[1] _Hist. Plant._ i. 9. 3, iii. 3. 1, and 4. 6, _et passim_. On the
_aquifolium_ or _aquifolia_ of Latin authors, commonly regarded as
the holly, see A. de Grandsagne, _Hist. Nat. de Pline_, bk. xvi.,
"Notes," pp. 199, 206.
[2] The term "holm," as indicative of a prevalence of holly, is
stated to have entered into the names of several places in Britain.
From its superficial resemblance to the holly, the tree _Quercus
Ilex_, the evergreen oak, received the appellation of "holm-oak."
[3] Skeat (_Etymolog. Dict._, 1879) with reference to the word holly
remarks: "The form of the base KUL (= Teutonic HUL) is probably
connected with Lat. _culmen_, a peak, _culmus_, a stalk; perhaps
because the leaves are 'pointed.'" Grimm (_Deut. Worterb._ Bd. iv.)
suggests that the term _Hulst_, as the O.H.G. _Hulis_, applied to the
butcher's broom, or knee-holly, in the earliest times used for
hedges, may have reference to the holly as a protecting (_hullender_)
plant.
HOLLYHOCK (from M.E. _holi_--doubtless because brought from the Holy
Land, where it is indigenous (Wedg.)--and A.-S. _hoc_, a mallow),
_Althaea rosea_, a perennial plant of the natural order _Malvaceae_, a
native of the East, which has been cultivated in Great Britain for about
three centuries. The ordinary hollyhock is single-blossomed, but the
florists' varieties have all double flowers, of white, yellow, rose,
purple, violet and other tints, some being almost black. The plant is in
its prime about August, but by careful management examples may be
obtained in blossom from July to as late as November. Hollyhocks are
propagated from seed, or by division of the root, or by planting out in
rich sandy soil, in a close frame, with a gentle bottom heat, single
eyes from woodshoots, or cuttings from outgrowths of the old stock or of
the lateral offsets of the spike. The seed may be sown in October under
cover, the plants obtained being potted in November, and kept under
glass till the following April, or, if it be late-gathered, in May or
June, in the open ground, whence, if required, the plants are best
removed in October or April. In many gardens, when the plants are not
disturbed, self-sown seedlings come up in abundance about April and May.
Seedlings may also be raised in February or March, by the aid of a
gentle heat, in a light and rich moist soil; they should not be watered
till they have made their second leaves, and when large enough for
handling should be pricked off in a cold frame; they are subsequently
transferred to the flower-bed. Hollyhocks thrive best in a well-trenched
and manured sandy loam. The spikes as they grow must be staked; and
water and, for the finest blossoms, liquid manure should be liberally
supplied to the roots. Plants for exhibition require the side growths to
be pinched out; and it is recommended, in cold, bleak or northerly
localities, when the flowering is over, and the stalks have been cut off
4 to 6 in. above the soil, to earth up the crowns with sand. Some of the
finest double-flowered kinds of hollyhock do not bloom well in Scotland.
The plant is susceptible of great modification under cultivation. The
forms now grown are due to the careful selection and crossing of
varieties. It is found that the most diverse varieties may be raised
with certainty from plants growing near together.
The young shoots of the hollyhock are very liable to the attacks of
slugs, and to a disease occasioned by a fungus, _Puccinia malvacearum_,
which is a native of Chile, attained notoriety in the Australian
colonies, and finally, reaching Europe in 1869, threatened the
extermination of the hollyhock, the soft parts of the leaves of which it
destroys, leaving the venation only remaining. It has been found
especially hurtful to the plant in dry seasons. It is also parasitic on
the wild mallows. The disease appears on the leaves as minute hard
pale-brown pustules, filled with spores which germinate without a
resting-period, but when produced late in the season may last as
resting-spores until next spring. Spraying early in the season with
Bordeaux mixture is an effective preventive, but the best means of
treatment is to destroy all leaves as soon as they show signs of being
attacked, and to prevent the growth of other host-plants such as
mallows, in the neighbourhood. In hot dry seasons, red-spider injures
the foliage very much, but may be kept at bay by syringing the plants
frequently with plenty of clean water.
HOLLY SPRINGS, a city and the county-seat of Marshall county,
Mississippi, U.S.A., in the N. part of the state, 45 m. S.E. of Memphis.
Pop. (1890) 2246; (1900) 2815 (1559 negroes); (1910) 2192. Holly Springs
is served by the Illinois Central and the Kansas City, Memphis &
Birmingham (Frisco System) railways. The city has broad and well-shaded
streets, and a fine court-house and court-house square. It is the seat
of Rust University (opened in 1867), a Methodist Episcopal institution
for negroes; of the Mississippi Synodical College (1905; Presbyterian),
for white girls; and of the North Mississippi Agricultural Experiment
Station. The principal industries are the ginning, compressing and
shipping of cotton, and the manufacture of cotton-seed oil, but the city
also manufactures pottery and brick from clay obtained in the vicinity,
and has an ice factory, bottling works and marble works. The
municipality owns and operates its water-works and electric-lighting
plant. Holly Springs was founded in 1837 and was chartered as a city in
1896. Early in December 1862 General Grant established here a large
depot of supplies designed for the use of the Federal army while on its
march toward Vicksburg, but General Earl Van Dorn, with a brigade of
cavalry, surprised the post at daylight on the 20th of this month,
burned the supplies and took 1500 prisoners. Holly Springs was the home
and is the burial-place of Edward Cary Walthall (1831-1898), a
Democratic member of the United States Senate in 1885-1894 and in
1895-1898.
HOLMAN, JAMES (1786-1857), known as the "Blind Traveller," was born at
Exeter on the 15th of October 1786. He entered the British navy in 1798
as first-class volunteer, and was appointed lieutenant in April 1807. In
1810 he was invalided by an illness which resulted in total loss of
sight. In consideration of his helpless circumstances he was in 1812
appointed one of the royal knights of Windsor, but the quietness of such
a life harmonized so ill with his active habits and keen interests that
he requested leave of absence to go abroad, and in 1819, 1820 and 1821
journeyed through France, Italy, Switzerland, the parts of Germany
bordering on the Rhine, Belgium and the Netherlands. On his return he
published _The Narrative of a Journey through France_, &c. (London,
1822). He again set out in 1822 with the design of making the circuit of
the world, but after travelling through Russia into Siberia, he was
suspected of being a spy, was arrested when he had managed to penetrate
1000 m. beyond Smolensk, and after being conducted to the frontiers of
Poland, returned home by Austria, Saxony, Prussia and Hanover. He now
issued _Travels through Russia, Siberia_, &c. (London, 1825). Shortly
afterwards he again set out to accomplish by a somewhat different method
the design which had been frustrated by the Russian authorities; and an
account of his remarkable achievement was published in four volumes in
1834-1835, under the title of _A Voyage round the World, including
Travels in Africa, Asia, Australasia, America, &c., from 1827 to 1832_.
His last journeys were through Spain, Portugal, Moldavia, Montenegro,
Syria and Turkey; and he was engaged in preparing an account of this
tour when he died in London on the 29th of July 1857.
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL (1809-1894), American writer and physician, was
born on the 29th of August 1809 at Cambridge, Mass. His father, Abiel
Holmes (1763-1837), was a Calvinist clergyman, the writer of a useful
history, _Annals of America_, and of much very dull poetry. His mother
(the second wife of Abiel) was Sarah Wendell, of a distinguished New
York family. Through her Dr Holmes was descended from Governors Thomas
Dudley and Simon Bradstreet of Massachusetts, and from her he derived
his cheerfulness and vivacity, his sympathetic humour and wit. From
Phillips (Andover) Academy he entered Harvard in the "famous class of
'29," made further illustrious by the charming lyrics which he wrote for
the anniversary dinners from 1851 to 1889, closing with the touching
"After the Curfew." After graduation he studied law perfunctorily for a
year and dabbled in literature, winning the public ear by a spirited
lyric called forth by the order to destroy the old frigate
_Constitution_. These verses were sung all over the land, and induced
the Navy Department to revoke its order and save the old ship. Turning
next to medicine, and convinced by a brief experience in Boston that he
liked it, he went to Paris in March 1833. He studied industriously under
Louis and other famous physicians and surgeons in France, and in his
vacations visited the Low Countries, England, Scotland and Italy.
Returning to Boston at the close of 1835, filled with a high
professional ambition, he sought practice, but achieved only moderate
success. Social, brilliant in conversation, and a writer of gay little
poems, he seemed to the grave Bostonians not sufficiently serious. He
won prizes, however, for professional papers, and lectured on anatomy at
Dartmouth College. He wrote two papers on homoeopathy, which he attacked
with trenchant wit; also a valuable paper on the malarial fevers of New
England. In 1843 he published his essay on the _Contagiousness of
Puerperal Fever_, which stirred up a fierce controversy and brought upon
him bitter personal abuse; but he maintained his position with dignity,
temper and judgment; and in time he was honoured as the discoverer of a
beneficent truth. The volume of his medical essays holds some of his
most sparkling wit, his shrewdest observation, his kindliest humanity.
In 1840 he married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of the Hon. Charles
Jackson (1775-1855), formerly associate justice of the State supreme
judicial court, a lady of rare charm alike of mind and character. She
died in the winter of 1887-1888. Their first-born child, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, afterwards became chief justice of that same bench on which his
grandfather sat. In 1847 Dr Holmes was appointed professor of anatomy
and physiology In the Medical School of Harvard University, the duties
involving the giving of instruction also in kindred departments, so
that, as he said, he occupied "not a chair, but a settee in the school."
He delivered the anatomical lectures until November 1882, and in later
years these were his only link with the medical profession. They were
fresh, witty and lively; and the students were sent to him at the end of
the day, when they were fagged, because he alone could keep them awake.
In later years he made few finished contributions to medical knowledge;
his eager and impetuous temperament caused him to leave more patient
investigators to push to ultimate results the suggestions thrown out by
his fertile and imaginative mind.
In 1836, being in that year the Phi Beta Kappa poet at Harvard
University, he published his first volume of _Poems_, which afterwards
reached a second edition. Among these earlier lyrics was "The Last
Leaf," one of the most delicate combinations of pathos and humour in
literature. His collected poetry fills three volumes. In 1856-1857 a
Boston publishing house (Phillips, Sampson, and Co.) invited James
Russell Lowell to edit a new magazine, which he agreed to do on
condition that he could secure the assistance of Dr Holmes. By this
urgent invitation the Doctor was equally surprised and flattered, for
heretofore he had stood rather outside the literary coterie of Cambridge
and Boston. He accepted with pleasure, and at once threw himself into
the enterprise with zeal. He christened it _The Atlantic Monthly_; and,
as Mr Howells afterwards said, he "not only named but made" it, for in
each number of its first volume there appeared one of the papers of the
_Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_. The opening of the _Autocrat_--"I was
just going to say when I was interrupted"--is explained by the fact that
in the old _New England Magazine_ (1831 to 1833) the Doctor had
published two _Autocrat_ papers, which, by his wish, have never been
reprinted. In the commercial panic of 1857 the new magazine would
inevitably have failed had it not been for these fascinating essays.
Their originality of conception, their wit and humour, their suggestions
of what then seemed bold ideas, and their expression of New Englandism,
all combined to make them so popular that the most harassed merchant in
that gloomy winter purchased them as a dose of cheering medicine. Thus
Dr Holmes made _The Atlantic Monthly_, which in return made him. A
success so immediate and so splendid settled the rest of his career; he
ceased to be a physician and became an author. These twelve papers were
immediately (1858) published as a volume. No sooner was the _Autocrat_
silent than the _Professor_ (1859) succeeded him at the breakfast table.
The _Professor_ was preferred by more thoughtful readers, though it has
hardly been so widely popular as the _Autocrat_. Its theology, which
seemed in those days audacious, frightened many of the strict and
old-fashioned religionists of New England, though to-day it seems mild
enough. Twelve years later, in 1871, the Landlady had another boarder,
who took the vacant chair--the _Poet_ (published 1872). But here Holmes
fell a little short. In these three books, especially in the _Autocrat_
and the _Professor_, the Doctor wrote as he talked at many a dinner
table in Boston, but less well. The animation and clash of talk roused
him. The dinners of the Saturday Club are among Boston's proudest
traditions, as they were the chief pleasure of Dr Holmes's life. There
he met Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Sumner, Agassiz, Motley,
and many other charming talkers, and among them all he was admitted to
be the best.
There were characters and incidents, but hardly a story, in the
_Autocrat_ and the _Professor_. Holmes had an ambition for more
sustained work, and in 1861 his novel, _Elsie Venner_, at first called
_The Professor's Story_, was published. The book was illuminated
throughout by admirable pictures of character and society in the typical
New England town. But the rattlesnake element was unduly extravagant,
and in other respects the book was open to criticism as a work of art.
It was written with the same purpose which informed the greatest part of
the Doctor's literary work, and which had already been scented and
nervously condemned by the religious world. By heredity the Doctor was a
theologian; no other topic enchained him more than did the stern and
merciless dogmas of his Calvinist forefathers. His humanity revolted
against them, his reason condemned them, and he set himself to their
destruction as his task in literature. The religious world of his time
was still so largely under the control of old ideas that he was assailed
as a freethinker and a subverter of Christianity; though before his
death opinions had so changed that the bitterness of the attacks upon
him seemed incredible, even to some of those who had most vehemently
made them. None the less, undaunted and profoundly earnest, he returned,
six years later, to the same line of thought in his second novel, _The
Guardian Angel_ (published 1867). This, though less well known than
_Elsie Venner_, is in many respects better. No more lifelike and
charming picture of the society of the New England country-town of the
middle third of the 19th century has ever been drawn, and every page
sparkles with wit and humour. In 1884 and 1885 it was followed, still in
the same line, by _A Mortal Antipathy_, a production inferior to its
predecessors.
Holmes generally held himself aloof from politics, and from those
"causes" of temperance, abolition and woman's rights which enthralled
most of his contemporaries in New England. The Civil War, however,
aroused him for the time; finding him first a strenuous Unionist, it
quickly converted him into an ardent advocate of emancipation. His
interest was enhanced by the career of his elder son Oliver (see below),
who was three times severely wounded, and finally rose to the rank of
lieut.-colonel in the Northern army. He wrote some ringing war lyrics,
and in 1863 delivered the Fourth of July oration in Boston, which showed
a masterly appreciation of the stirring public questions of the day. In
1878 Dr Holmes wrote a memoir of the historian John Lothrop Motley, an
affectionate tribute to one who had been his dear friend. In 1884 he
contributed the life of Emerson to the American "Men of Letters" series.
He admired the "Sage of Concord," but was not quite in intellectual
sympathy with him. Both were Liberals in thought, but in widely
different ways. But in spite of this handicap the volume proved very
popular. In 1888 he began the papers which he happily christened _Over
the Tea Cups_. As a _tour de force_ on the part of a man of nearly
fourscore years they are very remarkable.
After his return from Paris in 1835 Dr Holmes lived in Boston, with
summer sojournings at Pittsfield and Beverly Farms, and occasional trips
to neighbouring cities, until 1886. He then undertook a four months'
journey in Europe, and in England had a sort of triumphal progress. On
his return he wrote _Our Hundred Days in Europe_ (1887), a courteous
recognition of the hospitality and praise which had been accorded to
him. During this visit Cambridge University made him Doctor of Letters,
Edinburgh University made him Doctor of Laws, and Oxford University made
him Doctor of Civil Law. Already, in 1880, Harvard University had made
him Doctor of Laws. He died on the 7th of October 1894, and was buried
from King's Chapel, Boston, in the cemetery of Mount Auburn.
His eldest son Oliver Wendell (b. 1841), who graduated from Harvard in
1861 and fought in the Civil War, retiring from the army as brevet
lieut.-colonel in 1864, took up the study of law and was admitted to the
bar in Boston in 1866. He was for some years editor of the _American Law
Review_, and after being professor in the Harvard Law School in 1882 was
appointed in the same year a judge of the Massachusetts supreme court,
rising to be chief justice in 1899. In 1902 he was made a judge of the
United States Supreme Court. His work on _The Common Law_ (1881) and his
edition (1873) of Kent's _Commentaries_ are his principal publications;
and he became widely recognized as one of the great jurists of his day.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Holmes's _Complete Works_, in 13 volumes, were
published at Boston in 1891. See J. T. Morse, _Life and Letters of
Oliver Wendell Holmes_ (London, 1896); G. B. Ives, _Bibliography_
(Boston, 1907); and the bibliography in P. K. Foley's _American
Authors_ (Boston, 1897). An essay by Sir Leslie Stephen is prefixed to
the "Golden Treasury" edition (1903) of _The Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table_. See also monographs by William Sloane Kennedy (Boston, 1882);
Emma E. Brown (Boston, 1884). (J. T. Mo.)
HOLMFIRTH, an urban district in the Holmfirth parliamentary division of
the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on and Holme and the Ribble, 6 m.
S. of Huddersfield, and on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. Pop.
(1901) 8977. The valley, walled by bold hills, is very picturesque. In
1852 great destruction was wrought in the town by the bursting of a
reservoir in the vicinity. The large industrial population is employed
in woollen manufactories, and in the neighbouring stone quarries.
HOLOCAUST (Gr. [Greek: holokauston], or [Greek: holokauton], wholly
burnt), strictly a sacrifice wholly destroyed by fire, such as the
sacrifices of the Jews, described in the Pentateuch as "whole burnt
offerings" (see SACRIFICE). The term is now often applied to a
catastrophe on a large scale, whether by fire or not, or to a massacre
or slaughter.
HOLOCENE (from Gr. [Greek: holos], whole, [Greek: kainos], recent), in
geology, the time division which embraces the youngest of all the
formations; it is equivalent to the "Recent" of some authors. The name
was proposed in 1860 by P. Gervais. The oldest deposits that may be
included are those containing neolithic implements; deposits of historic
times should also be grouped here; presumably the youngest are those to
be chronicled by the last man. The Holocene formations obviously include
all the varieties of deposits which are accumulating at the present day:
the gravels and alluvia of rivers; boulder clays, moraines and
fluvio-glacial deposits; estuarine, coastal and abyssal deposits of the
seas, and their equivalents in lakes; screes, taluses, wind-borne dust
and sand and desert formations; chemical deposits from saline waters;
peat, diatomite, marls, foraminiferal and other oozes; coral, algal and
shell banks, and other organic deposits; mud, lava and dust deposits of
volcanic origin and extrusions of asphalt and pitch; to all these must
be added the works of man.
HOLROYD, SIR CHARLES (1861- ), British artist, was born in Leeds on the
9th of April 1861. He received his art education under Professor Legros
at the Slade School, University College, London, where he had a
distinguished career. After passing six months at Newlyn, where he
painted his first picture exhibited in the Royal Academy, "Fishermen
Mending a Sail" (1885), he obtained a travelling scholarship and studied
for two years in Italy, a sojourn which greatly influenced his art. At
his return, on the invitation of Legros, he became for two years
assistant-master at the Slade School, and there devoted himself to
painting and etching. Among his pictures may be mentioned "The Death of
Torrigiano" (1886), "The Satyr King" (1889), "The Supper at Emmaus,"
and, perhaps his best picture, "Pan and Peasants" (1893). For the church
of Aveley, Essex, he painted a triptych altarpiece, "The Adoration of
the Shepherds," with wings representing "St Michael" and "St Gabriel,"
and designed as well the window, "The Resurrection." His portraits, such
as that of "G. F. Watts, R.A.," in the Legros manner, show much dignity
and distinction. Sir Charles Holroyd has made his chief reputation as an
etcher of exceptional ability, combining strength with delicacy, and a
profound technical knowledge of the art. Among the best known are the
"Monte Oliveto" series, the "Icarus" series, the "Monte Subasio" series,
and the "Eve" series, together with the plates, "The Flight into Egypt,"
"The Prodigal Son," "A Barn on Tadworth Common" (etched in the open
air), and "The Storm." His etched heads of "Professor Legros," "Lord
Courtney" and "Night," are admirable alike in knowledge and in likeness.
His principal dry-point is "The Bather." In all his work Holroyd
displays an impressive sincerity, with a fine sense of composition, and
of style, allied to independent and modern feeling. He was appointed the
first keeper of the National Gallery of British Art (Tate Gallery), and
on the retirement of Sir Edward Poynter in 1906 he received the
directorship of the National Gallery. He was knighted in 1903. His
_Michael Angelo Buonarotti_ (London, Duckworth, 1903) is a scholarly
work of real value.
HOLSTEIN, FRIEDRICH VON (1837-1909), German statesman, for more than
thirty years head of the political department of the German Foreign
Office. Holstein's importance began with the dismissal of Bismarck in
1890. The new chancellor, Caprivi, was ignorant of foreign affairs; and
Holstein, as the repository of the Bismarckian tradition, became
indispensable. This reluctance to emerge into publicity has been
ascribed to the part he had played under Bismarck in the Arnim affair,
which had made him powerful enemies; it was, however, possibly due to a
shrinking from the responsibility of office. Yet the weakness of his
position lay just in the fact that he was not ultimately responsible. He
protested against the despatch of the "Kruger telegram," but protested
in vain. On the other hand, where his ideas were acceptable, he was
generally able to realize them. Thus it was almost entirely due to him
that Germany acquired Kiao-chau and asserted her interests in China, and
the acquisition of Samoa was also largely his work. If the skill and
pertinacity with which Holstein carried through his plans in these
matters was learned in the school of Bismarck, he had not acquired
Bismarck's faculty for foreseeing their ulterior consequences. This is
true of his Chinese policy, and true also of his part in the Morocco
crisis. The emperor William II.'s journey to Tangier was undertaken on
his advice, as a protest against the supposed attempt at the isolation
of Germany; but of the later developments of German policy in the
Morocco question he did not approve, on the ground that the result would
merely be to strengthen the Anglo-French _entente_; and from the 12th of
March 1906 onwards he took no active part in the matter. To the last he
believed that the position of Germany would remain unsafe until an
understanding had been arrived at with Great Britain, and it was this
belief that determined his attitude towards the question of the fleet,
"beside which," he wrote in February 1909, "all other questions are of
lesser account." His views on this question were summarized in a
memorandum of December 1907, of which Herr von Rath gives a _resume_. He
objected to the programme of the German Navy League on three main
grounds: (1) the ill-feeling likely to be aroused in South Germany, (2)
the inevitable dislocation of the finances through the huge additional
charges involved, (3) the suspicion of Germany's motives in foreign
countries, which would bind Great Britain still closer to France. As for
the idea that Germany's power would be increased, this--he wrote in
reply to a letter from Admiral Galster--was "a simple question of
arithmetic"; for how would the sea-power of Germany be relatively
increased if for every new German ship Great Britain built two? Herr von
Holstein retired on the resignation of Prince Bulow, and died on the 8th
of May 1909.
See Hermann von Rath, "Erinnerungen an Herrn von Holstein" in the
_Deutsche Revue_ for October 1909. He is also frequently mentioned
_passim_ in Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe's _Memoirs_.
HOLSTEIN, formerly a duchy of Germany. Until about 1110 the county of
Holstein formed part of the duchy of Saxony, and it was made a duchy in
1472. From 1460 to 1864 it was ruled by members of the house of
Oldenburg, some of whom were also kings of Denmark. It is now the
southern part of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. (See
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, and for history SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION.)
HOLSTEN, KARL CHRISTIAN JOHANN (1825-1897), German theologian, was born
at Gustrow, Mecklenburg, on the 31st of March 1825, and educated at
Leipzig, Berlin and Rostock, where in 1852 he became a teacher of
religion in the Gymnasium. In 1870 he went to Bern as professor of New
Testament studies, passing thence in 1876 to Heidelberg, where he
remained until his death on the 26th of January 1897. Holsten was an
adherent of the Tubingen school, and held to Baur's views on the alleged
antagonism between Petrinism and Paulinism.
Among his writings are _Zum Evangelium d. Paulus und d. Petrus_
(1867); _Das Evangelium des Paulus dargestellt_ (1880); _Die
synoptischen Evangelien nach der Form ihres Inhalts_ (1886).
HOLSTENIUS, LUCAS, the Latinized name of Luc Holste (1596-1661), German
humanist, geographer and theological writer, was born at Hamburg. He
studied at Leiden university, where he became intimate with the most
famous scholars of the age--J. Meursius, D. Heinsius and P. Cluverius,
whom he accompanied on his travels in Italy and Sicily. Disappointed at
his failure to obtain a post in the gymnasium of his native town, he
left Germany for good. Having spent two years in Oxford and London, he
went to Paris. Here he obtained the patronage of N. de Peiresc, who
recommended him to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, papal nuncio and the
possessor of the most important private library in Rome. On the
cardinal's return in 1627 he took Holstenius to live with him in his
palace and made him his librarian. Although converted to Roman
Catholicism in 1625, Holstenius showed his liberal-mindedness by
strenuously opposing the strict censorship exercised by the Congregation
of the Index. He was appointed librarian of the Vatican by Innocent X.,
and was sent to Innsbruck by Alexander VII. to receive Queen Christina's
abjuration of Protestantism. He died in Rome on the 2nd of February
1661. Holstenius was a man of unwearied industry and immense learning,
but he lacked the persistency to carry out the vast literary schemes he
had planned. He was the author of notes on Cluvier's _Italia antiqua_
(1624); an edition of portions of Porphyrius (1630), with a dissertation
on his life and writings, described as a model of its kind; notes on
Eusebius _Against Hierocles_ (1628), on the Sayings of the later
Pythagoreans (1638), and the _De diis et mundo_ of the neo-Platonist
Sallustius (1638); _Notae et castigationes in Stephani Bysantini
ethnica_ (first published in 1684); and _Codex regularum, Collection of
the Early Rules of the Monastic Orders_ (1661). His correspondence
(_Epistolae ad diversos_, ed. J. F. Boissonade, 1817) is a valuable
source of information on the literary history of his time.
See N. Wilckens, _Leben des gelehrten Lucae Holstenii_ (Hamburg,
1723); Johann Moller, _Cimbria literata_, iii. (1744).
HOLSTER, a leather case to hold a pistol, used by a horseman and
properly fastened to the saddle-bow, but sometimes worn in the belt. The
same word appears in Dutch, from which the English word probably
directly derives. The root is _hel_- or _hul_- to cover, and is seen in
the O. Eng. _heolster_, a place of shelter or concealment, and in "hull"
a sheath or covering. The German word for the same object, _holfter_,
is, according to the New _English Dictionary_, from a different root.
HOLT, SIR JOHN (1642-1710), lord chief justice of England, was born at
Thame, Oxfordshire, on the 30th of December 1642. His father, Sir Thomas
Holt, possessed a small patrimonial estate, but in order to supplement
his income had adopted the profession of law, in which he was not very
successful, although he became sergeant in 1677, and afterwards for his
political services to the "Tories" was rewarded with knighthood. After
attending for some years the free school of the town of Abingdon, of
which his father was recorder, young Holt in his sixteenth year entered
Oriel College, Oxford. He is said to have spent a very dissipated youth,
and even to have been in the habit of taking purses on the highway, but
after entering Gray's Inn about 1660 he applied himself with exemplary
diligence to the study of law. He was called to the bar in 1663. An
ardent supporter of civil and religious liberty, he distinguished
himself in the state trials which were then so common by the able and
courageous manner in which he supported the pleas of the defendants. In
1685-1686 he was appointed recorder of London, and about the same time
he was made king's sergeant and received the honour of knighthood. His
giving a decision adverse to the pretensions of the king to exercise
martial law in time of peace led to his dismissal from the office of
recorder, but he was continued in the office of king's sergeant in order
to prevent him from becoming counsel for accused persons. Having been
one of the judges who acted as assessors to the peers in the Convention
parliament, he took a leading part in arranging the constitutional
change by which William III. was called to the throne, and after his
accession he was appointed lord chief justice of the King's Bench. His
merits as a judge are the more apparent and the more remarkable when
contrasted with the qualities displayed by his predecessors in office.
In judicial fairness, legal knowledge and ability, clearness of
statement and unbending integrity he has had few if any superiors on the
English bench. Over the civil rights of his countrymen he exercised a
jealous watchfulness, more especially when presiding at the trial of
state prosecutions, and he was especially careful that all accused
persons should be treated with fairness and respect. He is, however,
best known for the firmness with which he upheld his own prerogatives in
opposition to the authority of the Houses of Parliament. On several
occasions his physical as well as his moral courage was tried by extreme
tests. Having been requested to supply a number of police to help the
soldiery in quelling a riot, he assured the messenger that if any of the
people were shot he would have the soldiers hanged, and proceeding
himself to the scene of riot he was successful in preventing bloodshed.
While steadfast in his sympathies with the Whig party, Holt maintained
on the bench entire political impartiality, and always held himself
aloof from political intrigue. On the retirement of Somers from the
chancellorship in 1700 he was offered the great seal, but declined it.
His death took place in London on the 5th of March 1710. He was buried
in the chancel of Redgrave church.
_Reports of Cases determined by Sir John Holt_ (1681-1710) appeared at
London in 1738; and _The Judgments delivered in the case of Ashby v.
White and others, and in the case of John Paty and others, printed
from original MSS._, at London (1837). See Burnet's _Own Times_;
_Tatler_, No. xiv.; a _Life_, published in 1764; Welsby, _Lives of
Eminent English Judges of the 17th and 18th Centuries_ (1846);
Campbell's _Lives of the Lord Chief Justices_; and Foss, _Lives of the
Judges_.
HOLTEI, KARL EDUARD VON (1798-1880), German poet and actor, was born at
Breslau on the 24th of January 1798, the son of an officer of Hussars.
Having served in the Prussian army as a volunteer in 1815, he shortly
afterwards entered the university of Breslau as a student of law; but,
attracted by the stage, he soon forsook academic life and made his debut
in the Breslau theatre as Mortimer in Schiller's _Maria Stuart_. He led
a wandering life for the next two years, appearing less on the stage as
an actor than as a reciter of his own poems. In 1821 he married the
actress Luise Rogee (1800-1825), and was appointed theatre-poet to the
Breslau stage. He next removed to Berlin, where his wife fulfilled an
engagement at the Court theatre. During his sojourn here he produced the
vaudevilles _Die Wiener in Berlin_ (1824), and _Die Berliner in Wien_
(1825), pieces which enjoyed at the time great popular favour. In 1825
his wife died; but soon after her death he accepted an engagement at the
Konigsstadter theatre in Berlin, when he wrote a number of plays,
notably _Lenore_ (1829) and _Der alte Feldherr_ (1829). In 1830 he
married Julie Holzbecher (1809-1839), an actress engaged at the same
theatre, and with her played in Darmstadt. Returning to Berlin in 1831
he wrote for the composer Franz Glaser (1798-1861) the text of the opera
_Des Adlers Horst_ (1835), and for Ludwig Devrient the drama, _Der dumme
Peter_ (1837). In 1833 Holtei again went on the stage and toured with
his wife to various important cities, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich
and Vienna. In the last his declamatory powers as a reciter,
particularly of Shakespeare's plays, made a furore, and the poet-actor
was given the appointment of manager of the Josefstadter theatre in the
last-named city. Though proud of his successes both as actor and
reciter, Holtei left Vienna in 1836, and from 1837 to 1839 conducted the
theatre in Riga. Here his second wife died, and after wandering through
Germany reciting and accepting a short engagement at Breslau, he settled
in 1847 at Graz, where he devoted himself to a literary life and
produced the novels _Die Vagabunden_ (1851), _Christian Lammfell_ (1853)
and _Der letzte Komodiant_ (1863). The last years of his life were spent
at Breslau, where being in poor circumstances he found a home in the
_Kloster der barmherzigen Bruder_, and here he died on the 12th of
February 1880.
As a dramatist Holtei may be said to have introduced the "vaudeville"
into Germany; as an actor, although remaining behind the greater artists
of his time, he contrived to fascinate his audience by the dramatic
force of his exposition of character; as a reciter, especially of
Shakespeare, he knew no rival. August Lewald said of Holtei that by the
energy of his poetic conception and plastic force he brought his
audience round to his own ideas; and he added, "an eloquence such as his
I have never met with in any other German."
Holtei was not only a stage-poet but a lyric-writer of great charm.
Notable among such productions are _Schlesische Gedichte_ (1830; 20th
ed., 1893), _Gedichte_ (5th ed., 1861), _Stimmen des Waldes_ (2nd ed.,
1854). Mention ought also to be made of Holtei's interesting
autobiography, _Vierzig Jahre_ (8 vols., 1843-1850; 3rd ed., 1862) with
the supplementary volume _Noch ein Jahr in Schlesien_ (1864).
Holtei's _Theater_ appeared in 6 vols. (1867); his _Erzahlende
Schriften_, 39 vols. (1861-1866). See M. Kurnick, _Karl von Holtei,
ein Lebensbild_ (1880); F. Wehl, _Zeit und Menschen_ (1889); O.
Storch, _K. von Holtei_ (1898).
HOLTY, LUDWIG HEINRICH CHRISTOPH (1748-1776), German poet, was born on
the 21st of December 1748 at the village of Mariensee in Hanover, where
his father was pastor. In 1769 he went to study theology at Gottingen.
Here he formed a close friendship with J. M. Miller, J. H. Voss, H.
Boie, the brothers Stolberg and others, and became one of the founders
of the famous society of young poets known as the _Gottinger
Dichterbund_ or _Hain_. When in 1774 he left the university he had
abandoned all intention of becoming a clergyman; but he was not destined
to enter any other profession. He died of consumption on the 1st of
September 1776 at Hanover. Holty was the most gifted lyric poet of the
Gottingen circle. He was influenced both by Uz and Klopstock, but his
love for the Volkslied and his delight in nature preserved him from the
artificiality of the one poet and the unworldliness of the other. A
strain of melancholy runs through all his lyrics. His ballads are the
pioneers of the rich ballad literature on English models, which sprang
up in Germany during the next few years. Among his most familiar poems
may be mentioned _Ub' immer Treu' und Redlichkeit_, _Tanzt dem schonen
Mai entgegen_, _Rosen auf dem Weg gestreut_, and _Wer wollte sich mit
Grillen plagen?_
Holty's _Gedichte_ were published by his friends Count Friedrich
Leopold zu Stolberg and J. H. Voss (Hamburg, 1783); a new edition,
enlarged by Voss, with a biography (1804); a more complete but still
imperfect edition by F. Voigts (Hanover, 1857). The first complete
edition was that of Karl Halm (Leipzig, 1870), who had access to MSS.
not hitherto known. See H. Ruete, _Holty, sein Leben und Dichten_
(Guben, 1883), and A. Sauer, _Der Gottinger Dichterbund_, vol. ii.
(Stuttgart, 1894), where an excellent selection of Holty's poetry will
be found.
HOLTZENDORFF, JOACHIM WILHELM FRANZ PHILIPP VON (1829-1889), German
jurist, born at Vietmannsdorf, in the Mark of Brandenburg, on the 14th
of October 1829, was descended from a family of the old nobility. He was
educated at Berlin and at Pforta, afterwards studying law at the
universities of Bonn, Heidelberg and Berlin. The struggles of 1848
inspired him with youthful enthusiasm, and he remained for the rest of
his life a strong advocate of political liberty. In 1852 he graduated
LL.D. at Berlin; in 1857 he became a Privatdocent, and in 1860 he was
nominated a professor extraordinary. The predominant party in Prussia
regarded his political opinions with mistrust, and he was not offered an
ordinary professorship until February 1873, after he had decided to
accept a chair at the university of Munich. At Munich he passed the last
nineteen years of his life. During the thirty years that he was
professor he successively taught several branches of jurisprudence, but
he was chiefly distinguished as an authority on criminal and
international law. He was especially well fitted for organizing
collective work, and he has associated his name with a series of
publications of the first value. While acting as editor he often
reserved for himself, among the independent monographs of which the work
was composed, only those on subjects distasteful to his collaborators on
account of their obscurity or lack of importance. Among the compilations
which he superintended may be mentioned his _Encyclopadie der
Rechtswissenschaft_ (Leipzig, 1870-1871, 2 vols.); his _Handbuch des
deutschen Strafrechts_ (Berlin, 1871-1877, 4 vols.), and his _Handbuch
des Volkerrechts auf Grundlage europaischer Staatspraxis_ (Berlin,
1885-1890, 4 vols.). Among his many independent works may be mentioned:
_Das irische Gefangnissystem_ (Leipzig, 1859), _Franzosische
Rechtszustande_ (Leipzig, 1859), _Die Deportation als Strafmittel_
(Leipzig, 1859), _Die Kurzungsfahigkeit der Freiheitsstrafen_ (Leipzig,
1861), _Die Reform der Staatsanwaltschaft in Deutschland_ (Berlin,
1864), _Die Umgestaltung der Staatsanwaltschaft_ (Berlin, 1865), _Die
Principien der Politik_ (Berlin, 1869), _Das Verbrechen des Mordes und
die Todesstrafe_ (Berlin, 1875), _Rumaniens Uferrechte an der Donau_
(Leipzig, 1883; French edition, 1884). He also edited or assisted in
editing a number of periodical publications on legal subjects. From 1866
to the time of his death he was associated with Rudolf Ludwig Carl
Virchow in editing _Sammlung gemeinverstandlicher wissenschaftlicher
Vortrage_ (Berlin). Von Holtzendorff died at Munich on the 4th of
February 1889.
HOLTZMANN, HEINRICH JULIUS (1832- ), German Protestant theologian, son
of Karl Julius Holtzmann (1804-1877), was born on the 17th of May 1832
at Karlsruhe, where his father ultimately became prelate and counsellor
to the supreme consistory. He studied at Berlin, and eventually (1874)
was appointed professor ordinarius at Strassburg. A moderately liberal
theologian, he became best known as a New Testament critic and exegete,
being the author of the Commentary on the Synoptics (1889; 3rd ed.,
1901), the Johannine books (1890; 2nd ed., 1893), and the Acts of the
Apostles (1901), in the series _Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament_. On
the question of the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels, Holtzmann in
his early work, _Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und
geschichtlicher Charakter_ (1863), presents a view which has been widely
accepted, maintaining the priority of Mark, deriving Matthew in its
present form from Mark and from Matthew's earlier "collection of
Sayings," the Logia of Papias, and Luke from Matthew and Mark in the
form in which we have them.
Other noteworthy works are the _Lehrbuch der histor.-kritischen
Einleitung in das Neue Testament_ (1885, 3rd ed., 1892), and the
_Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie_ (2 vols., 1896-1897). He
also collaborated with R. Zopffel in the preparation of a small
_Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirchenwesen_ (1882; 3rd ed., 1895), and in
1893 became editor of the _Theol. Jahresbericht_.
HOLUB, EMIL (1847-1902), Bohemian traveller in south-central Africa, was
born at Holitz, eastern Bohemia, on the 7th of October 1847. He was
educated at Prague University, where he graduated M.D. In 1872 he went
to the Kimberley diamond-fields, and with the money earned by his
practice as a surgeon undertook expeditions into the northern Transvaal,
Mashonaland and through Bechuanaland to the Victoria Falls, making
extensive natural history collections, which he brought to Europe in
1879 and distributed among over a hundred museums and schools. In 1883
he went back to South Africa with his wife, intending to cross the
continent to Egypt. In June 1886 the party crossed the Zambezi west of
the Victoria Falls, and explored the then almost unknown region between
that river and its tributary the Kafue. When beyond the Kafue the camp
was attacked by the Mashukulumbwe, and Holub was obliged to retrace his
steps. He returned to Austria in 1887 with a collection of great
scientific interest, of over 13,000 objects, now in various museums.
Holub died at Vienna on the 21st of February 1902.
His principal works are: _Eine Culturskizze des
Marutse-Mambunda-reichs_ (Vienna, 1879); _Sieben Jahre in Sudafrika_,
&c. (2 vols., Vienna, 1880-1881), of which an English translation
appeared; _Die Colonisation Afrikas_ (Vienna, 1882); and _Von der
Kapstadt ins Land der Maschukulumbe_ (2 vols., Vienna, 1818-1890).
HOLY, sacred, devoted or set apart for religious worship or observance;
a term characteristic of the attributes of perfection and sinlessness of
the Persons of the Trinity, as the objects of human worship and
reverence, and hence transferred to those human persons who, either by
their devotion to a spiritual ascetic life or by their approximation to
moral perfection, are considered worthy of reverence. The word in Old
English was _halig_, and is common to other Teutonic languages; cf. Ger.
and Dutch _heilig_, Swed. _helig_, Dan. _hellig_. It is derived from
_hal_, hale, whole, and cognate with "health." The _New English
Dictionary_ suggests that the sense-development may be from "whole,"
i.e. inviolate, from "health, well-being," or from "good-omen,"
"augury." It is impossible to get behind the Christian uses, in which
from the earliest times it was employed as the equivalent of the Latin
_sacer_ and _sanctus_.
HOLY ALLIANCE, THE. The famous treaty, or declaration, known by this
name was signed in the first instance by Alexander I., emperor of
Russia, Francis I., emperor of Austria, and Frederick William III., king
of Prussia, on the 26th of September 1815, and was proclaimed by the
emperor Alexander the same day at a great review of the allied troops
held on the Champ des Vertus near Paris. The English version of the text
is as follows:--
In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity.
_Holy Alliance of Sovereigns of Austria, Prussia and Russia._
Their Majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the
Emperor of Russia, having, in consequence of the great events which
have marked the course of the three last years in Europe, and
especially of the blessings which it has pleased Divine Providence to
shower down upon those States which place their confidence and their
hope on it alone, acquired the intimate conviction of the necessity of
settling the steps to be observed by the Powers, in their reciprocal
relations, upon the sublime truths which the Holy Religion of our
Saviour teaches;
_Government and Political Relations._
They solemnly declare that the present Act has no other object than to
publish, in the face of the whole world, their fixed resolution, both
in the administration of their respective States, and in their
political relations with every other Government, to take for their
sole guide the precepts of that Holy Religion, namely, the precepts of
Justice, Christian Charity and Peace, which, far from being applicable
only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence on the
councils of Princes, and guide all their steps, as being the only
means of consolidating human institutions and remedying their
imperfections. In consequence, their Majesties have agreed on the
following Articles:--
_Principles of the Christian Religion._
Art. I. Conformably to the words of the Holy Scriptures which command
all men to consider each other as brethren, the Three contracting
Monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble
fraternity, and, considering each other as fellow countrymen, they
will, on all occasions and in all places, lend each other aid and
assistance; and, regarding themselves towards their subjects and
armies as fathers of families, they will lead them, in the same spirit
of fraternity with which they are animated, to protect Religion, Peace
and Justice.
_Fraternity and Affection._
Art. II. In consequence, the sole principle of force, whether between
the said Governments or between their Subjects, shall be that of doing
each other reciprocal service, and of testifying by unalterable good
will the mutual affection with which they ought to be animated, to
consider themselves all as members of one and the same Christian
nation; the three allied Princes looking on themselves as merely
delegated by Providence to govern three branches of the One family,
namely, Austria, Prussia and Russia, thus confessing that the
Christian world, of which they and their people form a part, has in
reality no other Sovereign than Him to whom alone power really
belongs, because in Him alone are found all the treasures of love,
science and infinite wisdom, that is to say, God, our Divine Saviour,
the Word of the Most High, the Word of Life. Their Majesties
consequently recommend to their people, with the most tender
solicitude, as the sole means of enjoying that Peace which arises from
a good conscience, and which alone is durable, to strengthen
themselves every day more and more in the principles and exercise of
the duties which the Divine Saviour has taught to mankind.
_Accession of Foreign Powers._
Art. III. All the Powers who shall choose solemnly to avow the sacred
principles which have dictated the present Act, and shall acknowledge
how important it is for the happiness of nations, too long agitated,
that these truths should henceforth exercise over the destinies of
mankind all the influence which belongs to them, will be received with
equal ardour and affection into this Holy Alliance.
The credit for inspiring this singular document was claimed by the
Baroness von Krudener (q.v.); in any case it was the outcome of the
tsar's mood of evangelical exaltation, and was in its inception
perfectly sincere. Neither Frederick William nor Francis signed
willingly, the latter remarking that "if it was a question of politics,
he must refer it to his chancellor, if of religion, to his confessor."
Metternich called it a "loud-sounding nothing," Castlereagh, "a piece of
sublime mysticism and nonsense." None the less, in accordance with its
last article, the signatures of all the European sovereigns were invited
to the instrument, the pope and the Ottoman sultan alone being excepted.
The prince regent courteously declined to sign, on the constitutional
ground that all acts of the British crown required the counter-signature
of a minister, but he sent a letter expressing his "entire concurrence
with the principles laid down by the 'august sovereigns' and stating
that it would always be his endeavour to regulate his conduct by their
'sacred maxims.'" With these exceptions, all the European sovereigns
sooner or later appended their names.
In popular parlance, which has found its way into the language of
serious historians, the "Holy Alliance" soon became synonymous with the
combination of the great powers by whom Europe was ruled in concert
during the period of the congresses, and associated with the policy of
reaction which gradually dominated their counsels. For the understanding
of the inner history of the diplomacy of this period, however, a clear
distinction must be drawn between the Holy Alliance and the Grand, or
Quadruple (Quintuple) Alliance. The Grand Alliance was established on
definite treaties concluded for definite purposes, of which the chief
was the preservation of peace on the basis of the territorial settlement
of 1815. The Holy Alliance was a general treaty--hardly indeed a treaty
at all--which bound its signatories to act on certain vague principles
for no well-defined end; and in its essence it was so far from
necessarily reactionary that the emperor Alexander at one time declared
that it involved the grant of liberal constitutions by princes to their
subjects. Its main significance was due to the persistent efforts of the
tsar to make it the basis of the "universal union," or general
confederation of Europe, which he wished to substitute for the actual
committee of the great powers, efforts which were frustrated by the
vigorous diplomacy of Castlereagh, acting as the mouthpiece of the
British government (see EUROPE: _History_; ALEXANDER I. of Russia;
LONDONDERRY, ROBERT STEWART, 2ND MARQUIS OF).
As a diplomatic instrument the Holy Alliance never, as a matter of fact,
became effective. None the less, its principles and the fact of its
signature powerfully affected the course of European diplomacy during
the 19th century. It strongly influenced the emperor Nicholas I. of
Russia, to whom the brotherhood of sovereigns by divine right was an
article of faith, inspiring the principles of the convention of Berlin
(between Russia, Austria and Prussia) in 1833, and the tsar's
intervention in 1849 to crush the Hungarian insurrection on behalf of
his brother of Austria. That it had become synonymous with a conspiracy
against popular liberties was, however, a mere accident of the point of
view of those who interpreted its principles. It was capable of other
and more noble interpretations, and it was avowedly the inspiration of
the famous rescript of the emperor Nicholas II., embodied in the
circular of Count Muraviev to the European courts (August 4th, 1898),
which issued in the first international peace conference at the Hague in
1899. (W. A. P.)
HOLYHEAD (Caergybi, the fort of Cybi, the saint mentioned by Matthew
Arnold as meeting St Seiriol of Penmon, Anglesey), a seaport and
market-town of Anglesey, N. Wales, situated on the small Holy Island, at
the western end of the county. Pop. of urban district (1901) 10,079.
Here the London and North-Western railway has a terminus, 263(1/2) m.
from London by rail. Holy Island is connected with Anglesey by an
embankment, 3/4 m. long, over which pass the railway and main road, the
tide flowing fast under the central piers. Once a small fishing village,
the town has since William IV.'s reign acquired importance as the Dublin
mail steam station. Its magnificent harbour of refuge was begun in 1847
and opened in September 1873. The east breakwater scheme, which would
have covered the Platter's rocks--still very troublesome--and the
Skinner's, was abandoned for buoys which mark the spots. The north
breakwater is 7860 ft. long (instead of 5360, as originally planned).
The roadstead (400 acres) and enclosed area (267 acres) together make a
magnificent shelter for shipping. The rubble mound of the breakwater was
very costly to the railway company, as time after time it was swept away
by storms. On it is a central wall of some 38 ft. above low water, and
on the wall a promenade sheltered by a parapet. The lighthouse is at the
end of the breakwater, of which the whole cost was nearly 1(1/2) million
sterling. Additional works, begun in 1873 by the company, to extend the
old harbour and lengthen the quay by 4000 ft., were opened by King
Edward VII. (as prince of Wales) in 1880. These cost another half
million. George IV. passed through Holyhead in 1821 on his way to
Ireland, and there is a commemorative tablet on the old harbour pier.
The church is said to occupy the site of the old monastery (6th or early
7th century) of St Cybi, of whom there is a rude figure in the porch.
The churchyard wall, 6 ft. thick, is possibly partly Roman. On the south
of the harbour is an obelisk in memory of Captain Skinner, of the steam
packets, washed overboard in 1833. Pen Caergybi rises perpendicularly
from the sea to the height of 719 ft., at some 2 m. from the town; it is
a mass of serpentine rocks, off which lie the North and South Stacks,
each with a lighthouse with a revolving light, visible for 20 m., and
197 ft. above high water on the South Stack. On the hill are traces of
British fortification, including a circular building, probably a Roman
watch-tower. Coasting trade and fishing, with some shipbuilding and the
Irish traffic, occupy most of the inhabitants.
See Hon. W. Stanley's _Holy Island and Holyhead_.
HOLY ISLAND, or LINDISFARNE, an irregularly shaped island in the North
Sea, 2 m. from the coast of Northumberland, in which county it is
included. Pop. (1901) 405. It is joined to the mainland at low water by
flat sands, over which a track, marked by wooden posts and practicable
for vehicles, leads to the island. There is a station on the
North-Eastern railway at Beak 9 m. S.E. of Berwick, opposite the island,
but 1(1/4) m. inland. The island measures 3 m. from E. to W. and 1(1/2)
N. to S., extreme distances. Its total area is 1051 acres. On the N. it
is sandy and barren, but on the S. very fertile and under cultivation.
Large numbers of rabbits have their warrens among the sands, and, with
fish, oysters and agricultural produce, are exported. There are several
fresh springs on the island, and in the north-east is a lake of 6 acres.
At the south-west angle is the little fishing village (formerly much
larger) which is now a favourite summer watering-place. Here is the
harbour, offering good shelter to small vessels. Holy Island derives its
name from a monastery founded on it by St Aidan, and restored in 1082 as
a cell of the Benedictine monastery at Durham. Its ruins, still
extensive and carefully preserved, justify Scott's description of it as
a "solemn, huge and dark-red pile." An islet, lying off the S.W. angle,
has traces of a chapel upon it, and is believed to have offered a
retreat to St Cuthbert and his successors. The castle, situated east of
the village, on a basaltic rock about 90 ft. high, dates from _c._ 1500.
When St Aidan came at the request of King Oswald to preach to the
Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his
church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he
founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering
among its bishops St Cuthbert, but in 793 the Danes landed on the island
and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors,
however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when,
through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking
with them the body of St Cuthbert and other holy relics. The church and
monastery were again destroyed and the bishop and monks, on account of
the exposed situation of the island, determined not to return to it, and
settled first at Chester-le-Street and finally at Durham. With the fall
of the monastery the island appears to have become again untenanted, and
probably continued so until the prior and convent of Durham established
there a cell of monks from their own house. The inhabitants of Holy
Island were governed by two bailiffs at least as early as the 14th
century, and, according to J. Raine in his _History of North Durham_
(1852), are called "burgesses or freemen" in a private paper dated 1728.
In 1323 the bailiffs and community of Holy Island were commanded to
cause all ships of the burthen of thirty tons or over to go to Ereswell
with their ships provisioned for a month at least and under double
manning to be ready to set out on the kings service. Towards the end of
the 16th century the fort on Holy Island was garrisoned for fear of
foreign invasion by Sir William Read, who found it very much in need of
repair, the guns being so decayed that the gunners "dare not give fire
but by trayne," and the master gunner had been "miserably slain" in
discharging one of them. During the Civil Wars the castle was held for
the king until 1646, when it was taken and garrisoned by the
parliamentarians. The only other historical event connected with the
island is the attempt made by two Jacobites in 1715 to hold it for the
Pretender.
HOLYOAKE, GEORGE JACOB (1817-1906), English secularist and co-operator,
was born at Birmingham, on the 13th of April 1817. At an early age he
became an Owenite lecturer, and in 1841 was the last person convicted
for blasphemy in a public lecture, though this had no theological
character and the incriminating words were merely a reply to a question
addressed to him from the body of the meeting. He nevertheless underwent
six months' imprisonment, and upon his release invented the inoffensive
term "secularism" as descriptive of his opinions, and established the
_Reasoner_ in their support. He was also the last person indicted for
publishing an unstamped newspaper, but the prosecution dropped upon the
repeal of the tax. His later years were chiefly devoted to the promotion
of the co-operative movement among the working classes. He wrote the
history of the Rochdale Pioneers (1857), _The History of Co-operation in
England_ (1875; revised ed., 1906), and _The Co-operative Movement of
To-day_ (1891). He also published (1892) his autobiography, under the
title of _Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life_, and in 1905 two volumes of
reminiscences, _Bygones worth Remembering_. He died at Brighton on the
22nd of January 1906.
See J. McCabe, _Life and Letters of G. J. Holyoake_ (2 vols., 1908);
C. W. F. Goss, _Descriptive Bibliography of the Writings of G. J.
Holyoake_ (1908).
HOLYOKE, a city of Hampden county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in a bend of
the Connecticut river, about 8 m. N. of Springfield. Pop. (1880) 21,915;
(1890) 35,637; (1900) 45,712; (1910 census) 57,730. Of the total
population in 1900, 18,921 were foreign-born, including 6991
French-Canadians, 5650 Irish, 1602 Germans and 1118 English; and 33,626
were of foreign parentage (both parents foreign-born), including 12,370
of Irish and 11,050 of French-Canadian parentage. The city's area is
about 17 sq. m. The city is served by the Boston & Maine, and the New
York, New Haven & Hartford railways, and by an interurban line. Holyoke
is characteristically an industrial and mercantile city; it has some
handsome public buildings (the city hall and the public library, founded
in 1870, being especially noteworthy) and attractive environs. Holyoke
is the railway station for Mt Holyoke College, in South Hadley, about 4
m. N. by E. of Holyoke; the city is connected with South Hadley by an
electric line. Just above Holyoke the Connecticut leaves the rugged
highlands through a rift between Mt Tom (1214 ft.; ascended by a
mountain-railway from Holyoke) and Mt Holyoke (954 ft.), and begins a
meandering valley course, falling (in the Hadley halls) in great volume
some 60 ft. in about 1(1/2) m. The water-power was unutilized until 1849,
when a great dam (1017 ft. long) was completed, which enabled vast power
to be developed along a series of canals laid out from the river. This
was, in its day, a colossal undertaking; and its success transformed
Holyoke from a farming village into a great manufacturing centre--in
1900 and 1905 the ninth largest of the commonwealth. In 1900 a stone dam
(1020 ft.), said to be the second largest in New England, was completed
at a cost of about $750,000. Cotton manufactures first, and later paper
products were chief in importance, and Holyoke now leads all the cities
in the United States in the manufacture of fine paper. In 1905 the total
value of all factory products was $30,731,332, of which $10,620,255 (or
34.6% of the total) represented paper and wood pulp; $5,019,817, cotton
goods; $1,318,409, woollen goods; $1,756,473, book binding and blank
books, and $2,022,759, foundry and machine-shop products. Silk and
worsted goods are other important manufactures. Opposite Holyoke, in
Hampshire county, is South Hadley Falls. The municipality owns and
operates the gas and electric-lighting plants and the water works (the
water-supply being derived from natural ponds, some of which are outside
the city limits), and owns and leases (to the New York, New Haven &
Hartford railroad) a railway extending (10.3 m.) to Westfield, Mass.
Holyoke was originally a part of Springfield, and after 1774 of West
Springfield. In 1850 it was incorporated as a township, and in 1873 was
chartered as a city.
HOLYSTONE, a soft kind of sandstone used by sailors for scrubbing and
cleaning the decks of ships. The origin of the word is doubtful. Some
authorities hold that it arose from the general practice of scrubbing
the decks for Sunday service; while others think the name arises from
the fact that the stone so employed is naturally porous and full of
holes. A small flint or stone having a natural hole in it, and worn as a
charm, is also called a holystone.
HOLY WATER, technically the water with which Christian believers sign
the cross on their foreheads on entering or leaving church. The edict of
Gratian lays down that it should be exorcized and blessed by the priest
and sprinkled with exorcized salt. This rite is found in the Gelasian,
Gregorian and other sacramentaries. In the East the water was blessed
once a month, in the Latin Church it is now blessed every Sunday. In the
4th century in the East it was usual to wash the hands on entering the
church (see ABLUTION).
In the early church water was not expressly consecrated for baptisms and
other lustrations. "Water," says Tertullian in his tract on baptism,
"was the abode at the first of the divine Spirit, being more acceptable
then (to God) than the other elements." He pictures the world in the
beginning: "total darkness, formless as yet, without tending of stars,
the melancholy abyss, the earth unprepared, the heaven undevelopt. The
liquid alone an ever perfect material, smiling, simple, pure in its own
right, as a worthy vehicle underlay the God." Water was similarly pure
in itself in the old Persian religion.
The _Canons of Hippolytus_, or Egyptian church order, of about A.D. 250,
give no prayer for consecration of fonts, but enact that "at cock crow
the baptismal party shall take their stand near waving water, pure,
prepared, sacred, of the sea." The _Teaching of the Apostles_, _c._ 100,
merely insists on "living," that is, clear and running water. The
ancient feeling, especially Jewish, was that in lustrations the same
water must not pass twice over the body. A stagnant pool was useless.
Bubbling waters too seemed to have a spirit in them.
Either because running water was not always at hand, or as part of the
growing tendency of the church to multiply ceremonies, rituals arose
late in the 3rd century for consecrating water. The sacramentary of
Serapion, _c._ 350, provides a prayer asking that the divine Word may
descend into the water and hallow it, as of old it hallowed the Jordan.
In the Roman order of baptism the priest prays that "the font may
receive the grace of the only begotten Son from the holy Spirit, and
that the latter may impregnate with hidden admixture of His light this
water prepared for the regeneration of mankind, to the end that man
through a sanctification conceived from the immaculate womb of the
divine font, may emerge a heavenly offspring reborn as a new creature."
The water is then exorcized and evil spirits warned off, and lastly
blessed. During the prayer the priest twice signs the water with the
cross, and once blows upon it.
The first mention of a special consecration of water for other ends than
baptism is in the _Acts of Thomas_ (? A.D. 200); it is for the purgation
of a youth already baptized who had killed his mistress because she
would not live chastely with him. The apostle prays: "Fountain sent unto
us from Rest, Power of Salvation from that Power proceeding which
overcomes and subjects all to its own will, come and dwell within these
waters, that the _Charisma_ (gift) of the holy Spirit may be fully
perfected through them." The youth then washes his hands, which on
touching the sacrament had withered up, and is healed.
The church shared the universal belief that holiness or the holy Spirit
is quasi-material and capable of being held in suspense in water, just
as sin is a half material infection, absorbed and carried away by it. So
Tertullian writes: "The water which carried the Spirit of God (probably
regarded as a shadow or reflection-soul) borrowed holiness from that
which was carried upon it; for every underlying matter must needs absorb
and take up the quality of that matter which overhangs it; especially
does a corporeal so absorb a spiritual, as this can easily penetrate and
settle into it owing to the subtlety of its substance."
"Water," he continues, "was generically hallowed by the Spirit of God
brooding over it at creation, and therefore all special waters are holy,
and at once obtain the sacrament of sanctification when God is invoked
(over them.) For the Spirit from heaven instantly supervenes and is upon
the waters, hallowing them out of itself, and being so hallowed they
drink up a power of hallowing."
What is done in material semblance, he then argues, is repeated in the
unseen medium of the Spirit. The stains of idolatry, vice and fraud are
not visible on the flesh, yet they resemble real dirt. "The waters are
medicated in a manner through the intervention of the angel, and the
Spirit is corporeally washed in the water and the flesh is spiritually
purified in the same."
Tertullian believed that an angel was sent down, when God was invoked,
like that which stirred the pool of Bethesda. As regards rival Isiac and
Mithraic baptisms, he asserts that their waters are destitute of divine
power; nay, are rather tenanted by the devil who in this matter sets
himself to rival God. "Without any religious rite at all," he urges,
"unclean spirits brood upon waters, aspiring to repeat that primordial
gestation of the divine Spirit." And he instances the "darkling springs
and lonely rivers which are said to snatch, to wit by force of a harmful
spirit." In the sequel he defines the role of the angel of baptism who
does not infuse himself in waters, already holy from the first; but
merely presides over the washing of the faithful, and ensures their
being made pure for the reception of the holy Spirit in the rite of
confirmation which immediately follows. "The devil who till now ruled
over us, we leave behind overwhelmed in the water."
From all this we conclude that what is poetry to us--akin to the
folk-lore of water-sprites, naiads, kelpies, river-gods and
water-worship in general--was to Tertullian and to the generations of
believers who fashioned the baptismal rites, ablutions and beliefs of
the church, nothing less than grim reality and unquestionable fact.
See John, marquess of Bute, and E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Blessing of
the Waters_ (London, 1901); E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_ (London,
1903). (F. C. C.)
HOLY WEEK ([Greek: hebdomas megale, hagia] or [Greek: ton hagion,
xerophagias, apraktos], also [Greek: hemerai pathematon, hemerai
staurosimai]: _hebdomas_ [or _septimana_] _major_, _sancta_,
_authentica_ [i.e. _canonizata_, du Cange], _ultima_, _poenosa_,
_luctuosa_, _nigra_, _inofficiosa_, _muta_, _crucis_, _lamentationum_,
_indulgentiae_), in the Christian ecclesiastical year the week
immediately preceding Easter. The earliest allusion to the custom of
marking this week as a whole with special observances is to be found in
the _Apostolical Constitutions_ (v. 18, 19), dating from the latter half
of the 3rd century A.D. Abstinence from wine and flesh is there
commanded for all the days, while for the Friday and Saturday an
absolute fast is enjoined. Dionysius Alexandrinus also, in his canonical
epistle (260 A.D.), refers to the six fasting days ([Greek: hex ton
nesteion hemerai]) in a manner which implies that the observance of them
had already become an established usage in his time. There is some doubt
about the genuineness of an ordinance attributed to Constantine, in
which abstinence from public business was enforced for the seven days
immediately preceding Easter Sunday, and also for the seven which
followed it; the _Codex Theodosianus_, however, is explicit in ordering
that all actions at law should cease, and the doors of all courts of law
be closed during those fifteen days (l. ii. tit. viii.). Of the
particular days of the "great week" the earliest to emerge into special
prominence was naturally Good Friday. Next came the Sabbatum Magnum
(Holy Saturday or Easter Eve) with its vigil, which in the early church
was associated with an expectation that the second advent would occur on
an Easter Sunday.
For details of the ceremonial observed in the Roman Catholic Church
during this week, reference must be made to the _Missal_ and
_Breviary_. In the Eastern Church the week is marked by similar
practices, but with less elaboration and differentiation of rite. See
also EASTER, GOOD FRIDAY, MAUNDY THURSDAY, PALM SUNDAY and PASSION
WEEK.
HOLYWELL (_Tre'ffynnon_, well-town), a market town and contributory
parliamentary borough of Flintshire, N. Wales, situated on a height near
the left bank of the Dee estuary, 196 m. from London by the London &
North-Western railway (the station being 2 m. distant). Pop. of urban
district (1901) 2652. The parish church (1769) has some columns of an
earlier building, interesting brasses and strong embattled tower. The
remains of Basingwerk Abbey (_Maes glas_, green field), partly Saxon and
partly Early English, are near the station. It is of uncertain origin
but was used as a monastery before 1119. In 1131 Ranulph, 2nd earl of
Chester, introduced the Cistercians. In 1535, when Its revenues were
L150, 7s. 3d., it was dissolved, but revived under Mary I. and used as a
Roman Catholic burial place in 1647. Scarcely any traces remain of
Basingwerk castle, an old fort. Small up to the beginning of the 19th
century, Holywell has increasingly prospered, thanks to lime quarries,
lead, copper and zinc mines, smelting works, a shot manufactory, copper,
brass, iron and zinc works; brewing, tanning and mineral water, flannel
and cement works. St Winifred's holy well, one of the wonders of Wales,
sends up water at the rate of 21 tons a minute, of an almost unvarying
temperature, higher than that of ordinary spring water. To its curative
powers many crutches and _ex voto_ objects, hung round the well, as in
the Lourdes Grot, bear ample witness. The stones at the bottom are
slightly reddish, owing to vegetable substances. The well itself is
covered by a fine Gothic building, said to have been erected by
Margaret, countess of Richmond and mother of Henry VII., with some
portions of earlier date. The chapel (restored) is used for public
service. Catholics and others visit it in great numbers. There are
swimming baths for general use. In 1870 a hospice for poorer pilgrims
was erected. Other public buildings are St Winifred's (Catholic) church
and a convent, a town hall and a market-hall. The export trade is
expedited by quays on the Dee.
HOLYWOOD, a seaport of county Down, Ireland, on the east shore of
Belfast Lough, 4(1/2) m. N.E. from Belfast by the Belfast & County Down
railway. Its pleasant situation renders it a favourite residential
locality of the wealthier classes in Belfast. There was a religious
settlement here from the 7th century, which subsequently became a
Franciscan monastery. The old church dating from the late 12th or early
13th century marks its site. A Solemn League and Covenant was signed
here in 1644 for the defence of the kingdom, and the document is
preserved at Belfast.
HOLZMINDEN, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, on the right
bank of the Weser, at the foot of the Sollinger Mountains, at the
junction of the railways Scherfede-Holzminden and Soest-Borssum, 56 m.
S.W. of Brunswick. Pop. (1905) 9938. It has an Evangelical and a Roman
Catholic church, a gymnasium, an architectural school and a school of
engineering. The prosperity of the town depends chiefly on agriculture
and the manufacture of iron and steel wares, and of chemicals, but
weaving and the making of pottery are also carried on, and there are
baryta mills and polishing-mills for sandstone. By means of the Weser it
carries on a lively trade. Holzminden obtained municipal rights from
Count Otto of Eberstein in 1245, and in 1410 it came into the possession
of Brunswick.
HOLZTROMPETE (Wooden Trumpet), an instrument somewhat resembling the
Alpenhorn (q.v.) in tone-quality, designed by Richard Wagner for
representing the natural pipe of the peasant in _Tristan and Isolde_.
This instrument is not unlike the cor anglais in rough outline, being a
conical tube of approximately the same length, terminating in a small
globular bell, but having neither holes nor keys; it is blown through a
cup-shaped mouthpiece made of horn. The Holztrompete is in the key of C;
the scale is produced by overblowing, whereby the upper partials from
the 2nd to the 6th are produced. A single piston placed at a third of
the distance from the mouthpiece to the bell gives the notes D and F.
Wagner inserted a note in the score concerning the cor anglais for which
the part was originally scored, and advised the use of oboe or clarinet
to reinforce the latter, the effect intended being that of a powerful
natural instrument, unless a wooden instrument with a natural scale be
specially made for the part, which would be preferable. The Holztrompete
was used at Munich for the first performance of _Tristan and Isolde_,
and was still in use there in 1897. At Bayreuth it was also used for the
Tristan performances at the festivals of 1886 and 1889, but in 1891 W.
Heckel's clarina, an instrument partaking of the nature of both oboe and
clarinet, was substituted for the Holztrompete and has been retained
ever since, having been found more effective.[1] (K. S.)
[Illustration: Harmonic Series.]