrical indications to meteorological
forecasting, suggested a system of optical telegraphy, anticipated E. F.
F. Chladni's experiment of strewing a vibrating bell with flour,
investigated the nature of sound and the function of the air in
respiration and combustion, and originated the idea of using the
pendulum as a measure of gravity. He is credited with the invention of
the anchor escapement for clocks, and also with the application of
spiral springs to the balances of watches, together with the explanation
of their action by the principle _Ut tensio sic vis_ (1676).
His principal writings are _Micrographia_ (1664); _Lectiones
Cutlerianae_ (1674-1679); and _Posthumous Works_, containing a sketch
of his "Philosophical Algebra," published by R. Waller in 1705.
HOOKER, JOSEPH (1814-1879), American general, was born in Hadley,
Massachusetts, on the 13th of November 1814. He was educated at the
military academy at West Point (1833-1837), and on graduating entered
the 1st U.S. Artillery. In the war with Mexico (1846-48) he served as a
staff officer, and rose by successive brevets for meritorious services
to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1853 he left the service and
bought a large farm near Sonoma, Cal., which he managed successfully
till 1858, when he was made superintendent of military roads in Oregon.
Upon the opening of hostilities in the Civil War of 1861-65, he
sacrificed his fine estate and offered his sword to the Federal
Government. He was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers on the
17th of May 1861 and major-general on the 5th of May 1862. The
engagement of Williamsburg (May 5th) brought him and his subordinate
Hancock into prominence, and Hooker received the soubriquet of "Fighting
Joe." He was engaged at the battle of Fair Oaks, and did splendid
service to the Union army during the "Seven Days." In the campaign of
Northern Virginia, under General Pope (August 1862), he led his division
with fiery energy at Bristoe Station, Manassas and Chantilly. In the
Maryland campaign (September) he was at the head of the I. corps, Army
of the Potomac, forced the defile of South Mountain and opened the way
for the advance of the army. The I. corps opened the great battle of the
Antietam, and sustained a sanguinary fight with the Confederates under
Stonewall Jackson. Hooker himself was severely wounded. He was
commissioned brigadier-general in the United States army on the 20th of
September 1862, and in the battle of Fredericksburg (q.v.), under
Burnside, he commanded the centre grand division (III. and V. corps). He
had protested against the useless slaughter of his men on that
disastrous field, and when Burnside resigned the command Hooker
succeeded him. The new leader effected a much-needed re-organization in
the army, which had fought many battles without success. In this task,
as in subordinate commands in battle, Hooker was excelled by few. But
his grave defects as a commander-in-chief were soon to be obvious. By a
well-planned and well-executed flanking movement, he placed himself on
the enemy's flank, but at the decisive moment he checked the advance of
his troops. Lee turned upon him, Jackson surprised and destroyed a whole
army corps, and the battle of Chancellorsville (see WILDERNESS), in
which Hooker was himself disabled, ended in a retreat to the old
position. Yet Hooker had not entirely forfeited the confidence of his
men, to whom he was still "Fighting Joe." The second advance of Lee into
Union territory, which led to the battle of Gettysburg, was strenuously
resisted by Hooker, who would have inflicted a heavy blow on Lee's
scattered forces had he not been condemned to inaction by orders from
Washington. Even then Hooker followed the Confederates a day only behind
them, until, finding himself distrusted and forbidden to control the
movements of troops within the sphere of operations, he resigned the
command on the eve of the battle (June 28, 1863). Faults of temper and
an excessive sense of responsibility made his continued occupation of
the command impossible, but when after a signal defeat Rosecrans was
besieged in Chattanooga, and Grant with all the forces of the West was
hurried to the rescue, two corps of the Army of the Potomac were sent
over by rail, and Hooker, who was at least one of the finest fighting
generals of the service, went with them in command. He fought and won
the "Battle above the Clouds" on Lookout Mountain which cleared the way
for the crowning victory of the army of the Cumberland on Missionary
Ridge (see CHATTANOOGA). And in command of the same corps (consolidated
as the XX. corps) he took part in all the battles and combats of the
Atlanta campaign of 1864. When General McPherson was killed before
Atlanta, the command of Grant's old Army of the Tennessee fell vacant.
Hooker, who, though only a corps commander, was senior to the other army
commanders, Thomas and Schofield, was normally entitled to receive it,
but General Sherman feared to commit a whole army to the guidance of a
man of Hooker's peculiar temperament, and the place was given to Howard.
Hooker thereupon left the army. He was commissioned brevet-major-general
in the United States army on the 13th of March 1865, and retired from
active service with the full rank of major-general on the 15th of
October 1868, in consequence of a paralytic seizure. The last years of
his life were passed in the neighbourhood of New York. He died at Garden
City, Long Island, on the 31st of October 1879.
HOOKER, SIR JOSEPH DALTON (1817- ), English botanist and traveller,
second son of the famous botanist Sir W. J. Hooker, was born on the 30th
of June 1817, at Halesworth, Suffolk. He was educated at Glasgow
University, and almost immediately after taking his M.D. degree there in
1839 joined Sir James Ross's Antarctic expedition, receiving a
commission as assistant-surgeon on the "Erebus." The botanical fruits of
the three years he thus spent in the Southern Seas were the _Flora
Antarctica_, _Flora Novae Zelandiae_ and _Flora Tasmanica_, which he
published on his return. His next expedition was to the northern
frontiers of India (1847-1851), and the expenses in this case also were
partially defrayed by the government. The party had its full share of
adventure. Hooker and his friend Dr Campbell were detained in prison for
some time by the raja of Sikkim, but nevertheless they were able to
bring back important results, both geographical and botanical. Their
survey of hitherto unexplored regions was published by the Calcutta
Trigonometrical Survey Office, and their botanical observations formed
the basis of elaborate works on the rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya
and on the flora of India. Among other journeys undertaken by Hooker may
be mentioned those to Palestine (1860), Morocco (1871), and the United
States (1877), all yielding valuable scientific information. In the
midst of all this travelling in foreign countries he quickly built up
for himself a high scientific reputation at home. In 1855 he was
appointed assistant-director of Kew Gardens, and in 1865 he succeeded
his father as full director, holding the post for twenty years. At the
early age of thirty he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in
1873 he was chosen its president; he received three of its medals--a
Royal in 1854, the Copley in 1887 and the Darwin in 1892. He acted as
president of the British Association at its Norwich meeting of 1868,
when his address was remarkable for its championship of Darwinian
theories. Of Darwin, indeed, he was an early friend and supporter: it
was he who, with Lyell, first induced Darwin to make his views public,
and the author of _The Origin of Species_ has recorded his indebtedness
to Hooker's wide knowledge and balanced judgment. Sir Joseph Hooker is
the author of numerous scientific papers and monographs, and his larger
books include, in addition to those already mentioned, a standard
_Student's Flora of the British Isles_ and a monumental work, the
_Genera plantarum_, based on the collections at Kew, in which he had the
assistance of Bentham. On the publication of the last part of his _Flora
of British India_ in 1897 he was created G.C.S.I., of which order he had
been made a knight commander twenty years before; and twenty years
later, on attaining the age of ninety, he was awarded the Order of
Merit.
HOOKER, RICHARD (1553-1600), English writer, author of the _Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity_, son of Richard Vowell or Hooker, was born at
Heavitree, near the city of Exeter, about the end of 1553 or beginning
of 1554. Vowell was the original name of the family, but was gradually
dropped, and in the 15th century its members were known as Vowell
_alias_ Hooker. At school, not only his facility in mastering his tasks,
but his intellectual inquisitiveness and his fine moral qualities,
attracted the special notice of his teacher, who strongly recommended
his parents to educate him for the church. Though well connected, they
were, however, somewhat straitened in their worldly circumstances, and
Hooker was indebted for admission to the university to his uncle, John
Hooker _alias_ Vowell, chamberlain of Exeter, and in his day a man of
some literary repute, who induced Bishop Jewel to become his patron and
to bestow on him a clerk's place in Corpus Christi College, Oxford. To
this Hooker was admitted in 1568. Bishop Jewel died in September 1571,
but Dr William Cole, president of the college, from the strong interest
he felt in the young man, on account at once of his character and his
abilities, spontaneously offered to take the bishop's place as his
patron; and shortly afterwards Hooker, by his own labours as a tutor,
became independent of gratuitous aid. Two of his pupils, and these his
favourite ones, were Edwin Sandys, afterwards author of _Europae
speculum_, and George Cranmer, grand-nephew of the archbishop. Hooker's
reputation as a tutor soon became very high, for he had employed his
five years at the university to such good purpose as not only to have
acquired great proficiency in the learned languages, but to have joined
to this a wide and varied culture which had delivered him from the
bondage of learned pedantry; in addition to which he is said to have
possessed a remarkable talent for communicating knowledge in a clear and
interesting manner, and to have exercised a special influence over his
pupils' intellectual and moral tendencies. In December 1573 he was
elected scholar of his college; in July 1577 he proceeded to M.A., and
in September of the same year he was admitted a fellow. In 1579 he was
appointed by the chancellor of the university to read the public Hebrew
lecture, a duty which he continued to discharge till he left Oxford. Not
long after his admission into holy orders, about 1581, he was appointed
to preach at St Paul's Cross; and, according to Walton, he was so kindly
entertained by Mrs Churchman, who kept the Shunamite's house where the
preachers were boarded, that he permitted her to choose him a wife,
"promising upon a fair summons to return to London and accept of her
choice." The lady selected by her was "her daughter Joan," who, says the
same authority, "found him neither beauty nor portion; and for her
conditions they were too like that wife's which is by Solomon compared
to a dripping house." It is probable that Walton has exaggerated the
simplicity and passiveness of Hooker in the matter, but though, as Keble
observes with justice, his writings betray uncommon shrewdness and
quickness of observation, as well as a vein of keenest humour, it would
appear that either gratitude or some other impulse had on this occasion
led his judgment astray. After his marriage he was, about the end of
1584, presented to the living of Drayton Beauchamp in Buckinghamshire.
In the following year he received a visit from his two pupils, Edwin
Sandys and George Cranmer, who found him with the _Odes_ of Horace in
his hand, tending the sheep while the servant was at dinner, after
which, when they on the return of the servant accompanied him to his
house, "Richard was called to rock the cradle." Finding him so engrossed
by worldly and domestic cares, "they stayed but till the next morning,"
and, greatly grieved at his narrow circumstances and unhappy domestic
condition, "left him to the company of his wife Joan."
The visit had, however, results of the highest moment, not only in
regard to the career of Hooker, but in regard to English literature and
English philosophical thought. Sandys prevailed on his father, the
archbishop of York, to recommend Hooker for presentation to the
mastership of the Temple, and Hooker, though his "wish was rather to
gain a better country living," having agreed after some hesitation to
become a candidate, the patent conferring upon him the mastership was
granted on the 17th of March 1584/5. The rival candidate was Walter
Travers, a Presbyterian and evening lecturer in the same church. Being
continued in the lectureship after the appointment of Hooker, Travers
was in the habit of attempting a refutation in the evening of what
Hooker had spoken in the morning, Hooker again replying on the following
Sunday; so it was said "the forenoon sermon spake Canterbury, the
afternoon Geneva." On account of the keen feeling displayed by the
partisans of both, Archbishop Whitgift deemed it prudent to prohibit the
preaching of Travers, whereupon he presented a petition to the council
to have the prohibition recalled. Hooker published an _Answer to the
Petition of Mr Travers_, and also printed several sermons bearing on
special points of the controversy; but, feeling strongly the
unsatisfactory nature of such an isolated and fragmentary discussion of
separate points, he resolved to compose an elaborate and exhaustive
treatise, exhibiting the fundamental principles by which the question in
dispute must be decided. It is probable that the work was begun in the
latter half of 1586, and he had made considerable progress with it
before, with a view to its completion, he petitioned Whitgift to be
removed to a country parsonage, in order that, as he said, "I may keep
myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's blessing spring out of my
mother earth, and eat my own bread without oppositions." His desire was
granted in 1591 by a presentation to the rectory of Boscombe near
Salisbury. There he completed the volume containing the first four of
the proposed _Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_. It was
entered at Stationers' Hall on the 9th of March 1592, but was not
published till 1593 or 1594. In July 1595 he was promoted by the crown
to the rectory of Bishopsbourne near Canterbury, where he lived to see
the completion of the fifth book in 1597. In the passage from London to
Gravesend some time in 1600 he caught a severe cold from which he never
recovered; but, notwithstanding great weakness and constant suffering,
he "was solicitous in his study," his one desire being "to live to
finish the three remaining books of _Polity_." His death took place on
the 2nd of November of the same year. A volume professing to contain the
sixth and eighth books of the _Polity_ was published at London in 1648,
but the bulk of the sixth book, as has been shown by Keble, is an entire
deviation from the subject on which Hooker proposed to treat, and
doubtless the genuine copy, known to have been completed, has been lost.
The seventh book, which was published in a new edition of the work by
Gauden in 1662, and the eighth book, may be regarded as in substance the
composition of Hooker; but, as, in addition to wanting his final
revision, they have been very unskilfully edited, if they have not been
manipulated for theological purposes, their statements in regard to
doubtful matters must be received with due reserve, and no reliance can
be placed on their testimony where their meaning contradicts that of
other portions of the _Polity_.
The conception of Hooker in his later years, which we form from the
various accessible sources, is that of a person of low stature and not
immediately impressive appearance, much bent by the influence of
sedentary and meditative habits, of quiet and retiring manners, and
discoloured in complexion and worn and marked in feature from the hard
mental toil which he had expended on his great work. There seems,
however, exaggeration in Walton's statement as to the meanness of his
dress; and Walton certainly misreads his character when he portrays him
as a kind of ascetic mystic. Though he was unworldly and simple in his
desires, and engrossed in the purpose to which he had devoted his
life--the "completion of the _Polity_"--his writings indicate that he
possessed a cheerful and healthy disposition, and that he was capable of
discovering enjoyment in everyday pleasures, and of appreciating human
life and character in a wide variety of aspects. He seems to have had a
special delight in outward nature--as he expressed it, he loved "to see
God's blessing spring out of his mother earth"; and he spent much of his
spare time in visiting his parishioners, his deference towards them, if
excessive, being yet mingled with a grave dignity which rendered
unwarrantable liberties impossible. As a preacher, though singularly
devoid of the qualities which win the applause of the multitude, he
always excited the interest of the more intelligent, the breadth and
finely balanced wisdom of his thoughts and the fascination of his
composition greatly modifying the impression produced by his weak voice
and ineffective manner. Partly, doubtless, on account of his
dim-sightedness, he never removed his eye from his manuscript, and,
according to Fuller, "he may be said to have made good music with his
fiddle and stick alone, having neither pronunciation nor gesture to
grace his matter."
To accede without explanation to the claim put forth for the
_Ecclesiastical Polity_ of Hooker, that it marks an epoch in English
prose literature and English thought, would both be to do some
injustice to writers previous to him, and, if not to overestimate his
influence, to misinterpret its character. By no means can his
excursions in English prose be regarded as chiefly those of a pioneer;
and not only is his intellectual position inferior to that of
Shakespeare, Spenser and Bacon,[1] who alone can be properly reckoned
as the master spirits of the age, but in reality what effect he may
have had upon the thought of his contemporaries was soon disregarded
and swept out of sight in the hand-to-hand struggle with Puritanism,
and his influence, so far from being immediate and confined to one
particular era, has since the reaction against Puritanism been slowly
and imperceptibly permeating and colouring English thought. His work
is, however, the earliest in English prose with enough of the
preserving salt of excellence to adapt it to the mental palate of
modern readers. Attempts more elaborate than those of the old
chroniclers had been made two centuries previously to employ English
prose both for narrative and for discussion; and, a few years before
him, Roger Ascham, Sir Thomas More, Latimer, Sir Philip Sidney, the
compilers of the prayer book, and various translators of the Bible,
had in widely different departments of literature brought to light
many samples of the rich wealth of expression that was latent in the
language; but Hooker's is the first independent work in English prose
of notable power and genius, and the vigour and grasp of its thought
are not more remarkable than the felicity of its literary style. Its
more usual and obvious excellences are clearness of expression,
notwithstanding occasionally complicated methods; great aptness and
conciseness in the formation of individual clauses, and such a fine
sense of proportion and rhythm in their arrangement as almost conceals
the difficulties of syntax by which he was hampered; finished
simplicity, notwithstanding a stateliness too uniform and unbroken; a
nice discrimination in the choice of words and phrases, so as both to
portray the exact shade of his meaning, and to express each of his
thoughts with that degree of emphasis appropriate to its place in his
composition. In regard to qualities more relating to the matter than
the manner we may note the subtle and partly hidden humour; the strong
enthusiasm underlying that seemingly calm and passionless exposition
of principles which continually led him away from the minutiae of
temporary disputes, and has earned for him the somewhat misleading
epithet of "judicious;" the solidity of learning, not ostentatiously
displayed, but indicated in the character and variety of his
illustrations and his comprehensive mastery of all that relates to his
subject; the breadth of his conceptions, and the sweep and ease of his
movements in the highest regions of thought; the fine poetical
descriptions occasionally introduced, in which his eloquence attains a
grave, rich and massive harmony that compares not unfavourably with
the finest prose of Milton. His manner is, of course, defective in the
flexibility and variety characteristic of the best models of English
prose literature after the language had been enriched and perfected by
long use, and his sentences, constructed too much according to Latin
usages, are often tautological and too protracted into long
concatenations of clauses; but if, when regarded superficially, his
style presents in some respects a stiff and antiquated aspect, it yet
possesses an original and innate charm that has retained its freshness
after the lapse of nearly three centuries.
The direct interest in the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ is now
philosophical and political rather than theological, for what
theological importance it possessed was rather in regard to the spirit
and method in which theology should be discussed than in regard to the
decision of strictly theological points. Hooker bases his reasoning on
principles which he discovered in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, but
the intellectual atmosphere of his age was different from that which
surrounded them; he was acted upon by new and more various impulses
enabling him to imbibe more thoroughly the spirit of Greek thought
which was the source of their inspiration, and thus to reach a higher
and freer region than scholasticism, and in a sense to inaugurate
modern philosophy in England. It may be admitted that his principles
are only partially and in some degree capriciously wrought out--that
if he is not under the dominion of intellectual tendencies leading to
opposite results there are occasional blanks and gaps in his argument
where he seems sometimes to be groping after a meaning which he cannot
fully grasp; but he is often charged with obscurity simply because
readers of various theological schools, beholding in his principles
what seem the outline and justification of their own ideas, are
disappointed when they find that these outlines instead of acquiring
as they narrowly examine them the full and definite form of their
anticipations, widen out into a region beyond their notions and
sympathies, and therefore from their point of view enveloped in mist
and shade. It is the exposition of philosophical principles in the
first and second books of the _Polity_, and not the application of
these principles in the remaining books that gives the work its
standard place in English literature. It was intended to be an answer
to the attacks of the Presbyterians on the Episcopalian polity and
customs, but no attempt is made directly to oust Presbyterianism from
the place it then held in the Church of England. The work must rather
be regarded as a remonstrance against the narrow ground chosen by the
Presbyterians for their basis of attack, Hooker's exact position being
that "a necessity of polity and regiment may be held in all churches
without holding any form to be necessary."
The general purpose of his reasoning is to vindicate Episcopacy from
objections that had been urged against it, but he attains a result
which has other and wider consequences than this. The fundamental
principle on which he bases his reasoning is the unity and
all-embracing character of law--law "whose seat," he beautifully says,
"is the bosom of God, whose voice the harmony of the world." Law--as
operative in nature, as regulating each man's individual character and
actions, as seen in the formations of societies and governments--is
equally a manifestation and development of the divine order according
to which God Himself acts, is the expression in various forms of the
divine reason. He makes a distinction between natural and positive
laws, the one being eternal and immutable, the other varying according
to external necessity and expediency; and he includes all the forms of
government under laws that are positive and therefore alterable
according to circumstances. Their application is to be determined by
reason, reason enlightened and strengthened by every variety of
knowledge, discipline and experience. The leading feature in his
system is the high place assigned to reason, for, though affirming
that certain truths necessary to salvation could be made known only by
special divine revelation, he yet elevates reason into the criterion
by which these truths are to be judged, and the standard to determine
what in revelation is temporal and what eternal. "It is not the word
of God itself," he says, "which doth or possibly can assure us that we
do well to think it His word." At the same time he saves himself from
the dangers of abstract and rash theorizing by a deep and absolute
regard for facts, the diligent and accurate study of which he makes of
the first importance to the proper use of reason. "The general and
perpetual voice of men is," he says, "as the sentence of God Himself.
For that which all men have at all times learned, nature herself must
needs have taught; and, God being the author of nature, her voice is
but His instrument." Applying his principles to man individually, the
foundation of morality is, according to Hooker, immutable, and rests
"on that law which God from the beginning hath set Himself to do all
things by"; this law is to be discovered by reason; and the perfection
which reason teaches us to strive after is stated, with characteristic
breadth of conception and regard to the facts of human nature, to be
"a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things
which very life itself requireth, either as necessary supplements, or
as beauties or ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in
those things which none underneath man is either capable of or
acquainted with; lastly, a spiritual or divine, consisting in those
things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here
attain unto them." Applying his principles to man as a member of a
community, he assigns practically the same origin and sanctions to
ecclesiastical as to civil government. His theory of government forms
the basis of the _Treatise on Civil Government_ by Locke, although
Locke developed the theory in a way that Hooker would not have
sanctioned. The force and justification of government Hooker derives
from public approbation, either given directly by the parties
immediately concerned, or indirectly through inheritance from their
ancestors. "Sith men," he says, "naturally have no full and perfect
power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly
without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment
living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof
we are part hath at any time before consented, without revoking the
same after, by the like universal agreement." His theory as he stated
it is in various of its aspects and applications liable to objection;
but taken as a whole it is the first philosophical statement of the
principles which, though disregarded in the succeeding age, have since
regulated political progress in England and gradually modified its
constitution. One of the corollaries of his principles is his theory
of the relation of church and state, according to which, with the
qualifications implied in his theory of government, he asserts the
royal supremacy in matters of religion, and identifies the church and
commonwealth as but different aspects of the same government.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A life of Hooker by Dr Gauden was published in his
edition of Hooker's works (London, 1662). To correct the errors in
this life Walton wrote another, which was published in the 2nd edition
of Hooker's works in 1666. The standard modern edition of Hooker's
works is that by Keble, which first appeared in 1836, and has since
been several times reprinted (1888 edition, revised by Dean Church and
Bishop Paget). The first book of the _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_
was edited for the Clarendon Press by Dean R. W. Church (1868-1876).
(T. F. H.)