[1] Adin Ballou wrote _An Elaborate History and Genealogy of the
Ballous in America_ (Providence, R.I., 1888).
HOPE-SCOTT, JAMES ROBERT (1812-1873), English barrister and Tractarian,
was born on the 15th of July 1812, at Great Marlow, Berkshire, the third
Son of Sir Alexander Hope, and grandson of the second earl of Hopetoun.
He was educated at Eton and Oxford, where he was a contemporary and
friend of Gladstone and J. H. Newman, and in 1838 was called to the bar.
Between 1840 and 1843 he helped to found Trinity College, Glenalmond. He
was one of the leaders of the Tractarian movement and entirely in
Newman's confidence. In 1851 he was received with Manning into the Roman
Catholic church. At this time he was making a very large income at the
Parliamentary bar. He only commenced serious practice in this branch of
his profession in 1843, but by the end of 1845 he stood at the head of
it and in 1849 was made a Queen's Counsel. In 1847 he married Miss
Lockhart, granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott, and on her coming into
possession of Abbotsford six years later, assumed the surname of
Hope-Scott. He retired from the bar in 1870 and died on the 29th of
April 1873.
HOPFEN, HANS VON (1835-1904), German poet and novelist, was born on the
3rd of January 1835, at Munich. He studied law, and in 1858, having
shown marked poetical promise, he was received into the circle of young
poets whom King Maximilian II. had gathered round him, and thereafter
devoted himself to literature. In 1862 he made his debut as an author,
with _Lieder und Balladen_, which were published in the _Munchener
Dichterbuch_, edited by E. Geibel. After travelling in Italy (1862),
France (1863) and Austria (1864), he was appointed, in 1865, general
secretary of the "Schillerstiftung," and in this capacity settled at
Vienna. The following year, however, he removed to Berlin, in a suburb
of which, Lichterfelde, he died on the 19th of November 1904. Of
Hopfen's lyric poems, _Gedichte_ (4th ed., Berlin, 1883), many are of
considerable talent and originality; but it is as a novelist that he is
best known. The novels _Peregretta_ (1864); _Verdorben zu Paris_ (1868,
new ed. 1892); _Arge Sitten_ (1869); _Der graue Freund_ (1874, 2nd ed.,
1876); and _Verfehlte Liebe_ (1876, 2nd ed., 1879) are attractive, while
of his shorter stories _Tiroler Geschichten_ (1884-1885) command most
favour.
An autobiographical sketch of Hopfen is contained in K. E. Franzos,
_Geschichte des Erstlingswerkes_ (1904).
HOPI, or MOKI (_Moquis_), a tribe of North American Indians of
Shoshonean stock. They are Pueblo or town-building Indians and occupy
seven villages on three lofty plateaus of northern Arizona. The first
accounts of them date from the expedition of Francisco Vasquez de
Coronado in 1540. With the town-building Indians of New Mexico they were
then subdued. They shared in the successful revolt of 1542, but again
suffered defeat in 1586. In 1680, however, they made a successful revolt
against the Spaniards. They weave very fine blankets, make baskets and
are expert potters and wood-carvers. Their houses are built of stone set
in mortar. Their ceremonies are of an elaborate nature, and in the
famous "snake-dance" the performers carry live rattlesnakes in their
mouths. They number some 1600. (See also PUEBLO INDIANS.)
For Hopi festivals, see _21st Ann. Report Bureau of Amer. Ethnology_
(1899-1900).
HOPKEN, ANDERS JOHAN, COUNT VON (1712-1789), Swedish statesman, was the
son of Daniel Niklas Hopken, one of Arvid Horn's most determined
opponents and a founder of the Hat party. When in 1738 the Hats came
into power the younger Hopken obtained a seat in the secret committee of
the diet, and during the Finnish war of 1741-42 was one of the two
commissioners appointed to negotiate with Russia. During the diet of
1746-1747 Hopken's influence was of the greatest importance. It was
chiefly through his efforts that the estates issued a "national
declaration" protesting against the arrogant attitude of the Russian
ambassador, who attempted to dominate the crown prince Adolphus
Frederick and the government. This spirited policy restored the waning
prestige of the Hat party and firmly established their anti-Muscovite
system. In 1746 Hopken was created a senator. In 1751 he succeeded
Gustaf Tessin as prime minister, and controlled the foreign policy of
Sweden for the next nine years. On the outbreak of the Seven Years' War,
he contracted an armed neutrality treaty with Denmark (1756); but in the
following year acceded to the league against Frederick II. of Prussia.
During the crisis of 1760-1762, when the Hats were at last compelled to
give an account of their stewardship, Hopken was sacrificed to party
exigencies and retired from the senate as well as from the premiership.
On the 22nd of June 1762, however, he was created a count. After the
revolution of 1772 he re-entered the senate at the particular request of
Gustavus III., but no longer exercised any political influence. His
caustic criticism of many of the royal measures, moreover, gave great
offence, and in 1780 he retired into private life. Hopken was a
distinguished author. The noble style of his biographies and orations
has earned for him the title of the Swedish Tacitus. He helped to found
the _Vetenskaps Akademi_, and when Gustavus III. in 1786 established
the Swedish Academy, he gave Hopken the first place in it.
See L. G. de Geer, _Minne af Grefve A. J. von Hopken_ (Stockholm,
1882); Carl Silfverstolpe, _Grefve Hopkens Skrifter_ (Stockholm,
1890-1893). (R. N. B.)
HOPKINS, EDWARD WASHBURN (1857- ), American Sanskrit scholar, was born
in Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 8th of September 1857. He
graduated at Columbia University in 1878, studied at Leipzig, where he
received the degree of Ph.D. in 1881, was an instructor at Columbia in
1881-1885, and professor at Bryn Mawr in 1885-1895, and became professor
of Sanskrit and comparative philology in Yale University in 1895. He
became secretary of the American Oriental Society and editor of its
_Journal_, to which he contributed many valuable papers, especially on
numerical and temporal categories in early Sanskrit literature. He wrote
_Caste in Ancient India_ (1881); _Manu's Lawbook_ (1884); _Religions of
India_ (1895); _The Great Epic of India_ (1901); and _India Old and New_
(1901).
HOPKINS, ESEK (1718-1802), the first admiral of the United States navy,
was born at Scituate, Rhode Island, in 1718. He belonged to one of the
most prominent Puritan families of New England. At the age of twenty he
went to sea, and rapidly came to the front as a good sailor and skilful
trader. Marrying, three years later, into a prosperous family of
Newport, and thus increasing his influence in Rhode Island, he became
commodore of a fleet of seventeen merchantmen, the movements of which he
directed with skill and energy. In war as well as peace, Hopkins was
establishing his reputation as one of the leading colonial seamen, for
as captain of a privateer he made more than one brilliant and successful
venture during the Seven Years' War. In the interval between voyages,
moreover, he was engaged in Rhode Island politics, and rendered
efficient support to his brother Stephen against the Ward faction. At
the outbreak of the War of Independence, Hopkins was appointed
brigadier-general by Rhode Island, was commissioned, December 1775, by
the Continental Congress, commander-in-chief of the navy, and in January
1776 hoisted his flag as admiral of the eight converted merchantmen
which then constituted the navy of the United States. His first cruise
resulted in a great acquisition of material of war and an indecisive
fight with H.M.S. "Glasgow." At first this created great enthusiasm, but
criticism soon made itself heard. Hopkins and two of his captains were
tried for breach of orders, and, though ably defended by John Adams,
were censured by Congress. The commands, nevertheless, were not
interfered with, and a prize was soon afterwards named after the admiral
by their orders. But the difficulties and mutual distrust continually
increased, and in 1777 Congress summarily dismissed Hopkins from his
command, on the complaint of some of his officers. Before the order
arrived, the admiral had detected the conspiracy against him, and had
had the ringleaders tried and degraded by court-martial. But the
Congress followed up its order by dismissing him from the navy. For the
rest of his life he lived in Rhode Island, playing a prominent part in
state politics, and he died at Providence in 1802.
See Edward Field, _Life of Esek Hopkins_ (Providence, 1898); also an
article by R. Grieve in the _New England Magazine_ of November 1897.
HOPKINS, MARK (1802-1887), American educationist, great-nephew of the
theologian Samuel Hopkins, was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on
the 4th of February 1802. He graduated in 1824 at Williams College,
where he was a tutor in 1825-1827, and where in 1830, after having
graduated in the previous year at the Berkshire Medical College at
Pittsfield, he became professor of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric. In
1833 he was licensed to preach in Congregational churches. He was
president of Williams College from 1836 until 1872. He was one of the
ablest and most successful of the old type of college president. His
volume of lectures on _Evidences of Christianity_ (1846) was long a
favourite text-book. Of his other writings, the chief were _Lectures on
Moral Science_ (1862), _The Law of Love and Love as a Law_ (1869), _An
Outline Study of Man_ (1873), _The Scriptural Idea of Man_ (1883), and
_Teachings and Counsels_ (1884). Dr Hopkins took a lifelong interest in
Christian missions, and from 1857 until his death was president of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (the American
Congregational Mission Board). He died at Williamstown, on the 17th of
June 1887. His son, HENRY HOPKINS (1837-1908), was also from 1903 till
his death president of Williams College.
See Franklin Carter's _Mark Hopkins_ (Boston, 1892), in the "American
Religious Leaders" series, and Leverett W. Spring's _Mark Hopkins,
Teacher_ (New York, 1888), being No. 4, vol. i., of the "Monographs of
the Industrial Educational Association."
Mark Hopkins's brother, ALBERT HOPKINS (1807-1872), was long associated
with him at Williams College, where he graduated in 1826 and was
successively a tutor (1827-1829), professor of mathematics and natural
philosophy (1829-1838), professor of natural philosophy and astronomy
(1838-1868) and professor of astronomy (1868-1872). In 1835 he organized
and conducted a Natural History Expedition to Nova Scotia, said to have
been the first expedition of the kind sent out from any American
college, and in 1837, at his suggestion and under his direction, was
built at Williams College an astronomical observatory, said to have been
the first in the United States built at a college exclusively for
purposes of instruction. He died at Williamstown on the 24th of May
1872.
See Albert C. Sewall's _Life of Professor Albert Hopkins_ (1879).
HOPKINS, SAMUEL (1721-1803), American theologian, from whom the
Hopkinsian theology takes its name, was born at Waterbury, Connecticut,
on the 17th of September 1721. He graduated at Yale College in 1741;
studied divinity at Northampton, Massachusetts, with Jonathan Edwards;
was licensed to preach in 1742, and in December 1743 was ordained pastor
of the church in the North Parish of Sheffield, or Housatonick (now
Great Barrington), Massachusetts, at that time a small settlement of
only thirty families. There he laboured--preaching, studying and
writing--until 1769, for part of the time (1751-1758) in intimate
association with his old teacher, Edwards, whose call to Stockbridge he
had been instrumental in procuring. His theological views having met
with much opposition, however, he was finally dismissed from the
pastorate on the pretext of want of funds for his support. From April
1770 until his death on the 20th of December 1803, he was the pastor of
the First Church in Newport, Rhode Island, though during 1776-1780,
while Newport was occupied by the British, he preached at Newburyport,
Mass., and at Canterbury and Stamford, Conn. In 1799 he had an attack of
paralysis, from which he never wholly recovered. Hopkins's theological
views have had a powerful influence in America. Personally he was
remarkable for force and energy of character, and for the utter
fearlessness with which he followed premises to their conclusions. In
vigour of intellect and in strength and purity of moral tone he was
hardly inferior to Edwards himself. Though he was originally a
slave-holder, to him belongs the honour of having been the first among
the Congregational ministers of New England to denounce slavery both by
voice and pen; and to his persistent though bitterly opposed efforts are
probably chiefly to be attributed the law of 1774, which forbade the
importation of negro slaves into Rhode Island, as also that of 1784,
which declared that all children of slaves born in Rhode Island after
the following March should be free. His training school for negro
missionaries to Africa was broken up by the confusion of the American
War of Independence. Among his publications are a valuable _Life and
Character of Jonathan Edwards_ (1799), and numerous pamphlets, addresses
and sermons, including _A Dialogue concerning the Slavery of the
Africans, showing it to be the Duty and Interest of the American States
to emancipate all their African Slaves_ (1776), and _A Discourse upon
the Slave Trade and the History of the Africans_ (1793). His distinctive
theological tenets are to be found in his important work, _A System of
Doctrines Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended_
(1793), which has had an influence hardly inferior to that exercised by
the writings of Edwards himself. They may be summed up as follows: God
so rules the universe as to produce its highest happiness, considered as
a whole. Since God's sovereignty is absolute, sin must be, by divine
permission, a means by which this happiness of the whole is secured,
though that this is its consequence, renders it no less heinous in the
sinner. Virtue consists in preference for the good of the whole to any
private advantage; hence the really virtuous man must willingly accept
any disposition of himself that God may deem wise--a doctrine often
called "willingness to be damned." All have natural power to choose the
right, and are therefore responsible for their acts; but all men lack
inclination to choose the right unless the existing "bias" of their
wills is transformed by the power of God from self-seeking into an
effective inclination towards virtue. Hence preaching should demand
instant submission to God and disinterested goodwill, and should teach
the worthlessness of all religious acts or dispositions which are less
than these, while recognizing that God can grant or withhold the
regenerative change at his pleasure.
The best edition of Hopkins's _Works_ is that published in three
volumes at Boston in 1852, containing an excellent biographical sketch
by Professor Edwards A. Park. In 1854 was published separately
Hopkins's _Treatise on the Millennium_, which originally appeared in
his _System of Doctrines_ and in which he deduced from prophecies in
_Daniel_ and _Revelation_ that the millennium would come "not far from
the end of the twentieth century." See also Stephen West's _Sketches
of the Life of the Late Reverend Samuel Hopkins_ (Hartford, Conn.,
1805), Franklin B. Dexter's _Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of
Yale College_ and Williston Walker's _Ten New England Leaders_ (New
York, 1901). (W. Wr.)
HOPKINS, WILLIAM (1793-1866), English mathematician and geologist, was
born at Kingston-on-Soar, in Nottinghamshire, on the 2nd of February
1793. In his youth he learned practical agriculture in Norfolk and
afterwards took an extensive farm in Suffolk. In this he was
unsuccessful. At the age of thirty he entered St Peter's College,
Cambridge, taking his degree of B.A. in 1827 as seventh wrangler and
M.A. in 1830. In 1833 he published _Elements of Trigonometry_. He was
distinguished for his mathematical knowledge, and became eminently
successful as a private tutor, many of his pupils attaining high
distinction. About 1833, through meeting Sedgwick at Barmouth and
joining him in several excursions, he became intensely interested in
geology. Thereafter, in papers published by the Cambridge Philosophical
Society and the Geological Society of London, he entered largely into
mathematical inquiries connected with geology, dealing with the effects
which an elevatory force acting from below would produce on a portion of
the earth's crust, in fissures, faults, &c. In this way he discussed the
elevation and denudation of the Lake district, the Wealden area, and the
Bas Boulonnais. He wrote also on the motion of glaciers and the
transport of erratic blocks. So ably had he grappled with many difficult
problems that in 1850 the Wollaston medal was awarded to him by the
Geological Society of London; and in the following year he was elected
president. In his second address (1853) he criticized Elie de Beaumont's
theory of the elevation of mountain-chains and showed the imperfect
evidence on which it rested. He brought before the Geological Society in
1851 an important paper _On the Causes which may have produced changes
in the Earth's superficial Temperature_. He was president of the British
Association for 1853. His later researches included observations on the
conductivity of various substances for heat, and on the effect of
pressure on the temperature of fusion of different bodies. He died at
Cambridge on the 13th of October 1866.
Obituary by W. W. Smyth, in _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._ (1867), p.
xxix.
HOPKINSON, FRANCIS (1737-1791), American author and statesman, one of
the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 2nd of October 1737. He was a son of
Thomas Hopkinson (1709-1751), a prominent lawyer of Philadelphia, one of
the first trustees of the College of Philadelphia, now the University of
Pennsylvania, and first president of the American Philosophical Society.
Francis was the first student to enter the College of Philadelphia.
from which he received his bachelor's degree in 1757 and his master's
degree in 1760. He then studied law in the office in Philadelphia of
Benjamin Chew, and was admitted to the bar in 1761. Removing after 1768
to Bordentown, New Jersey, he became a member of the council of that
colony in 1774. On the approach of the War of Independence he identified
himself with the patriot or whig element in the colony, and in 1776 and
1777 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He served on the
committee appointed to frame the Articles of Confederation, executed,
with John Nixon (1733-1808) and John Wharton, the "business of the navy"
under the direction of the marine committee, and acted for a time as
treasurer of the Continental loan office. From 1779 to 1789 he was judge
of the court of admiralty in Pennsylvania, and from 1790 until his death
was United States district judge for that state. He was famous for his
versatility, and besides being a distinguished lawyer, jurist and
political leader, was "a mathematician, a chemist, a physicist, a
mechanician, an inventor, a musician and a composer of music, a man of
literary knowledge and practice, a writer of airy and dainty songs, a
clever artist with pencil and brush and a humorist of unmistakeable
power" (Tyler, _Literary History of the American Revolution_). It is as
a writer, however, that he will be remembered. He ranks as one of the
three leading satirists on the patriot side during the War of
Independence. His ballad, _The Battle of the Kegs_ (1778), was long
exceedingly popular. To alarm the British force at Philadelphia the
Americans floated kegs charged with gunpowder down the Delaware river
towards that city, and the British, alarmed for the safety of their
shipping, fired with cannon and small arms at everything they saw
floating in the river. Hopkinson's ballad is an imaginative expansion of
the actual facts. To the cause of the revolution this ballad, says
Professor Tyler, "was perhaps worth as much just then as the winning of
a considerable battle." Hopkinson's principal writings are _The Pretty
Story_ (1774), _A Prophecy_ (1776) and _The Political Catechism_ (1777).
Among his songs may be mentioned _The Treaty_ and _The New Roof, a Song
for Federal Mechanics_; and the best known of his satirical pieces are
_Typographical Method of conducting a Quarrel_, _Essay on White Washing_
and _Modern Learning_. His _Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional
Writings_ were published at Philadelphia in 3 vols., 1792.
His son, JOSEPH HOPKINSON (1770-1842), graduated at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1786, studied law, and was a Federalist member of the
national House of Representatives in 1815-1819, Federal judge of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1828 until his death, and a member
of the state constitutional convention of 1837. He is better known,
however, as the author of the patriotic anthem "Hail Columbia" (1798).
HOPKINSON, JOHN (1849-1898), English engineer and physicist, was born in
Manchester on the 27th of July 1849. Before he was sixteen he attended
lectures at Owens College, and at eighteen he gained a mathematical
scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1871 as
senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman, having previously taken the
degree of D.Sc. at London University and won a Whitworth scholarship.
Although elected a fellow and tutor of his college, he stayed up at
Cambridge only for a very short time, preferring to learn practical
engineering as a pupil in the works in which his father was a partner.
But there his stay was equally short, for in 1872 he undertook the
duties of engineering manager in the glass manufactories of Messrs
Chance Brothers and Company at Birmingham. Six years later he removed to
London, and while continuing to act as scientific adviser to Messrs
Chance, established a most successful practice as a consulting engineer.
His work was mainly, though not exclusively, electrical, and his
services were in great demand as an expert witness in patent cases. In
1890 he was appointed director of the Siemens laboratory at King's
College, London, with the title of professor of electrical engineering.
His death occurred prematurely on the 27th of August 1898, when he was
killed, together with one son and two daughters, by an accident the
nature of which was never precisely ascertained, while climbing the
Petite Dent de Veisivi, above Evolena. Dr Hopkinson presented a rare
combination of practical with theoretical ability, and his achievements
in pure scientific research are not less intrinsically notable than the
skill with which he applied their results to the solution of concrete
engineering problems. His original work is contained in more than sixty
papers, all written with a complete mastery both of style and of
subject-matter. His name is best known in connexion with electricity and
magnetism. On the one hand he worked out the general theory of the
magnetic circuit in the dynamo (in conjunction with his brother Edward),
and the theory of alternating currents, and conducted a long series of
observations on the phenomena attending magnetization in iron, nickel
and the curious alloys of the two which can exist both in a magnetic and
non-magnetic state at the same temperature. On the other hand, by the
application of the principles he thus elucidated he furthered to an
immense extent the employment of electricity for the purposes of daily
life. As regards the generation of electric energy, by pointing out
defects of design in the dynamo as it existed about 1878, and showing
how important improvements were to be effected in its construction, he
was largely instrumental in converting it from a clumsy and wasteful
appliance into one of the most efficient known to the engineer. Again,
as regards the distribution of the current, he took a leading part in
the development of the three-wire system and the closed-circuit
transformer, while electric traction had to thank him for the
series-parallel method of working motors. During his residence in
Birmingham, Messrs Chance being makers of glass for use in lighthouse
lamps, his attention was naturally turned to problems of lighthouse
illumination, and he was able to devise improvements in both the
catoptric and dioptric methods for concentrating and directing the beam.
He was a strong advocate of the group-flashing system as a means of
differentiating lights, and invented an arrangement for carrying it into
effect optically, his plan being first adopted for the catoptric light
of the _Royal Sovereign_ lightship, in the English Channel off Beachy
Head. Moreover, his association with glass manufacture led him to study
the refractive indices of different kinds of glass; he further undertook
abstruse researches on electrostatic capacity, the phenomena of the
residual charge, and other problems arising out of Clerk Maxwell's
electro-magnetic theory.
His original papers were collected and published, with a memoir by his
son, in 1901.
HOPKINSVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Christian county, Kentucky,
U.S.A., about 150 m. S.W. of Louisville. Pop. (1890) 5833; (1900) 7280
(3243 negroes); (1910) 9419. The city is served by the Illinois Central
and the Louisville & Nashville railways. It is the seat of Bethel Female
College (Baptist, founded 1854), of South Kentucky College (Christian;
co-educational; chartered 1849) and of the Western Kentucky Asylum for
the Insane. The city's chief interest is in the tobacco industry; it has
also considerable trade in other agricultural products and in coal; and
its manufactures include carriages and wagons, bricks, lime, flour and
dressed lumber. When Christian county was formed from Logan county in
1797, Hopkinsville, formerly called Elizabethtown, became the
county-seat, and was renamed in honour of Samuel Hopkins (c. 1750-1819),
an officer of the Continental Army in the War of Independence, a pioneer
settler in Kentucky, and a representative in Congress from Kentucky in
1813-1815. In 1798 Hopkinsville was incorporated.
HOPPNER, JOHN (1758-1810), English portrait-painter, was born, it is
said, on the 4th of April 1758 at Whitechapel. His father was of German
extraction, and his mother was one of the German attendants at the royal
palace. Hoppner was consequently brought early under the notice and
received the patronage of George III., whose regard for him gave rise to
unfounded scandal. As a boy he was a chorister at the royal chapel, but
showing strong inclination for art, he in 1775 entered as a student at
the Royal Academy. In 1778 he took a silver medal for drawing from the
life, and in 1782 the Academy's highest award, the gold medal for
historical painting, his subject being King Lear. He first exhibited at
the Royal Academy in 1780. His earliest love was for landscape, but
necessity obliged him to turn to the more lucrative business of
portrait-painting. At once successful, he had, throughout life, the most
fashionable and wealthy sitters, and was the greatest rival of the
growing attraction of Lawrence. Ideal subjects were very rarely
attempted by Hoppner, though a "Sleeping Venus," "Belisarius," "Jupiter
and Io," a "Bacchante" and "Cupid and Psyche" are mentioned among his
works. The prince of Wales especially patronized him, and many of his
finest portraits are in the state apartments at St James's Palace, the
best perhaps being those of the prince, the duke and duchess of York, of
Lord Rodney and of Lord Nelson. Among his other sitters were Sir Walter
Scott, Wellington, Frere and Sir George Beaumont. Competent judges have
deemed his most successful works to be his portraits of women and
children. A _Series of Portraits of Ladies_ was published by him in
1803, and a volume of translations of Eastern tales into English verse
in 1805. The verse is of but mediocre quality. In his later years
Hoppner suffered from a chronic disease of the liver; he died on the
23rd of January 1810. He was confessedly an imitator of Reynolds. When
first painted, his works were much admired for the brilliancy and
harmony of their colouring, but the injury due to destructive mediums
and lapse of time which many of them suffered caused a great
depreciation in his reputation. The appearance, however, of some of his
pictures in good condition has shown that his fame as a brilliant
colourist was well founded. His drawing is faulty, but his touch has
qualities of breadth and freedom that give to his paintings a faint
reflection of the charm of Reynolds. Hoppner was a man of great social
power, and had the knowledge and accomplishments of a man of the world.
The best account of Hoppner's life and paintings is the exhaustive
work by William McKay and W. Roberts (1909).
HOP-SCOTCH ("scotch," to score), an old English children's game in which
a small object, like a flat stone, is kicked by the player, while
hopping, from one division to another of an oblong space marked upon the
ground and divided into a number of divisions, usually 10 or 12. These
divisions are numbered, and the stone must rest successively in each.
Should it rest upon a line or go out of the division aimed for, the
player loses. In order to win a player must drive the stone into each
division and back to the starting-point.
HOPTON, RALPH HOPTON, BARON (1598-1652), Royalist commander in the
English Civil War, was the son of Robert Hopton of Witham, Somerset. He
appears to have been educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, and to have
served in the army of the Elector Palatine in the early campaigns of the
Thirty Years' War, and in 1624 he was lieutenant-colonel of a regiment
raised in England to serve in Mansfeld's army. Charles I., at his
coronation, made Hopton a Knight of the Bath. In the political troubles
which preceded the outbreak of the Civil War, Hopton, as member of
parliament successively for Bath, Somerset and Wells, at first opposed
the royal policy, but after Stratford's attainder (for which he voted)
he gradually became an ardent supporter of Charles, and at the beginning
of the Great Rebellion (q.v.) he was made lieutenant-general under the
marquess of Hertford in the west. His first achievement was the rallying
of Cornwall to the royal cause, his next to carry the war from that
county into Devonshire. In May 1643 he won the brilliant victory of
Stratton, in June he overran Devonshire, and on the 5th of July he
inflicted a severe defeat on Sir William Waller at Lansdown. In the last
action he was severely wounded by the explosion of a powder-wagon and he
was soon after shut up in Devizes by Waller, where he defended himself
until relieved by the victory of Roundway Down on the 13th of July. He
was soon afterwards created Baron Hopton of Stratton. But his successes
in the west were cut short by the defeat of Cheriton or Alresford in
March 1644. After this he served in the western campaign under Charles's
own command, and towards the end of the war, after Lord Goring had left
England, he succeeded to the command of the royal army, which his
predecessor had allowed to waste away in indiscipline. It was no longer
possible to stem the tide of the parliament's victory, and Hopton,
defeated in his last stand at Torrington on the 16th of February 1646,
surrendered to Fairfax. Subsequently he accompanied the prince of Wales
in his attempts to prolong the war in the Scilly and Channel Islands.
But his downright loyalty was incompatible with the spirit of concession
and compromise which prevailed in the prince's council in 1640-1650, and
he withdrew from active participation in the cause of royalism. He died,
still in exile, at Bruges in September 1652. The peerage became extinct
at his death. The king, Prince Charles and the governing circle
appreciated the merits of their faithful lieutenant less than did his
enemies Waller and Fairfax, the former of whom wrote, "hostility itself
cannot violate my friendship to your person," while the latter spoke of
him as "one whom we honour and esteem above any other of your party."
HOR, MOUNT ([Hebrew: hor]), the scene in the Bible of Aaron's death,
situated "in the edge of the land of Edom" (Num. xxxiii. 37). Since the
time of Josephus it has been identified with the _Jebel Nebi Harun_
("Mountain of the Prophet Aaron"), a twin-peaked mountain 4780 ft. above
the sea-level (6072 ft. above the Dead Sea) in the Edomite Mountains on
the east side of the Jordan-Arabah valley. On the summit is a shrine
said to cover the grave of Aaron. Some modern investigators dissent from
this identification: H. Clay Trumbull prefers the Jebel Madara, a peak
north-west of 'Ain Kadis. Another Mount Hor is mentioned in Num. xxxiv.
7, 8, as on the northern boundary of the prospective conquests of the
Israelites. It is perhaps to be identified with Hermon. It has been
doubtfully suggested that for _Hor_ we should here read _Hadrach_, the
name of a northern country near Damascus, mentioned only once in the
Bible (Zech. ix. 1). (R. A. S. M.)
HORACE [QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS] (65-8 B.C.), the famous Roman poet,
was born on the 8th of December 65 B.C. at Venusia, on the borders of
Lucania and Apulia (_Sat._ ii. 1. 34). The town, originally a colony of
veterans, appears to have long maintained its military traditions, and
Horace was early imbued with a profound respect for the indomitable
valour and industry of the Italian soldier. It would seem, however, that
the poet was not brought up in the town itself, at least he did not
attend the town school (_Sat._ i. 6. 72) and was much in the
neighbouring country, of which, though he was but a child when he left
it, he retained always a vivid and affectionate memory. The mountains
near and far, the little villages on the hillsides, the woods, the
roaring Aufidus, the mossy spring of Bandusia, after which he named
another spring on his Sabine farm--these scenes were always dear to him
and are frequently mentioned in his poetry (e.g. _Carm._ iii. 4 and 30,
iv. 9). We may thus trace some of the germs of his poetical inspiration,
as well as of his moral sympathies, to the early years which he spent
near Venusia. But the most important moral influence of his youth was
the training and example of his father, of whose worth, affectionate
solicitude and homely wisdom Horace has given a most pleasing and
life-like picture (_Sat._ i. 6. 70, &c.). He was a freedman by position;
and it is supposed that he had been originally a slave of the town of
Venusia, and on his emancipation had received the gentile name of
Horatius from the Horatian tribe in which the inhabitants of Venusia
were enrolled. After his emancipation he acquired by the occupation of
"coactor" (a collector of the payments made at public auctions, or,
according to another interpretation, a collector of taxes) sufficient
means to enable him to buy a small farm, to make sufficient provision
for the future of his son (_Sat._ i. 4. 108), and to take him to Rome to
give him the advantage of the best education there. To his care Horace
attributes, not only the intellectual training which enabled him in
later life to take his place among the best men of Rome, but also his
immunity from the baser forms of moral evil (_Sat._ i. 6. 68. &c.). To
his practical teaching he attributes also his tendency to moralize and
to observe character (_Sat._ i. 4. 105, &c.)--the tendency which enabled
him to become the most truthful painter of social life and manners which
the ancient world produced.
In one of his latest writings (_Epist._ ii. 2. 42, &c.) Horace gives a
further account of his education; but we hear no more of his father, nor
is there any allusion in his writings to the existence of any other
member of his family or any other relative. After the ordinary
grammatical and literary training at Rome, he went (45 B.C.) to Athens,
the most famous school of philosophy, as Rhodes was of oratory; and he
describes himself while there as "searching after truth among the groves
of Academus" as well as advancing in literary accomplishment. His
pleasant residence there was interrupted by the breaking out of the
civil war. Following the example of his young associates, he attached
himself to the cause of Brutus, whom he seems to have accompanied to
Asia, probably as a member of his staff; and he served at the battle of
Philippi in the post of military tribune. He shared in the rout which
followed the battle, and henceforth, though he was not less firm in his
conviction that some causes were worth fighting for and dying for, he
had but a poor opinion of his own soldierly qualities.
He returned to Rome shortly after the battle, stripped of his property,
which formed part of the land confiscated for the benefit of the
soldiers of Octavianus and Antony. It may have been at this time that he
encountered the danger of shipwreck, which he mentions among the perils
from which his life had been protected by supernatural aid (_Carm._ iii.
4. 28). He procured in some way the post of a clerkship in the
quaestor's office, and about three years after the battle of Philippi,
he was introduced by Virgil and Varius to Maecenas. This was the
turning-point of his fortunes. He owed his friendship with the greatest
of literary patrons to his personal merits rather than to his poetic
fame; for he was on intimate terms with Maecenas before the first book
of the _Satires_ (his first published work) appeared. He tells us in one
of his _Satires_ (i. 10. 31) that his earliest ambition was to write
Greek verses. In giving this direction to his ambition, he was probably
influenced by his admiration of the old iambic and lyrical poets whom he
has made the models of his own _Epodes_ and _Odes_. His common sense as
well as his national feeling fortunately saved him from becoming a
second-rate Greek versifier in an age when poetic inspiration had passed
from Greece to Italy, and the living language of Rome was a more fitting
vehicle for the new feelings and interests of men than the echoes of the
old Ionian or Aeolian melodies. His earliest Latin compositions were, as
he tells us, written under the instigation of poverty; and they alone
betray any trace of the bitterness of spirit which the defeat of his
hopes and the hardships which he had to encounter on his first return to
Rome may have temporarily produced on him. Some of the _Epodes_, of the
nature of personal and licentious lampoons, and the second _Satire_ of
book i., in which there is some trace of an angry republican feeling,
belong to these early compositions. But by the time the first book of
_Satires_ was completed and published (35 B.C.) his temper had recovered
its natural serenity, and, though he had not yet attained to the height
of his fortunes, his personal position was one of comfort and security,
and his intimate relation with the leading men in literature and social
rank was firmly established.
About a year after the publication of this first book of _Satires_
Maecenas presented him with a farm among the Sabine hills, near the
modern Tivoli. This secured him pecuniary independence; it satisfied the
love of nature which had been implanted in him during the early years
spent on the Venusian farm; and it afforded him a welcome escape from
the distractions of city life and the dangers of a Roman autumn. Many
passages in the _Satires_, _Odes_ and _Epistles_ express the happiness
and pride with which the thought of his own valley filled him, and the
interest which he took in the simple and homely ways of his country
neighbours. The inspiration of the _Satires_ came from the heart of
Rome; the feeling of many of the _Odes_ comes direct from the Sabine
hills; and even the meditative spirit of the later _Epistles_ tells of
the leisure and peace of quiet days spent among books, or in the open
air, at a distance from "the smoke, wealth and tumult" of the great
metropolis.
The second book of _Satires_ was published in 29 B.C.; the _Epodes_
(spoken of by himself as _iambi_) apparently about a year earlier,
though many of them are, as regards the date of their composition, to be
ranked among the earliest extant writings of Horace. In one of his
_Epistles_ (i. 19. 25) he rests his first claim to originality on his
having introduced into Latium the metres and spirit of Archilochus of
Paros. He may have naturalized some special form of metre employed by
that poet, and it may be (as Th. Plusz has suggested) that we should see
in the _Epodes_ a tone of mockery and parody. But his personal lampoons
are the least successful of his works; while those _Epodes_ which treat
of other subjects in a poetical spirit are inferior in metrical effect,
and in truth and freshness of feeling, both to the lighter lyrics of
Catullus and to his own later and more carefully meditated _Odes_. The
_Epodes_, if they are serious at all, are chiefly interesting as a
record of the personal feelings of Horace during the years which
immediately followed his return to Rome, and as a prelude to the higher
art and inspiration of the first three books of the _Odes_, which were
published together about the end of 24 or the beginning of 23 B.C.[1]
The composition of these _Odes_ extended over several years, but all the
most important among them belong to the years between the battle of
Actium and 24 B.C. His lyrical poetry is thus, not, like that of
Catullus, the ardent utterance of his youth, but the mature and finished
workmanship of his manhood. The state of public affairs was more
favourable than it had been since the outbreak of the civil war between
Caesar and Pompey for the appearance of lyrical poetry. Peace, order and
national unity had been secured by the triumph of Augustus, and the
enthusiasm in favour of the new government had not yet been chilled by
experience of its repressing influence. The poet's circumstances were,
at the same time, most favourable for the exercise of his lyrical gift
during these years. He lived partly at Rome, partly at his Sabine farm,
varying his residence occasionally by visits to Tibur, Praeneste or
Baiae. His intimacy with Maecenas was strengthened and he had become the
familiar friend of the great minister. He was treated with distinction
by Augustus, and by the foremost men in Roman society. He complains
occasionally that the pleasures of his youth are passing from him, but
he does so in the spirit of a temperate Epicurean, who found new
enjoyments in life as the zest for the old enjoyments decayed, and who
considered the wisdom and meditative spirit--"the philosophic mind that
years had brought"--an ample compensation for the extinct fires of his
youth.
About four years after the publication of the three books of _Odes_, the
first book of the _Epistles_ appeared, introduced, as his _Epodes_,
_Satires_ and _Odes_ had been, by a special address to Maecenas. From
these _Epistles_, as compared with the _Satires_, we gather that he had
gradually adopted a more retired and meditative life, and had become
fonder of the country and of study, and that, while owing allegiance to
no school or sect of philosophy, he was framing for himself a scheme of
life, was endeavouring to conform to it, and was bent on inculcating it
on others. He maintained his old friendships, and continued to form new
intimacies, especially with younger men engaged in public affairs or
animated by literary ambition. After the death of Virgil he was
recognized as pre-eminently the greatest living poet, and was
accordingly called upon by Augustus to compose the sacred hymn for the
celebration of the secular games in 17 B.C. About four years later he
published the fourth book of _Odes_ (about 13 B.C.) having been called
upon to do so by the emperor, in order that the victories of his
stepsons Drusus and Tiberius over the Rhaeti and Vindelici might be
worthily celebrated. He lived about five years longer, and during these
years published the second book of _Epistles_, and the _Epistle to the
Pisos_, more generally known as the "_Ars poetica_." These later
_Epistles_ are mainly devoted to literary criticism, with the especial
object of vindicating the poetic claims of his own age over those of the
age of Ennius and the other early poets of Rome. He might have been
expected, as a great critic and lawgiver on literature, to have
exercised a beneficial influence on the future poetry of his country,
and to have applied as much wisdom to the theory of his own art as to
that of a right life. But his critical _Epistles_ are chiefly devoted to
a controversial attack on the older writers and to the exposition of the
laws of dramatic poetry, on which his own powers had never been
exercised, and for which either the genius or circumstances of the
Romans were unsuited. The same subordination of imagination and
enthusiasm to good sense and sober judgment characterizes his opinions
on poetry as on morals.
He died somewhat suddenly on the 17th of November of the year 8 B.C. He
left Augustus to see after his affairs, and was buried on the Esquiline
Hill, near Maecenas.
Horace is one of the few writers, ancient or modern, who have written a
great deal about themselves without laying themselves open to the charge
of weakness or egotism. His chief claim to literary originality is not
that on which he himself rested his hopes of immortality--that of being
the first to adapt certain lyrical metres to the Latin tongue--but
rather that of being the first of those whose works have reached us who
establishes a personal relation with his reader, speaks to him as a
familiar friend, gives him good advice, tells him the story of his life,
and shares with him his private tastes and pleasures--and all this
without any loss of self-respect, any want of modesty or breach of good
manners, and in a style so lively and natural that each new generation
of readers might fancy that he was addressing them personally and
speaking to them on subjects of every day modern interest. In his
self-portraiture, far from wishing to make himself out better or greater
than he was, he seems to write under the influence of an ironical
restraint which checks him in the utterance of his highest moral
teaching and of his poetical enthusiasm. He affords us some indications
of his personal appearance, as where he speaks of the "nigros angusta
fronte capillos" of his youth, and describes himself after he had
completed his forty-fourth December as of small stature, prematurely
grey and fond of basking in the sun (_Epist._ i. 20. 24).
In his later years his health became weaker or more uncertain, and this
caused a considerable change in his habits, tastes and places of
residence. It inclined him more to a life of retirement and simplicity,
and also it stimulated his tendency to self-introspection and
self-culture. In his more vigorous years, when he lived much in Roman
society, he claims to have acted in all his relations to others in
accordance with the standard recognized among men of honour in every
age, to have been charitably indulgent to the weakness of his friends,
and to have been exempt from petty jealousies and the spirit of
detraction. If ever he deviates from his ordinary vein of irony and
quiet sense into earnest indignation, it is in denouncing conduct
involving treachery or malice in the relations of friends (_Sat._ i. 4.
81, &c.).
He claims to be and evidently aims at being independent of fortune,
superior to luxury, exempt both from the sordid cares of avarice and the
coarser forms of profligacy. At the same time he makes a frank
confession of indolence and of occasional failure in the pursuit of his
ideal self-mastery. He admits his irascibility, his love of pleasure,
his sensitiveness to opinion, and some touch of vanity or at least of
gratified ambition arising out of the favour which through all his life
he had enjoyed from those much above him in social station (_Epist._ i.
20. 23). Yet there appears no trace of any unworthy deference in
Horace's feelings towards the great. Even towards Augustus he maintained
his attitude of independence, by declining the office of private
secretary which the emperor wished to force upon him; and he did so with
such tact as neither to give offence nor to forfeit the regard of his
superior. His feeling towards Maecenas is more like that of Pope towards
Bolingbroke than that which a client in ancient or modern times
entertains towards his patron. He felt pride in his protection and in
the intellectual sympathy which united him with one whose personal
qualities had enabled him to play so prominent and beneficent a part in
public affairs. Their friendship was slowly formed, but when once
established continued unshaken through their lives.
There is indeed nothing more remarkable in Horace than the independence,
or rather the self-dependence, of his character. The enjoyment which he
drew from his Sabine farm consisted partly in the refreshment to his
spirit from the familiar beauty of the place, partly in the "otia
liberrima" from the claims of business and society which it afforded
him. His love poems, when compared with those of Catullus, Tibullus and
Propertius, show that he never, in his mature years at least, allowed
his peace of mind to be at the mercy of any one. They are the
expressions of a fine and subtle and often a humorous observation rather
than of ardent feeling. There is perhaps a touch of pathos in his
reference in the _Odes_ to the early death of Cinara, but the epithet he
applies to her in the _Epistles_,
"Quem scis immunem Cinarae placuisse rapaci,"
shows that the pain of thinking of her could not have been very
heartfelt. Even when the _Odes_ addressed to real or imaginary beauties
are most genuine in feeling, they are more the artistic rekindling of
extinct fires than the utterance of recent passion. In his friendships
he had not the self-forgetful devotion which is the most attractive side
of the character of Catullus; but he studied how to gain and keep the
regard of those whose society he valued, and he repaid this regard by a
fine courtesy and by a delicate appreciation of their higher gifts and
qualities, whether proved in literature, or war, or affairs of state or
the ordinary dealings of men. He enjoyed the great world, and it treated
him well; but he resolutely maintained his personal independence and the
equipoise of his feelings and judgment. If it is thought that in
attributing a divine function to Augustus he has gone beyond the bounds
of a sincere and temperate admiration, a comparison of the _Odes_ in
which this occurs with the first _Epistle_ of the second book shows that
he certainly recognized in the emperor a great and successful
administrator and that his language is to be regarded rather as the
artistic expression of the prevailing national sentiment than as the
tribute of an insincere adulation.
The aim of Horace's philosophy was to "be master of oneself," to retain
the "mens aequa" in all circumstances, to use the gifts of fortune while
they remained, and to be prepared to part with them with equanimity; to
make the most of life, and to contemplate its inevitable end without
anxiety. Self-reliance and resignation are the lessons which he
constantly inculcates. His philosophy is thus a mode of practical
Epicureanism combined with other elements which have more affinity with
Stoicism. In his early life he professed his adherence to the former
system, and several expressions in his first published work show the
influences of the study of Lucretius. At the time when the first book of
the _Epistles_ was published he professes to assume the position of an
eclectic rather than that of an adherent of either school (_Epist._ i.
1. 13-19). We note in the passage here referred to, as in other
passages, that he mentions Aristippus of Cyrene, rather than Epicurus
himself, as the master under whose influence he from time to time
insensibly lapsed. Yet the dominant tone of his teaching is that of a
refined Epicureanism, not so elevated or purely contemplative as that
preached by Lucretius, but yet more within the reach of a society which,
though luxurious and pleasure-loving, had not yet become thoroughly
frivolous and enervated. His advice is to subdue all violent emotion of
fear or desire; to estimate all things calmly--"nil admirari"; to choose
the mean between a high and low estate; and to find one's happiness in
plain living rather than in luxurious indulgence. Still there was in
Horace a robuster fibre, inherited from the old Italian race, which
moved him to value the dignity and nobleness of life more highly than
its ease and enjoyment. In some of the stronger utterances of his
_Odes_, where he expresses sympathy with the manlier qualities of
character, we recognize the resistent attitude of Stoicism rather than
the passive acquiescence of Epicureanism. The concluding stanzas of the
address to Lollius (_Ode_ iv. 9) exhibit the Epicurean and Stoical view
of life so combined as to be more worthy of human dignity than the
genial worldly wisdom of the former school, more in harmony with human
experience than the formal precepts of the latter.
It is interesting to trace the growth of Horace in elevation of
sentiment and serious conviction from his first ridicule of the
paradoxes of Stoicism in the two books of the _Satires_ to the appeal
which he makes in some of the _Odes_ of the third book to the strongest
Roman instincts of fortitude and self-sacrifice. A similar modification
of his religious and political attitude may be noticed between his early
declaration of Epicurean unbelief and the sympathy which he shows with
the religious reaction fostered by Augustus; and again between the
Epicurean indifference to national affairs and the strong support which
he gives to the national policy of the emperor in the first six _Odes_
of the third book, and in the fifth and fifteenth of the fourth book. In
his whole religious attitude he seems to stand midway between the
consistent denial of Lucretius and Virgil's pious endeavour to reconcile
ancient faith with the conclusions of philosophy. His introduction into
some of his _Odes_ of the gods of mythology must be regarded as merely
artistic or symbolical. Yet in some cases we recognize the expression of
a natural piety, thankful for the blessing bestowed on purity and
simplicity of life, and acknowledging a higher and more majestic law
governing nations through their voluntary obedience. On the other hand,
his allusions to a future life, as in the "domus exilis Plutonia," and
the "furvae regna Proserpinae," are shadowy and artificial. The image of
death is constantly obtruded in his poems to enhance the sense of
present enjoyment. In the true spirit of paganism he associates all
thoughts of love and wine, of the meeting of friends, or of the changes
of the seasons with the recollection of the transitoriness of our
pleasures--
"Nos, ubi decidimus
Quo pius Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
Pulvis et umbra sumus."
Horace is so much of a moralist in all his writings that, in order to
enter into the spirit both of his familiar and of his lyrical poetry,
it is essential to realize what were his views of life and the
influences under which they were formed. He is, though in a different
sense from Lucretius, eminently a philosophical and reflective poet.
He is also, like all the other poets of the Augustan age, a poet in
whose composition culture and criticism were as conspicuous elements
as spontaneous inspiration. In the judgment he passes on the older
poetry of Rome and on that of his contemporaries, he seems to attach
more importance to the critical and artistic than to the creative and
inventive functions of genius. It is on the labour and judgment with
which he has cultivated his gift that he rests his hopes of fame. The
whole poetry of the Augustan age was based on the works of older
poets, Roman as well as Greek. Its aim was to perfect the more
immature workmanship of the former, and to adapt the forms, manners
and metres of the latter to subjects of immediate and national
interest. As Virgil performed for his generation the same kind of
office which Ennius performed for an older generation, so Horace in
his _Satires_, and to a more limited extent in his _Epistles_, brought
to perfection for the amusement and instruction of his contemporaries
the rude but vigorous designs of Lucilius.
It was the example of Lucilius which induced Horace to commit all his
private thoughts, feelings and experience "to his books as to trusty
companions," and also to comment freely on the characters and lives of
other men. Many of the subjects of particular satires of Horace were
immediately suggested by those treated by Lucilius. Thus the "Journey
to Brundusium" (_Sat._ i. 5) reproduced the outlines of Lucilius's
"Journey to the Sicilian Straits." The discourse of Ofella on luxury
(_Sat._ ii. 2) was founded on a similar discourse of Laelius on
gluttony, and the "Banquet of Nasidienus" (_Sat._ ii. 8) may have been
suggested by the description by the older poet of a rustic
entertainment. There was more of moral censure and personal
aggressiveness in the satire of the older poet. The ironical temper of
Horace induced him to treat the follies of society in the spirit of a
humorist and man of the world, rather than to assail vice with the
severity of a censor; and the greater urbanity of his age or of his
disposition restrained in him the direct personality of satire. The
names introduced by him to mark types of character such as Nomentanus,
Maenius, Pantolabus, &c., are reproduced from the writings of the
older poet. Horace also followed Lucilius in the variety of forms
which his satire assumes, and especially in the frequent adoption of
the form of dialogue, derived from the "dramatic medley" which was the
original character of the Roman _Satura_. This form suited the spirit
in which Horace regarded the world, and also the dramatic quality of
his genius, just as the direct denunciation and elaborate painting of
character suited the "saeva indignatio" and the oratorical genius of
Juvenal.
Horace's satire is accordingly to a great extent a reproduction in
form, manner, substance and tone of the satire of Lucilius; or rather
it is a casting in the mould of Lucilius of his own observation and
experience. But a comparison of the fragments of Lucilius with the
finished compositions of Horace brings out in the strongest light the
artistic originality and skill of the latter poet in his management of
metre and style. Nothing can be rougher and harsher than the
hexameters of Lucilius, or cruder than his expression. In his
management of the more natural trochaic metre, he has shown much
greater ease and simplicity. It is one great triumph of Horace's
genius that he was the first and indeed the only Latin writer who
could bend the stately hexameter to the uses of natural and easy, and
at the same time terse and happy, conversational style. Catullus, in
his hendecasyllabics, had shown the vivacity with which that light and
graceful metre could be employed in telling some short story or
describing some trivial situation dramatically. But no one before
Horace had succeeded in applying the metre of heroic verse to the uses
of common life. But he had one great native model in the mastery of a
terse, refined, ironical and natural conversational style, Terence;
and the _Satires_ show, not only in allusions to incidents and
personages, but in many happy turns of expression very frequent traces
of Horace's familiarity with the works of the Roman Menander.
The _Epistles_ are more original in form, more philosophic in spirit,
more finished and charming in style than the _Satires_. The form of
composition may have been suggested by that of some of the satires of
Lucilius, which were composed as letters to his personal friends. But
letter-writing in prose, and occasionally also in verse, had been
common among the Romans from the time of the siege of Corinth; and a
practice originating in the wants and convenience of friends
temporarily separated from one another by the public service was
ultimately cultivated as a literary accomplishment. It was a happy
idea of Horace to adopt this form for his didactic writings on life
and literature. It suited him as an eclectic and not a systematic
thinker, and as a friendly counsellor rather than a formal teacher of
his age. It suited his circumstances in the latter years of his life,
when his tastes inclined him more to retirement and study, while he
yet wished to retain his hold on society and to extend his relations
with younger men who were rising into eminence. It suited the class
who cared for literature--a limited circle of educated men, intimate
with one another, and sharing the same tastes and pursuits. While
giving expression to lessons applicable to all men, he in this way
seems to address each reader individually, with the urbanity of a
friend rather than the solemnity of a preacher. In spirit the
_Epistles_ are more ethical and meditative than the _Satires_. Like
the _Odes_ they exhibit the twofold aspects of his philosophy, that of
temperate Epicureanism and that of more serious and elevated
conviction. In the actual maxims which he lays down, in his apparent
belief in the efficacy of addressing philosophical texts to the mind,
he exemplifies the triteness and limitation of all Roman thought. But
the spirit and sentiment of his practical philosophy is quite genuine
and original. The individuality of the great Roman moralists, such as
Lucretius and Horace, appears not in any difference in the results at
which they have arrived, but in the difference of spirit with which
they regard the spectacle of human life. In reading Lucretius we are
impressed by his earnestness, his pathos, his elevation of feeling; in
Horace we are charmed by the serenity of his temper and the flavour of
a delicate and subtle wisdom. We note also in the _Epistles_ the
presence of a more philosophic spirit, not only in the expression of
his personal convictions and aims, but also in his comments on
society. In the _Satires_ he paints the outward effects of the
passions of the age. He shows us prominent types of character--the
miser, the parasite, the legacy-hunter, the parvenu, &c., but he does
not try to trace these different manifestations of life to their
source. In the _Epistles_ he finds the secret spring of the social
vices of the age in the desire, as marked in other times as in those
of Horace, to become rich too fast, and in the tendency to value men
according to their wealth, and to sacrifice the ends of life to a
superfluous care for the means of living. The cause of all this
aimless restlessness and unreasonable desire is summed up in the words
"Strenua nos exercet inertia."
In his _Satires_ and _Epistles_ Horace shows himself a genuine
moralist, a subtle observer and true painter of life, and an admirable
writer. But for both of these works he himself disclaims the title of
poetry. He rests his claims as a poet on his _Odes_. They reveal an
entirely different aspect of his genius, his spirit and his culture.
He is one among the few great writers of the world who have attained
high excellence in two widely separated provinces of literature.
Through all his life he was probably conscious of the "ingeni benigna
vena," which in his youth made him the sympathetic student and
imitator of the older lyrical poetry of Greece, and directed his
latest efforts to poetic criticism. But it was in the years that
intervened between the publication of his _Satires_ and _Epistles_
that his lyrical genius asserted itself as his predominant faculty. At
that time he had outlived the coarser pleasures and risen above the
harassing cares of his earlier career; a fresh source of happiness and
inspiration had been opened up to him in his beautiful Sabine retreat;
he had become not only reconciled to the rule of Augustus, but a
thoroughly convinced and, so far as his temperament admitted to
enthusiasm, an enthusiastic believer in its beneficence. But it was
only after much labour that his original vein of genius obtained a
free and abundant outlet. He lays no claim to the "profuse strains of
unpremeditated art," with which other great lyrical poets of ancient
and modern times have charmed the world. His first efforts were
apparently imitative, and were directed to the attainment of perfect
mastery over form, metre and rhythm. The first nine _Odes_ of the
first book are experiments in different kinds of metre. They and all
the other metres employed by him are based on those employed by the
older poets of Greece--Alcaeus, Sappho, Archilochus, Alcman, &c. He
has built the structure of his lighter _Odes_ also on their model,
while in some of those in which the matter is more weighty, as in that
in which he calls on Calliope "to dictate a long continuous strain,"
he has endeavoured to reproduce something of the intricate movement,
the abrupt transitions, the interpenetration of narrative and
reflection, which characterize the art of Pindar. He frequently
reproduces the language and some of the thoughts of his masters, but
he gives them new application, or stamps them with the impress of his
own experience. He brought the metres which he has employed to such
perfection that the art perished with him. A great proof of his
mastery over rhythm is the skill with which he has varied his metres
according to the sentiment which he wishes to express. Thus his great
metre, the Alcaic, has a character of stateliness and majesty in
addition to the energy and impetus originally imparted to it by
Alcaeus. The Sapphic metre he employs with a peculiar lightness and
vivacity which harmonize admirably with his gayer moods.
Again in regard to his diction, if Horace has learned his subtlety and
moderation from his Greek masters, he has tempered those qualities
with the masculine characteristics of his race. No writer is more
Roman in the stateliness and dignity, the terseness, occasionally even
in the sobriety and bare literalness, of his diction.
While it is mainly owing to the extreme care which Horace gave to
form, rhythm and diction that his own prophecy
"Usque ego postera
Crescam laude recens"
has been so amply fulfilled, yet no greater injustice could be done to
him than to rank him either as poet or critic with those who consider
form everything in literature. With Horace the mastery over the
vehicle of expression was merely an essential preliminary to making a
worthy and serious use of that vehicle. The poet, from Horace's point
of view, was intended not merely to give refined pleasure to a few,
but above all things, to be "utilis urbi." Yet he is saved, in his
practice, from the abuse of this theory by his admirable sense, his
ironical humour, his intolerance of pretension and pedantry. Opinions
will differ as to whether he or Catullus is to be regarded as the
greater lyrical poet. Those who assign the palm to Horace will do so,
certainly not because they recognize in him richer or equally rich
gifts of feeling, conception and expression, but because the subjects
to which his art has been devoted have a fuller, more varied, more
mature and permanent interest for the world.
AUTHORITIES.--For the life of Horace the chief authorities are his own
works and a short ancient biography which is attributed to Suetonius.
The _apparatus criticus_ is most fully described in O. Keller's
preface to vol. i. of the 2nd ed. (1899) of Keller and Holder's
recension of Horace's works. This edition also gives by far the
largest collection of variants and emendations to the text and of the
_testimonia_ of ancient writers.
What might have proved the most important manuscript of Horace, the
so-called _vetustissimus Blandinius_, is now lost, and we know it only
from the account of J. Cruquius who saw it in 1565. The relations of
the extant MSS. to each other and the presumed archetype present an
intricate problem; and Keller's solution has not proved generally
acceptable. See a _resume_ of the controversy _Horazkritik seit 1880_
by J. Bick (Leipzig, 1906) and F. Vollmer in _Philologus_. Supp. x. 2,
pp. 261-322. Many MSS. of Horace contain ancient scholia which are
copied or taken with abridgment from the commentaries of Porphyrio,
who lived about A.D. 200, and Helenius Aero, a still earlier
grammarian. These scholia also have been collected and edited--the
Porphyrio scholia by A. Holder (1902) and the "Acronian" (or
pseudo-Acronian) by O. Keller (1902-1904). R. Bentley's epoch-making
edition (1711) has been reprinted with an index by Zangemeister
(1869). Of the modern commentaries the most useful are those of J. C.
Orelli (4th ed., revised by O. Hirschfelder and J. Mewes, 1886-1890,
with _index verborum_), and of A. Kiessling (revised by R. Heinze,
_Odes_, 1901, 1908, _Satires_, 1906, _Epistles_, 1898). The best
complete English commentary is that of E. C. Wickham (2 vols.,
1874-1896). Other editions with English notes are those of T. E. Page
(_Odes_, 1883), A. Palmer (_Satires_, 1883), A. S. Wilkins
(_Epistles_, 1885), J. Gow (_Odes_ and _Epodes_, 1896, _Satires_, i.,
1901), P. Shorey (_Odes_ and _Epodes_, 1898, Boston, U.S.A.). L.
Muller's elaborate edition of the _Odes_ and _Epodes_ was published
posthumously (1900). Of the critical editions Keller and Holder's
still holds the field: to this Keller's _Epilegomena zu Horaz_ (1879)
is a necessary adjunct. F. Vollmer's text (1907) uses Keller's
materials on a new principle. Of illustrated editions H. H. Milman's
(1867) and C. W. King's (1869, with text revised by H. A. J. Munro)
deserve mention. The best verse translation is that of J. Conington
lately reprinted with the Latin text from the recension in Postgate's
new _Corpus poetarum_. For further information see Teuffel's
_Geschichte der romischen Litteratur_ (Eng. trans. by G. C. Warr), SS
234-240, and M. Schanz's excellent account in his _Geschichte der
romischen Litteratur_, vol. ii. SS 251-266. (W. Y. S.; J. G*.)