for a few pounds or even shillings. The portrait of “Johannes Acronius,” now at the Berlin Museum, realized five shillings at the Enschede sale in 1786. The splendid portrait of the man with the sword at the Liechtenstein gallery was sold in 1800 for £4, 5s. With his rehabilitation in public esteem came the enormous rise in values, and, at the Secretan sale in 1889, the portrait of “Pieter van de Broecke d’Anvers” was bid up to £4420, while in 1908 the National Gallery paid £25,000 for the large group from the collection of Lord Talbot de Malahide.
Of the master’s numerous family none has left a name except Frans Hals the Younger, born about 1622, who died in 1669. His pictures represent cottages and poultry; and the “Vanitas” at Berlin, a table laden with gold and silver dishes, cups, glasses and books, is one of his finest works and deserving of a passing glance.
Quite in another form, and with much of the freedom of the elder Hals, Dirk Hals, his brother (born at Haarlem, died 1656), is a painter of festivals and ball-rooms. But Dirk had too much of the freedom and too little of the skill in drawing which characterized his brother. He remains second on his own ground to Palamedes. A fair specimen of his art is a “Lady playing a Harpsichord to a Young Girl and her Lover” in the van der Hoop collection at Amsterdam, now in the Ryks Museum. More characteristic, but not better, is a large company of gentle-folk rising from dinner, in the Academy at Vienna.
Literature.—See W. Bode, Frans Hals und seine Schule (Leipzig, 1871); W. Unger and W. Vosmaer, Etchings after Frans Hals (Leyden, 1873); Percy Rendell Head, Sir Anthony Van Dyck and Frans Hals (London, 1879); D. Knackfuss, Frans Hals (Leipzig, 1896); G. S. Davies, Frans Hals (London, 1902). (P. G. K.)
HALSBURY, HARDINGE STANLEY GIFFARD, 1st Earl of
(1825– ), English lord chancellor, son of Stanley Lees
Giffard, LL.D., was born in London on the 3rd of September
1825. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and was
called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1850, joining the North
Wales and Chester circuit. Afterwards he had a large practice
at the central criminal court and the Middlesex sessions, and he
was for several years junior prosecuting counsel to the treasury.
He was engaged in most of the celebrated trials of his time,
including the Overend and Gurney and the Tichborne cases.
He became queen’s counsel in 1865, and a bencher of the Inner
Temple. Mr Giffard twice contested Cardiff in the Conservative
interest, in 1868 and 1874, but he was still without a seat in the
House of Commons when he was appointed solicitor-general by
Disraeli in 1875 and received the honour of knighthood. In 1877
he succeeded in obtaining a seat, when he was returned for
Launceston, which borough he continued to represent until his
elevation to the peerage in 1885. He was then created Baron
Halsbury and appointed lord chancellor, thus forming a remarkable
exception to the rule that no criminal lawyer ever reaches
the woolsack. Lord Halsbury resumed the position in 1886
and held it until 1892 and again from 1895 to 1905, his tenure
of the office, broken only by the brief Liberal ministries of 1886
and 1892–1895, being longer than that of any lord chancellor
since Lord Eldon. In 1898 he was created earl of Halsbury and
Viscount Tiverton. Among Conservative lord chancellors Lord
Halsbury must always hold a high place, his grasp of legal
principles and mastery in applying them being pre-eminent
among the judges of his day.
HALSTEAD, a market-town in the Maldon parliamentary
division of Essex, England, on the Colne, 17 m. N.N.E. from
Chelmsford; served by the Colne Valley railway from Chappel
Junction on the Great Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district
(1901), 6073. It lies on a hill in a pleasant wooded district.
The church of St Andrew is mainly Perpendicular. It contains
a monument supposed to commemorate Sir Robert Bourchier
(d. 1349), lord chancellor to Edward III. The Lady Mary
Ramsay grammar school dates from 1594. There are large silk
and crape works. Two miles N. of Halstead is Little Maplestead,
where the church is the latest in date of the four churches with
round naves extant in England, being perhaps of 12th-century
foundation, but showing early Decorated work in the main.
The chancel, which is without aisles, terminates in an apse.
Three miles N.W. from Halstead are the large villages of Sible
Hedingham (pop. 1701) and Castle Hedingham (pop. 1097). At
the second is the Norman keep of the de Veres, of whom Aubrey
de Vere held the lordship from William I. The keep dates from
the end of the 11th century, and exhibits much fine Norman
work. The church of St Nicholas, Castle Hedingham, has fine
Norman, Transitional and Early English details, and there is a
black marble tomb of John de Vere, 15th earl of Oxford (d. 1540),
with his countess.
There are signs of settlement at Halstead (Halsteda, Halgusted, Halsted) in the Bronze Age; but there is no evidence of the causes of its growth in historic times. Probably its situation on the river Colne made it to some extent a local centre. Throughout the middle ages Halstead was unimportant, and never rose to the rank of a borough.
HALT. (1) An adjective common to Teutonic languages and
still appearing in Swedish and Danish, meaning lame, crippled.
It is also used as a verb, meaning to limp, and as a substantive,
especially in the term “string-halt” or “spring-halt,” a nervous
disorder affecting the muscles of the hind legs of horses. (2) A
pause or stoppage made on a march or a journey. The word
came into English in the form “to make alto” or “alt,” and
was taken from the French faire alte or Italian far alto. The
origin is a German military term, Halt machen, Halt meaning
“hold.”
HALUNTIUM (Gr. Ἀλόντιον, mod. S. Marco d’Alunzio), an
ancient city of Sicily, 6 m. from the north coast and 25 m. E.N.E.
of Halaesa. It was probably of Sicel origin, though its foundation
was ascribed to some of the companions of Aeneas. It appears
first in Roman times as a place of some importance, and suffered
considerably at the hands of Verres. The abandoned church of
S. Mark, just outside the modern town, is built into the cella
of an ancient Greek temple, which measures 62 ft. by 18. A
number of ancient inscriptions have been found there.
HALYBURTON, JAMES (1518–1589), Scottish reformer, was
born in 1518, and was educated at St Andrews, where he graduated
M.A. in 1538. From 1553 to 1586 he was provost of St Andrews
and a prominent figure in the national life. He was chosen as
one of the lords of the congregation in 1557, and commanded
the contingents sent by Forfar and Fife against the queen regent
in 1559. He took part in the defence of Edinburgh, and in the
battles of Langside (1568) and Restalrig (1571). He had stoutly
opposed the marriage of Mary with Darnley, and when, after
Restalrig, he was captured by the queen’s troops, he narrowly
escaped execution. He represented Morton at the conference
of 1578, and was one of the royal commissioners to the General
Assembly in 1582 and again in 1588. He died in February 1589.
HALYBURTON, THOMAS (1674–1712), Scottish divine, was
born at Dupplin, near Perth, on the 25th of December 1674.
His father, one of the ejected ministers, having died in 1682,
he was taken by his mother in 1685 to Rotterdam to escape
persecution, where he for some time attended the school founded
by Erasmus. On his return to his native country in 1687 he
completed his elementary education at Perth and Edinburgh,
and in 1696 graduated at the university of St Andrews. In
1700 he was ordained minister of the parish of Ceres, and in 1710
he was recommended by the synod of Fife for the chair of
theology in St Leonard’s College, St Andrews, to which accordingly
he was appointed by Queen Anne. After a brief term of
active professorial life he died from the effects of overwork in
1712.
The works by which he continues to be known were all of them published after his death. Wesley and Whitefield were accustomed to commend them to their followers. They were published as follows: Natural Religion Insufficient, and Revealed Religion Necessary, to Man’s Happiness in his Present State (1714), an able statement of the orthodox Calvinistic criticism of the deism of Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Charles Blount; Memoirs of the Life of Mr Thomas Halyburton (1715), three parts by his own hand, the fourth from his diary by another hand; The Great Concern of Salvation (1721), with a word of commendation by I. Watts; Ten Sermons Preached Before and After the Lord’s Supper (1722); The Unpardonable Sin Against the Holy Ghost (1784). See Halyburton’s Memoirs (1714).
