[1] See Burton, ii. 265, 148 and 238. Perhaps our knowledge of
Johnson's sentiments regarding the Scots in general, and of his
expressions regarding Hume and Smith in particular, may lessen our
surprise at this vehemence.
[2] Macaulay describes Hume's characteristic fault as an historian:
"Hume is an accomplished advocate. Without positively asserting much
more than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the circumstances
which support his case; he glides lightly over those which are
unfavourable to it; his own witnesses are applauded and encouraged;
the statements which seem to throw discredit on them are
controverted; the contradictions into which they fall are explained
away; a clear and connected abstract of their evidence is given.
Everything that is offered on the other side is scrutinized with the
utmost severity; every suspicious circumstance is a ground for
argument and invective; what cannot be denied is extenuated, or
passed by without notice; concessions even are sometimes made; but
this insidious candour only increases the effect of the vast mass of
sophistry."--_Miscell. Writings_, "History." With this may be
compared the more favourable verdict by J. S. Brewer, in the preface
to his edition of the _Student's Hume_.
HUME, JOSEPH (1777-1855), British politician, was born on the 22nd of
January 1777, of humble parents, at Montrose, Scotland. After completing
his course of medical study at the university of Edinburgh he sailed in
1797 for India, where he was attached as surgeon to a regiment; and his
knowledge of the native tongues and his capacity for business threw open
to him the lucrative offices of interpreter and commissary-general. In
1802, on the eve of Lord Lake's Mahratta war, his chemical knowledge
enabled him to render a signal service to the administration by making
available a large quantity of gunpowder which damp had spoiled. In 1808,
on the restoration of peace, he resigned all his civil appointments, and
returned home in the possession of a fortune of L40,000. Between 1808
and 1811 he travelled much both in England and the south of Europe, and
in 1812 published a blank verse translation of the _Inferno_. In 1812 he
purchased a seat in parliament for Weymouth and voted as a Tory. When
upon the dissolution of parliament the patron refused to return him he
brought an action and recovered part of his money. Six years elapsed
before he again entered the House, and during that interval he had made
the acquaintance and imbibed the doctrines of James Mill and the
philosophical reformers of the school of Bentham. He had joined his
efforts to those of Francis Place, of Westminster, and other
philanthropists, to relieve and improve the condition of the working
classes, labouring especially to establish schools for them on the
Lancasterian system, and promoting the formation of savings banks. In
1818, soon after his marriage with Miss Burnley, the daughter of an East
India director, he was returned to parliament as member for the Border
burghs. He was afterwards successively elected for Middlesex (1830),
Kilkenny (1837) and for the Montrose burghs (1842), in the service of
which constituency he died. From the date of his re-entering the House
Hume became the self-elected guardian of the public purse, by
challenging and bringing to a direct vote every single item of public
expenditure. In 1820 he secured the appointment of a committee to report
on the expense of collecting the revenue. He was incessantly on his legs
in committee, and became a name for an opposition bandog who gave
chancellors of the exchequer no peace. He undoubtedly exercised a check
on extravagance, and he did real service by helping to abolish the
sinking fund. It was he who caused the word "retrenchment" to be added
to the Radical programme "peace and reform." He carried on a successful
warfare against the old combination laws that hampered workmen and
favoured masters; he brought about the repeal of the laws prohibiting
the export of machinery and of the act preventing workmen from going
abroad. He constantly protested against flogging in the army, the
impressment of sailors and imprisonment for debt. He took up the
question of lighthouses and harbours; in the former he secured greater
efficiency, in the latter he prevented useless expenditure. Apart from
his pertinacious fight for economy Hume was not always fortunate in his
political activity. He was conspicuous in the agitation raised by the
so-called Orange plot to set aside King William IV. in favour of the
duke of Cumberland (1835 and 1836). His action as trustee for the
notorious Greek Loan in 1824 was at least not delicate, and was the
ground of charges of downright dishonesty. He died on the 20th of
February 1855.
A _Memorial_ of Hume was published by his son Joseph Burnley Hume
(London, 1855).
HUMILIATI, the name of an Italian monastic order created in the 12th
century. Its origin is obscure. According to some chroniclers, certain
noblemen of Lombardy, who had offended the emperor (either Conrad III.
or Frederick Barbarossa), were carried captive into Germany and after
suffering the miseries of exile for some time, "humiliated" themselves
before the emperor. Returning to their own country, they did penance
and took the name of Humiliati. They do not seem to have had any fixed
rule, nor did St Bernard succeed in inducing them to submit to one. The
traditions relating to a reform of this order by St John of Meda are ill
authenticated, his _Acta_ (_Acta sanctorum Boll._, Sept., vii. 320)
being almost entirely unsupported by contemporary evidence. The
"Chronicon anonymi Laudunensis canonici" (_Mon. Germ. hist. Scriptores_,
xxvi. 449), at date 1178, states that a group of Lombards came to Rome
with the intention of obtaining the pope's approval of the rule of life
which they had spontaneously chosen; while continuing to live in their
houses in the midst of their families, they wished to lead a more pious
existence than of old, to abandon oaths and litigation, to content
themselves with a modest dress, and all in a spirit of Catholic piety.
The pope approved their resolve to live in humility and purity, but
forbade them to hold assemblies and to preach in public; the chronicler
adding that they infringed the pope's wish and thus drew upon themselves
his excommunication. Their name, Humiliati ("Humiles" would have been
more appropriate), arose from the fact that the clothes they wore were
very simple and of one colour. This lay fraternity spread rapidly and
soon put forth two new branches, a second order composed of women, and a
third composed of priests. No sooner, however, had this order of priests
been formed, than it claimed precedence of the others, and, though
chronologically last, was called _primus ordo_ by hierarchical
right--_propter tonsuram_ (see P. Sabatier, "Regula antiqua Fr. et Sor.
de poenitentia" in _Opuscules de critique historique_, part i. p. 15).
In 1201 Pope Innocent III. granted a rule to this third order. Sabatier
has drawn attention to the resemblances between this rule and the
_Regula de poenitentia_ granted to Franciscanism in the course of its
development; on the other hand, it is incontestable that Innocent III.
wished to reconcile the order with the Waldenses, and, indeed, its rule
reproduces several of the Waldensian propositions, ingeniously modified
in the orthodox sense, but still very easily recognizable. It forbade
useless oaths and the taking of God's name in vain; allowed voluntary
poverty and marriage; regulated pious exercises; and approved the
solidarity which already existed among the members of the association.
Finally, by a singular concession, it authorized them to meet on Sunday
to listen to the words of a brother "of proved faith and prudent piety,"
on condition that the hearers should not discuss among themselves either
the articles of faith or the sacraments of the church. The bishops were
forbidden to oppose any of the utterances of the Humiliati brethren,
"for the spirit must not be stifled." James of Vitry, without being
unfavourable to their tendencies, represents their association as one of
the peculiarities of the church of his time (_Historia orientalis_,
Douai, 1597). So broad a discipline must of necessity have led back some
waverers into the pale of the church, but the Waldenses of Lombardy, in
their _congregationes laborantium_, preserved the tradition of the
independent Humiliati. Indeed, this tradition is confounded throughout
the later 12th century with the history of the Waldenses. The "Chronicon
Urspergense" (_Mon. Germ. hist. Scriptores_, xxiii. 376-377) mentions
the Humiliati as one of the two Waldensian sects. The celebrated
decretal promulgated in 1184 by Pope Lucius III. at the council of
Verona against all heretics condemns at the same time as the "Poor Men
of Lyons" "those who attribute to themselves falsely the name of
Humiliati," at the very time when this name denoted an order recognized
by the papacy. This order, though orthodox, was always held in tacit and
ever-increasing suspicion, and, in consequence of grave disorders, Pius
V. suppressed the entire congregation in February 1570-71.
See Tiraboschi, _Vetera humiliatorum monumenta_ (Milan, 1766); K.
Muller, _Die Waldenser_ (Gotha, 1886); W. Preger, _Beitrage zur
Geschichte der Waldensier_ (Munich, 1875). (P. A.)
HUMITE, a group of minerals consisting of basic magnesium
fluo-silicates, with the following formulae:--Chondrodite, Mg3[Mg(F,
OH)]2[SiO4]2; Humite, Mg5[Mg(F, OH)]2[SiO4]3; Clinohumite, Mg7[Mg(F,
OH)]2[SiO4]4. Humite crystallizes in the orthorhombic and the two others
in the monoclinic system, but between them there is a close
crystallographic relation: the lengths of the vertical axes are in the
ratio 5:7:9, and this is also the ratio of the number of magnesium atoms
present in each of the three minerals. These minerals are strikingly
similar in appearance, and can only be distinguished by the goniometric
measurement of the complex crystals. They are honey-yellow to brown or
red in colour, and have a vitreous to resinous lustre; the hardness is
6-6(1/2), and the specific gravity 3.1-3.2. Further, they often occur
associated together, and it is only comparatively recently that the
three species have been properly discriminated. The name humite, after
Sir Abraham Hume, Bart. (1749-1839), whose collection of diamond
crystals is preserved at Cambridge in the University museum, was given
by the comte de Bournon in 1813 to the small and brilliant honey-yellow
crystals found in the blocks of crystalline limestone ejected from Monte
Somma, Vesuvius; all three species have since been recognized at this
locality. Chondrodite (from [Greek: chondros], "a grain") was a name
early (1817) in use for granular forms of these minerals found embedded
in crystalline limestones in Sweden, Finland and at several place in New
York and New Jersey. Large hyacinth-red crystals of all three species
are associated with magnetite in the Tilly Foster iron-mine at Brewster,
New York; and at Kafveltorp in Orebro, Sweden, similar crystals (of
chondrodite) occur embedded in galena and chalcopyrite.
The relation mentioned above between the crystallographic constants and
the chemical composition is unique amongst minerals, and is known as a
morphotropic relation. S. L. Penfield and W. T. H. Howe, who in 1894
noticed this relation, predicted the existence of another member of the
series, the crystals of which would have a still shorter vertical axis
and contain less magnesium, the formula being Mg[Mg(F, OH)]2SiO4; this
has since been discovered and named prolectite (from [Greek: prolegein],
"to foretell"). (L. J. S.)
HUMMEL, JOHANN NEPOMUK (1778-1837), German composer and pianist, was
born on the 14th of November 1778, at Pressburg, in Hungary, and
received his first artistic training from his father, himself a
musician. In 1785 the latter received an appointment as conductor of the
orchestra at the theatre of Schikaneder, the friend of Mozart and the
librettist of the _Magic Flute_. It was in this way that Hummel became
acquainted with the composer, who took a great fancy to him, and even
invited him to his house for a considerable period. During two years,
from the age of seven to nine, Hummel received the invaluable
instruction of Mozart, after which he set out with his father on an
artistic tour through Germany, England and other countries, his clever
playing winning the admiration of amateurs. He began to compose in his
eleventh year. After his return to Vienna he completed his studies under
Albrechtsberger and Haydn, and for a number of years devoted himself
exclusively to composition. At a later period he learned song-writing
from Salieri. For some years he held the appointment of orchestral
conductor to Prince Eszterhazy, probably entering upon this office in
1807. From 1811 to 1815 he lived in Vienna. On the 18th of May 1813 he
married Elisabeth Rockl, a singer, and the sister of one of Beethoven's
friends. It was not till 1816 that he again appeared in public as a
pianist, his success being quite extraordinary. His gift of
improvisation at the piano was especially admired, but his larger
compositions also were highly appreciated, and for a time Hummel was
considered one of the leading musicians of an age in which Beethoven was
in the zenith of his power. In Prussia, which he visited in 1822, the
ovations offered to him were unprecedented, and other countries--France
in 1825 and 1829, Belgium in 1826 and England in 1830 and 1833--added
further laurels to his crown. He died in 1837 at Weimar, where for a
long time he had been the musical conductor of the court theatre. His
compositions are very numerous, and comprise almost every branch of
music. He wrote, amongst other things, several operas, both tragic and
comic, and two grand masses (Op. 80 and 111). Infinitely more important
are his compositions for the pianoforte (his two concerti in A minor and
B minor, and the sonata in F sharp minor), and his chamber music (the
celebrated septet, and several trios, &c.). His experience as a player
and teacher of the pianoforte was embodied in his _Great Pianoforte
School_ (Vienna), and the excellence of his method is further proved by
such pupils as Henselt and Ferdinand Hiller. Both as a composer and as a
pianist Hummel continued the traditions of the earlier Viennese school
of Mozart and Haydn; his style in both capacities was marked by purity
and correctness rather than by passion and imagination.
HUMMING-BIRD, a name in use, possibly ever since English explorers first
knew of them, for the beautiful little creatures to which, from the
sound occasionally made by the rapid vibrations of their wings, it is
applied. Among books that are ordinarily in naturalists' hands, the name
seems to be first found in the _Musaeum Tradescantianum_, published in
1656, but it therein occurs (p. 3) so as to suggest its having already
been accepted and commonly understood; and its earliest use, as yet
traced, is by Thomas Morton (d. 1646), a disreputable lawyer who had a
curiously adventurous career in New England, in the _New English
Canaan_, printed in 1637--a rare work giving an interesting description
of the natural scenery and social life in New England in the 17th
century, and reproduced by Peter Force in his _Historical Tracts_ (vol.
ii., Washington, 1838). Andre Thevet, in his _Singularitez de la France
antarctique_ (Antwerp, 1558, fol. 92), has been more than once cited as
the earliest author to mention humming-birds, which he did under the
name of _Gouambuch_; but it is quite certain that Oviedo, whose
_Hystoria general de las Indias_ was published at Toledo in 1525,
preceded him by more than thirty years, with an account of the "paxaro
mosquito" of Hispaniola, of which island "the first chronicler of the
Indies" was governor.[1] This name, though now apparently disused in
Spanish, must have been current about that time, for we find Gesner in
1555 (_De avium natura_, iii. 629) translating it literally into Latin
as _Passer muscatus_, owing, as he says, his knowledge of the bird to
Cardan, the celebrated mathematician, astrologer and physician, from
whom we learn (_Comment. in Ptolem. de astr. judiciis_, Basel, 1554, p.
472) that, on his return to Milan from professionally attending
Archbishop Hamilton at Edinburgh, he visited Gesner at Zurich, about the
end of the year 1552.[2] The name still survives in the French
_oiseau-mouche_; but the ordinary Spanish appellation is, and long has
been, _Tominejo_, from _tomin_, signifying a weight equal to the third
part of an _adarme_ or drachm, and used metaphorically for anything very
small. Humming-birds, however, are called by a variety of other names,
many of them derived from American languages, such as _Guainumbi_,
_Ourissia_ and _Colibri_, to say nothing of others bestowed upon them
(chiefly from some peculiarity of habit) by Europeans, like
_Picaflores_, _Chuparosa_ and _Froufrou_. Barrere, in 1745, conceiving
that humming-birds were allied to the wren, the _Trochilus_,[3] in part,
of Pliny, applied that name in a generic sense (_Ornith. spec. novum_,
pp. 47, 48) to both. Taking the hint thus afforded, Linnaeus very soon
after went farther, and, excluding the wrens, founded his genus
_Trochilus_ for the reception of such humming-birds as were known to
him. The unfortunate act of the great nomenclator cannot be set aside;
and, since his time, ornithologists, with but few exceptions, have
followed his example, so that nowadays humming-birds are universally
recognized as forming the family _Trochilidae_.
The relations of the _Trochilidae_ to other birds were for a long while
very imperfectly understood. Nitzsch first drew attention to their
agreement in many essential characters with the swifts, _Cypselidae_, and
placed the two families in one group, which he called _Macrochires_, from
the great length of their manual bones, or those forming the extremity of
the wing. The name was perhaps not very happily chosen, for it is not the
distal portion that is so much out of ordinary proportion to the size of
the bird, but the proximal and median portions, which in both families
are curiously dwarfed. Still the _manus_, in comparison with the other
parts of the wing, is so long that the term _Macrochires_ is not wholly
inaccurate. The affinity of the _Trochilidae_ and _Cypselidae_ once
pointed out, became obvious to every careful and unprejudiced
investigator, and there are probably few systematists now living who
refuse to admit its validity. More than this, it is confirmed by an
examination of other osteological characters. The "lines," as a
boat-builder would say, upon which the skeleton of each form is
constructed are precisely similar, only that whereas the bill is very
short and the head wide in the swifts, in the humming-birds the head is
narrow and the bill long--the latter developed to an extraordinary degree
in some of the _Trochilidae_, rendering them the longest-billed birds
known.[4] Huxley takes these two families, together with the goatsuckers
(_Caprimulgidae_), to form the division _Cypselomorphae_--one of the two
into which he separated his larger group _Aegithognathae_. However, the
most noticeable portion of the humming-bird's skeleton is the _sternum_,
which in proportion to the size of the bird is enormously developed both
longitudinally and vertically, its deep keel and posterior protraction
affording abundant space for the powerful muscles which drive the wings
in their rapid vibrations as the little creature poises itself over the
flowers where it finds its food.[5]
So far as is known, all humming-birds possess a protrusible tongue, in
conformation peculiar among the class _Aves_, though to some extent
similar to that member in the woodpeckers (_Picidae_)[6]--the "horns" of
the hyoid apparatus upon which it is seated being greatly elongated,
passing round and over the back part of the head, near the top of which
they meet, and thence proceed forward, lodged in a broad and deep
groove, till they terminate in front of the eyes. But, unlike the tongue
of the woodpeckers, that of the humming-birds consists of two
cylindrical tubes, tapering towards the point, and forming two sheaths
which contain the extensile portion, and are capable of separation,
thereby facilitating the extraction of honey from the nectaries of
flowers, and with it, what is of far greater importance for the bird's
sustenance, the small insects that have been attracted to feed upon the
honey.[7] These, on the tongue being withdrawn into the bill, are caught
by the mandibles (furnished in the males of many species with fine,
horny, saw like teeth[8]), and swallowed in the usual way. The stomach
is small, moderately muscular, and with the inner coat slightly
hardened. There seem to be no caeca. The trachea is remarkably short,
the bronchi beginning high up on the throat, and song-muscles are wholly
wanting, as in all other _Cypselomorphae_.[9]
Humming-birds comprehend the smallest members of the class Aves. The
largest among them measures no more than 8(1/2) and the least 2(3/8) in.
in length, for it is now admitted generally that Sloane must have been
in error when he described (_Voyage_, ii. 308) the "least humming-bird
of Jamaica" as "about 1(1/4) in. long from the end of the bill to that
of the tail"--unless, indeed, he meant the proximal end of each. There
are, however, several species in which the tail is very much elongated,
such as the _Aithurus polytmus_ (fig. 1) of Jamaica, and the remarkable
_Loddigesia mirabilis_ of Chachapoyas in Peru, which last was for some
time only known from a unique specimen (_Ibis_, 1880, p. 152); but
"trochilidists" in giving their measurements do not take these
extraordinary developments into account. Next to their generally small
size, the best-known characteristic of the _Trochilidae_ is the
wonderful brilliancy of the plumage of nearly all their forms, in which
respect they are surpassed by no other birds, and are only equalled by a
few, as, for instance, by the _Nectariniidae_, or sun-birds of the
tropical parts of the Old World, in popular estimation so often
confounded with them.
[Illustration: From _The Cambridge Natural History_, vol. xi., "Birds,"
by permission of Macmillan & Co., Ltd.