[1] For some quotations see Alexander Ireland's bibliography.
HEAD, SIR EDMUND WALKER, BART. (1805-1868), English colonial governor
and writer on art, was the son of the Rev. Sir John Head, Bart., rector
of Rayleigh, Essex. He was educated at Winchester school and Oriel
College, Oxford, and taking his degree with first-class honours in
classics, he became fellow of Merton College. On his father's death in
1838, he succeeded to the baronetcy as 8th baronet. His services as
poor-law commissioner, to which post he was appointed in 1841 after five
years as assistant-commissioner, procured for him in 1847 the office of
lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, whence he passed in 1854 to the
governor-generalship of Canada, which he retained till 1861. The
following year, having returned to England, Head was nominated a civil
service commissioner. In 1857 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and in
1860 was decorated as K.C.B., while in the course of his career he
received the degrees of D.C.L. at Oxford and LL.D. at Cambridge. He died
in London on the 28th of January 1868, the baronetcy becoming extinct,
as his only son had died in 1859.
Sir Edmund Head wrote the article "Painting" in the _Penny
Cyclopaedia_; _A Handbook of the Spanish and French Schools of
Painting_ (1845); _Shall and Will, or two Chapters on Future Auxiliary
Verbs_ (1856); and _Ballads and other Poems, Original and Translated_
(1868). He also edited F. T. Kugler's _Handbook of Painting of the_
_German, Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, and French Schools_ (1854) and the
_Essays on the Administrations of Great Britain_ (1864), written by
his lifelong friend, Sir George Cornewall Lewis. His translation from
the Icelandic of _Viga Glum's Saga_ appeared in 1866.
HEAD, SIR FRANCIS BOND, BART. (1793-1875), English soldier, traveller
and author, son of James Roper Head of the Hermitage, Higham, Kent,
was born there on the 1st of January 1793. He was educated at
Rochester grammar school and the Royal Military Academy, whence in
1811 he was commissioned to the Royal Engineers. He was for some years
stationed in the Mediterranean, and he served in the campaign of 1815,
being present at the battle of Waterloo. He went on half-pay in 1825,
when he accepted the charge of an association formed to work the gold
and silver mines of Rio de La Plata. In connexion with this enterprise
he made several rapid journeys across the Pampas and among the Andes,
his _Rough Notes_ of which, published in 1826, and written in a clear
and spirited style, obtained for him the name of "Galloping Head." On
his return in 1827, he became involved in a controversy with the
directors of his company, and in defence of his conduct he published
_Reports of the La Plata Mining Association_ (London, 1827). He was
soon afterwards restored to the active list of the army as a major
unattached, mainly owing to his efforts to introduce the South
American lasso into the British service for auxiliary draught. In 1830
he published a life of Bruce, the African traveller, and in 1834
_Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau, by an Old Man_. In 1835 he was
knighted, and in the following year created a baronet. In 1835 he was
appointed lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, and in this capacity he
had to deal with a political situation of great difficulty, being
called upon in 1837 to suppress a serious insurrection. Shortly
afterwards, in consequence of a dispute with the home government, he
resigned his post and returned to England, via New York (see
_Quarterly Review_, vols. 63-64). Thereafter he devoted himself to
writing, chiefly for the _Quarterly Review_, and to hunting. He rode
to hounds until he was seventy-five. In 1869 Sir Francis Head was made
a privy councillor. He died on the 20th of July 1875, at Duppas Hall,
Croydon.
Head was the author of a considerable number of works, chiefly of
travel, written in a clever, amusing and graphic fashion, and
displaying both acute observation and genial humour. His principal
works, beside those mentioned above, and a narrative of his Canadian
administration (1839), were _The Emigrant_ (1846); _Highways and
Dryways, the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges_ (1849); _Stokers
and Pokers_, a sketch of the working of a railway line (1849); _The
Defenceless State of Great Britain_ (1850); _A Faggot of French
Sticks_ (1852); _A Fortnight in Ireland_ (1852); _Descriptive Essays_
(1856); comments on Kinglake's _Crimean War_ (1853); _The Horse and
his Rider_ (1860); _The Royal Engineer_ (1870); and a sketch of the
life of Sir John Burgoyne (1872).
His brother, SIR GEORGE HEAD (1782-1855), was educated at the
Charterhouse. In 1808 he received an appointment in the commissariat of
the British army in the Peninsula, where he was a witness of many
exciting scenes and important battles, of which he gave an interesting
account in "Memoirs of an Assistant Commissary-General" attached to the
second volume of his _Home Tour_, published in 1837. In 1814 he was sent
to America to take charge of the commissariat in a naval establishment
on the Canadian lakes, and he subsequently held appointments at Halifax
and Nova Scotia. Some of his Canadian experiences were narrated by him
in _Forest Scenery and Incidents in the Wilds of North America_ (1829).
In 1831 he was knighted.
He published in 1835 _A Home Tour through the Manufacturing Districts
of England_, and in 1837 a sequel to it, entitled _A Home Tour through
various parts of the United Kingdom_. Both works are amusing and
instructive, but his _Rome, a Tour of many Days_, published in 1849,
is somewhat dull and tedious. He also translated _Historical Memoirs
of Cardinal Pacca_ (1850), and the _Metamorphoses of Apuleius_ (1851).
HEAD (in O. Eng. _heafod_; the word is common to Teutonic languages; cf.
Dutch _hoofd_, Ger. _Haupt_, generally taken to be in origin connected
with Lat. _caput_, Gr. [Greek: kephale]), the upper portion of the body
in man, consisting of the skull with its integuments and contents, &c.,
connected with the trunk by the neck (see ANATOMY, SKULL and BRAIN);
also the anterior or fore part of other animals. The word is used in a
large number of transferred and figurative senses, generally with
reference to the position of the head as the uppermost part, hence the
leading, chief portion of anything.
HEAD-HUNTING, or HEAD-SNAPPING, as the Dutch call it, a custom once
prevalent among all Malay races and surviving even to-day among the
Dyaks (q.v.) of Borneo and elsewhere. Martin de Rada, provincial of the
Augustinians, reported its existence in Luzon (Philippine Islands) as
early as 1577. The practice is believed to have had its origin in
religious motives, the worship of skulls being universal among the
Malays. Severe repressive measures have led to its decrease. Among the
Igorrotes all that remains is the dance, accompanied by singing, around
the bare pole on which the head was formerly fixed. With the Ilongotes a
bridegroom must bring his bride a number of heads, those of Christians
being preferred. The chief examples of head-hunters are the Was, a
hill-tribe on the north-eastern frontier of India, and the Nagas and
Kukis of Assam.
See Bock, _Headhunters of Borneo_ (1881); W. H. Furness, _Home Life of
Borneo Head-hunters_ (Philadelphia, 1902); T. C. Hodson, "Head-hunting
in Assam," in _Folk-Lore_, xx. 2. 132.
HEALTH, a condition of physical soundness or well-being, in which an
organism discharges its functions efficiently; also in a transferred
sense a state of moral or intellectual well-being (see HYGIENE,
THERAPEUTICS and PUBLIC HEALTH). "Health" represents the O. Eng.
_haelth_, the condition or state of being _hal_, safe or sound. This word
took in northern dialects the form "hale," in southern or midland
English _hole_, hence "whole," with the addition of an initial _w_, as
in "whoop," and in the pronunciation of "one." "Hail," properly an
exclamation of greeting, good health to you, hence, to greet, to call
out to, is directly Scandinavian in origin, from Old Norwegian _heill_,
cognate with the O. Eng. _hal_, used also in this sense. "To heal" (O.
Eng. _haelan_), to make in sound health, to cure, is also cognate.
_Drinking of Healths_.--The custom of drinking "health" to the living is
most probably derived from the ancient religious rite of drinking to the
gods and the dead. The Greeks and Romans at meals poured out libations
to their gods, and at ceremonial banquets drank to them and to the dead.
The Norsemen drank the "minni" of Thor, Odin and Freya, and of their
kings at their funeral feasts. With the advent of Christianity the pagan
custom survived among the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples. Such festal
formulae as "God's minne!" "A bowl to God in Heaven!" occur, and Christ,
the Virgin and the Saints were invoked, instead of heathen gods and
heroes. The Norse "minne" was at once love, memory and thought of the
absent one, and it survived in medieval and later England in the
"minnying" or "mynde" days, on which the memory of the dead was
celebrated by services and feasting. Intimately associated with these
quasi-sacrificial drinking customs must have ever been the drinking to
the health of living men. The Greeks drank to one another and the Romans
adopted the custom. The Goths pledged each other with the cry "Hails!" a
greeting which had its counterpart in the Anglo-Saxon "waes hael" (see
WASSAIL). Most modern drinking-usages have had their equivalents in
classic times. Thus the Greek practice of drinking to the Nine Muses as
three times three survives to-day in England and elsewhere. The Roman
gallants drank as many glasses to their mistresses as there were letters
in each one's name. Thus Martial:
"Six cups to Naevia's health go quickly round,
And be with seven the fair Justina's crown'd."
The English drinking phrase--a "toast," to "toast" anyone--not older
than the 17th century, had reference at first to this custom of drinking
to the ladies. A toast was at first invariably a woman, and the origin
of the phrase is curious. In Stuart days there appears to have been a
time-honoured custom of putting a piece of toast in the wine-cup before
drinking, from a fanciful notion that it gave the liquor a better
flavour. In the _Tatler_ No. 24 the connexion between this sippet of
toast and the fair one pledged is explained as follows: "It happened
that on a publick day" (speaking of Bath in Charles II.'s reign) "a
celebrated beauty of those times was in the cross bath, and one of the
crowd of her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one
stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay
fellow, half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he liked
not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his
resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which is
done to the lady we mention in our liquor, who has ever since been
called a toast." Skeat adds (_Etym. Dict._, 1908), "whether the story be
true or not, it may be seen that a 'toast,' i.e. a health, easily took
its name from being the usual accompaniment to liquor, especially in
loving cups," &c.
Health drinking had by the beginning of the 17th century become a very
ceremonious business in England. At Christmas 1623 the members of the
Middle Temple, according to one of the Harleian MSS. quoted in _The Life
of Sir Simonds D'Ewes_, drank to the health of the princess Elizabeth,
who, with her husband the king of Bohemia, was then suffering great
misfortunes, and stood up, one after the other, cup in one hand, sword
in the other, and pledged her, swearing to die in her service. Toasts
were often drunk solemnly on bended knees; according to one authority,
Samuel Ward of Ipswich, in his _Woe to Drunkards_ (1622), on bare knees.
In 1668 at Sir George Carteret's at Cranbourne the health of the duke of
York was drunk by all in turn, each on his knees, the king, who was a
guest, doing the like. A Scotch custom, still surviving, was to drink a
toast with one foot on the table and one on the chair. Healths, too,
were drunk in a definite order. Braithwaite says: "These cups proceed
either in order or out of order. In order when no person transgresseth
or drinkes out of course, but the cup goes round according to their
manner of sitting: and this we call a health-cup, because in our wishing
or confirming of any one's health, bare headed and standing, it is
performed by all the company" (_Laws of Drinking_, 1617). Francis
Douce's MSS. notes say: "It was the custom in Beaumont and Fletcher's
time for the young gallants to stab themselves in the arms or elsewhere,
in order to drink the health of their mistresses." Pepys, in his _Diary_
for the 19th of June 1663, writes: "To the Rhenish wine house, where Mr
Moore showed us the French manner when a health is drunk, to bow to him
that drunk to you, and then apply yourself to him, whose lady's health
is drunk, and then to the person that you drink to, which I never knew
before; but it seems it is now the fashion." A Frenchman visiting
England in Charles II.'s time speaks of the custom of drinking but half
your cup, which is then filled up again and presented to him or her to
whose health you drank. England's divided loyalty in the 18th century
bequeathed to modern times a custom which possibly yet survives. At
dinners to royalties, until the accession of Edward VII., finger-glasses
were not placed on the table, because in early Georgian days those who
were secretly Jacobites passed their wine-glasses over the finger-bowls
before drinking the loyal toasts, in allusion to the royal exiles "over
the water," thus salving their consciences. Lord Cockburn (1779-1854),
in his _Memorials of his Time_ (1856), states that in his day the
drinking of toasts had become a perfect social tyranny; "every glass
during dinner had to be dedicated to some one. It was thought sottish
and rude to take wine without this, as if forsooth there was nobody
present worth drinking with. I was present about 1803 when the late duke
of Buccleuch took a glass of sherry by himself at the table of Charles
Hope, then lord advocate, and this was noticed afterwards as a piece of
direct contempt." In Germany to-day it is an insult to refuse to drink
with any one; and at one time in the west of America a man took his life
in his hands by declining to pledge another. All this is a survival of
that very early and universal belief that drinking to one another was a
proof of fair play, whether it be in a simple bargain or in matters of
life and death. The ceremony surrounding the Loving Cup to-day is
reminiscent of the perils of those times when every man's hand was
raised against his fellow. This cup, known at the universities as the
Grace Cup, was originated, says Miss Strickland in her _Lives of the
Queens of Scotland_, by Margaret Atheling, wife of Malcolm Canmore, who,
in order to induce the Scots to remain at table for grace had a cup of
the choicest wine handed round immediately after it had been said. The
modern "loving cup" sometimes has a cover, and in this case each guest
rises and bows to his immediate neighbour on the right, who, also
rising, removes and holds the cover with his right hand while the other
drinks; the little comedy is a survival of the days when he who drank
was glad to have the assurance that the right or dagger hand of his
neighbour was occupied in holding the lid of the chalice. When there is
no cover it is a common custom for both the left- and the right-hand
neighbour to rise while the loving cup is drunk, with the similar object
of protecting the drinker from attack. The Stirrup Cup is probably the
Roman _poculum boni genii_, the last glass drunk at the banquet to a
general "good night."
See Chambers, _Book of Days_; Valpy, _History of Toasting_ (1881); F.
W. Hackwood, _Inns, Ales, and Drinking Customs_ (London, 1909).
HEALY, GEORGE PETER ALEXANDER (1808-1894), American painter, was born in
Boston, Massachusetts, on the 15th of July 1808. Going to Europe in 1835
Healy studied under Baron Gros in Paris and in Rome. He received a
third-class medal in Paris in 1840, and one of the second class in 1855,
when he exhibited his "Franklin urging the claims of the American
Colonies before Louis XVI." Among his portraits of eminent men are those
of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Guyot, Seward, Louis Philippe, and the
presidents of the United States from John Quincy Adams to Grant--this
series being painted for the Corcoran Gallery, Washington. His large
group, "Webster replying to Hayne," containing 150 portraits, is in
Faneuil Hall, Boston, Mass. He was one of the most prolific and popular
painters of his day. He died in Chicago, Illinois, on the 24th of June
1894.
HEANOR, an urban district in the Ilkeston parliamentary division of
Derbyshire, England, 10 m. N.W. of Nottingham, on the Great Northern and
Midland railways. Pop. (1901) 16,249. Large hosiery works employ many of
the inhabitants, and collieries are worked in the parish. The urban
district includes Codnor-cum-Loscoe. Shipley Hall, to the south of
Heanor, is a mansion built on a hill, amidst fine gardens. The ruin of
the ancient moated castle of Codnor stands, overlooking the vale of the
Erewash, on land which was once Codnor Park, and is now the site of
large ironworks.