HORSLEY, SAMUEL (1733–1806), English divine, was born in London on the 15th of September 1733. Entering Trinity College, Cambridge, he became LL.B. in 1758 without graduating in arts, and in the following year succeeded his father in the living of Newington Butts in Surrey. Horsley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767; and secretary in 1773, but, in consequence of a difference with the president (Sir Joseph Banks) he withdrew in 1784. In 1768 he attended the eldest son of the 4th earl of Aylesford to Oxford as private tutor; and, after receiving through the earl and Bishop Lowth various minor preferments, which by dispensations he combined with his first living, he was installed in 1781 as archdeacon of St Albans. Horsley now entered in earnest upon his famous controversy with Joseph Priestley, who denied that the early Christians held the doctrine of the Trinity. In this controversy, conducted on both sides in the fiercest polemical spirit, Horsley showed the superior learning and ability. His aim was to lessen the influence which the prestige of Priestley’s name gave to his views, by indicating inaccuracies in his scholarship and undue haste in his conclusions. For the energy displayed in the contest Horsley was rewarded by Lord Chancellor Thurlow with a prebendal stall at Gloucester; and in 1788 the same patron procured his promotion to the see of St David’s. As a bishop, Horsley was energetic both in his diocese, where he strove to better the position of his clergy, and in parliament. The efficient support which he afforded the government was acknowledged by his successive translations to Rochester in 1793, and to St Asaph in 1802. With the bishopric of Rochester he held the deanery of Westminster. He died at Brighton on the 4th of October 1806.
Besides the controversial Tracts, which appeared in 1783–1784–1786, and were republished in 1789 and 1812, Horsley’s more important works are:—Apollonii Pergaei inclinationum libri duo (1770); Remarks on the Observations . . . for determining the acceleration of the Pendulum in Lat. 70° 51′ (1774); Isaaci Newtoni Opera quae extant Omnia, with a commentary (5 vols. 4to, 1779–1785); On the Prosodies of the Greek and Latin Languages (1796); Disquisitions on Isaiah xviii. (1796); Hosea, translated ... with Notes (1801); Elementary Treatises on ... Mathematics (1801); Euclidis elementorum libri priores XII. (1802); Euclidis datorum liber (1803); Virgil’s Two Seasons of Honey, &c. (1805); and papers in the Philosophical Transactions from 1767 to 1776. After his death there appeared—Sermons (1810–1812); Speeches in Parliament (1813); Book of Psalms, translated with Notes (1815); Biblical Criticism (1820); Collected Theological Works (6 vols. 8vo, 1845).
HORSLEY, WILLIAM (1774–1858), English musician, was born on the 15th of November 1774. He became in 1790 the
pupil of Theodore Smith, an indifferent musician of the time,
who, however, taught him sufficient to obtain in 1794 the position
of organist at Ely Chapel, Holborn. This post he resigned in
1798, to become organist at the Asylum for Female Orphans,
as assistant to Dr Callcott, with whom he had long been on terms
of personal and artistic intimacy, and whose eldest daughter
he married. In 1802 he became his friend’s successor upon the
latter’s resignation. Besides holding this appointment he
became in 1812 organist of Belgrave Chapel, Halkin Street,
and in 1838 of the Charter House. He died on the 12th of June
1858. Horsley’s compositions are numerous, and include
amongst other instrumental pieces three symphonies for full
orchestra. Infinitely more important are his glees, of which
he published five books (1801–1807) besides contributing many
detached glees and part songs to various collections. His
glees, “By Celia’s arbour,” “O nightingale,” “Now the storm
begins to lower,” and others, are amongst the finest specimens
of this peculiarly English class of compositions. Horsley’s
son Charles Edward (1822–1876), also enjoyed a certain reputation
as a musician. He studied in Germany under Hauptmann
and Mendelssohn, and on his return to England composed
several oratorios and other pieces, none of which had permanent
success. In 1868 he emigrated to Australia, and in 1872 went to
America; he died in New York.
HORSMAN, EDWARD (1807–1876), English politician, was
the son of a well-to-do gentleman of Stirling, and connected
on the mother’s side with the earls of Stair. He was educated
at Rugby and Cambridge, and was called to the Scotch bar
in 1832, but then took to politics. He was elected to parliament
as a Liberal for Cockermouth in 1836, and represented that
constituency till 1852, when he was defeated; in 1853 he was
returned for Stroud, and sat there till 1868; and from 1869
till he died he was member for Liskeard. He was a junior lord
of the treasury in Lord Melbourne’s administration for a few
months during 1841, and became prominent for attacking
Lord John Russell’s ecclesiastical policy in 1847 and subsequent
years. In 1855, under Lord Palmerston, he was made chief
secretary for Ireland, but resigned in 1857. He gradually took
up a position as an independent Liberal, and was well known for
his attacks on the Church, and his exposures of various “jobs.”
But his name is principally connected with his influence over
Robert Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke) in 1866 at the time of Mr
Gladstone’s Reform Bill, to which he and Lowe were hostile;
and it was in describing the Lowe-Horsman combination that
John Bright spoke of the “Cave of Adullam.” Horsman died
at Biarritz on the 30th of November 1876.
HORST, the term used in physical geography and geology
for a block of the earth’s crust that has remained stationary
while the land has sunk on either side of it, or has been crushed
in a mountain range against it. The Vosges and Black Forest
are examples of the former, the Table, Jura and the Dôle
of the latter result. The word is also applied to those larger
areas, such as the Russian plain, Arabia, India and Central
South Africa, where the continent remains stable, with horizontal
table-land stratification, in distinction to folded regions such
as the Eurasian chains.
HORT, FENTON JOHN ANTHONY (1828–1892), English
theologian, was born in Dublin on the 23rd of April 1828, the
great-grandson of Josiah Hort, archbishop of Tuam in the 18th
century. In 1846 he passed from Rugby to Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he was the contemporary of E. W. Benson,
B. F. Westcott and J. B. Lightfoot. The four men became
lifelong friends and fellow-workers. In 1850 Hort took his
degree, being third in the classical tripos, and in 1852 he became
fellow of his college. In 1854, in conjunction with J. E. B.
Mayor and Lightfoot, he established the Journal of Classical
and Sacred Philology, and plunged eagerly into theological
and patristic study. He had been brought up in the strictest
principles of the Evangelical school, but at Rugby he fell under
the influence of Arnold and Tait, and his acquaintance with
Maurice and Kingsley finally gave his opinions a direction
towards Liberalism. In 1857 he married, and accepted the
college living of St Ippolyts, near Hitchin, in Hertfordshire,
where he remained for fifteen years. During his residence
there he took some part in the discussions on university reform,
continued his studies, and wrote essays for various periodicals.
In 1870 he was appointed a member of the committee for
revising the translation of the New Testament, and in 1871
he delivered the Hulsean lectures before the university. Their
title was The Way, the Truth, and the Life, but they were not
prepared for publication until many years after their delivery.
In 1872 he accepted a fellowship and lectureship at Emmanuel
College; in 1878 he was made Hulsean professor of divinity,
and in 1887 Lady Margaret reader in divinity. In the meantime
he had published, with his friend Westcott, an edition of the text
of the New Testament. The Revision Committee had very
largely accepted this text, even before its publication, as a
basis for their translation of the New Testament. The work
on its appearance created an immense sensation among scholars,
and was vehemently attacked in many quarters, but on the
whole it was received as being much the nearest approximation
yet made to the original text of the New Testament (see Bible:
New Testament, “Textual Criticism”). The introduction was
the work of Hort, and its depth and fulness convinced all who
read it that they were under the guidance of a master. Hort
died on the 30th of November 1892, worn out by intense mental
labour. Next to his Greek Testament his best-known work is
The Christian Ecclesia (1897). Other publications are: Judaistic
Christianity (1894); Village Sermons (two series); Cambridge
