(1786–1842) to Halle. In 1865 he was accused by some theologians of the Hengstenberg school of heretical doctrines. From this charge, however, he successfully cleared himself, the entire theological faculty, including Julius Müller (1801–1878) and August Tholuck (1799–1877), bearing testimony to his sufficient orthodoxy. He died at Halle on the 24th of April 1866.
His earliest works in the department of Semitic philology (Exercitationes Aethiopicae, 1825, and De emendanda ratione lexicographiae Semiticae, 1827) were followed by the first part (1841), mainly historical and critical, of an Ausführliche Hebräische Grammatik, which he did not live to complete, and by a treatise on the early history of Hebrew grammar among the Jews (De rei grammaticae apud Judaeos initiis antiquissimisque scriptoribus, Halle, 1846). His principal contribution to Biblical literature, the exegetical and critical Übersetzung und Auslegung der Psalmen, began to appear in 1855, and was completed in 1861 (2nd ed. by E. Riehm, 1867–1871, 3rd ed. 1888). Other writings are Über Begriff und Methode der sogenannten biblischen Einleitung (Marburg, 1844); De primitiva et vera festorum apud Hebraeos ratione (Halle, 1851–1864); Die Quellen der Genesis von neuem untersucht (Berlin, 1853); Die heutige theosophische oder mythologische Theologie und Schrifterklärung (1861).
See E. Riehm, Hermann Hupfeld (Halle, 1867); W. Kay, Crisis Hupfeldiana (1865); and the article by A. Kamphausen in Band viii. of Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1900).
HURD, RICHARD (1720–1808), English divine and writer,
bishop of Worcester, was born at Congreve, in the parish of
Penkridge, Staffordshire, where his father was a farmer, on the
13th of January 1720. He was educated at the grammar-school
of Brewood and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He
took his B.A. degree in 1739, and in 1742 he proceeded M.A. and
became a fellow of his college. In the same year he was ordained
deacon, and given charge of the parish of Reymerston, Norfolk,
but he returned to Cambridge early in 1743. He was ordained
priest in 1744. In 1748 he published some Remarks on an
Enquiry into the Rejection of Christian Miracles by the Heathens
(1746), by William Weston, a fellow of St John’s College,
Cambridge. He prepared editions, which won the praise of
Edward Gibbon,[1] of the Ars poetica and Epistola ad Pisones
(1749), and the Epistola ad Augustum (1751) of Horace. A compliment
in the preface to the edition of 1749 was the starting-point
of a lasting friendship with William Warburton, through whose
influence he was appointed one of the preachers at Whitehall
in 1750. In 1765 he was appointed preacher at Lincoln’s Inn,
and in 1767 he became archdeacon of Gloucester. In 1768 he
proceeded D.D. at Cambridge, and delivered at Lincoln’s Inn the
first Warburton lectures, which were published later (1772) as
An Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies concerning the
Christian Church. He became bishop of Lichfield and Coventry
in 1774, and two years later was selected to be tutor to the prince
of Wales and the duke of York. In 1781 he was translated to the
see of Worcester. He lived chiefly at Hartlebury Castle, where he
built a fine library, to which he transferred Alexander Pope’s and
Warburton’s books, purchased on the latter’s death. He was
extremely popular at court, and in 1783, on the death of Archbishop
Cornwallis, the king pressed him to accept the primacy,
but Hurd, who was known, says Madame d’Arblay, as “The
Beauty of Holiness,” declined it as a charge not suited to his
temper and talents, and much too heavy for him to sustain.
He died, unmarried, on the 28th of May 1808.
Hurd’s Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762) retain a certain interest for their importance in the history of the romantic movement, which they did something to stimulate. They were written in continuation of a dialogue on the age of Queen Elizabeth included in his Moral and Political Dialogues (1759). Two later dialogues On the Uses of Foreign Travel were printed in 1763. Hurd wrote two acrimonious defences of Warburton: On the Delicacy of Friendship (1755), in answer to Dr J. Jortin; and a Letter (1764) to Dr Thomas Leland, who had criticized Warburton’s Doctrine of Grace. He edited the Works of William Warburton, the Select Works (1772) of Abraham Cowley, and left materials for an edition (6 vols., 1811) of Addison. His own works appeared in a collected edition in 8 vols. in 1811.
The chief sources for Bishop Hurd’s biography are “Dates of some occurrences in the life of the author,” written by himself and prefixed to vol. i. of his works (1811); “Memoirs of Dr Hurd” in the Ecclesiastical and University . . . Register (1809), pp. 399-452; John Nichols, Literary anecdotes, vol. vi. (1812), pp. 468-612; Francis Kilvert, Memoirs of . . . Richard Hurd (1860), giving selections from Hurd’s commonplace book, some correspondence, and extracts from contemporary accounts of the bishop. A review of this work, entitled “Bishop Hurd and his Contemporaries,” appeared in the North British Review, vol. xxxiv. (1861), pp. 375-398.
HURDLE (O. Eng. hyrdel, cognate with such Teutonic forms
as Ger. Hürde, Dutch horde, Eng. “hoarding”; in pre-Teutonic
languages the word appears in Gr. κυρτία, wickerwork, κύρτη,
Lat. cratis, basket, cf. “crate,” “grate”), a movable temporary
fence, formed of a framework of light timber, wattled
with smaller pieces of hazel, willow or other pliable wood, or
constructed on the plan of a light five-barred field gate, filled
in with brushwood. Similar movable frames can be made of
iron, wire or other material. A construction of the same type
is used in military engineering and fortification as a foundation
for a temporary roadway across boggy ground or as a backing
for earthworks.
HURDLE RACING, running races over short distances, at
intervals in which a number of hurdles, or fence-like obstacles,
must be jumped. This has always been a favourite branch of
track athletics, the usual distances being 120 yds., 220 yds. and
440 yds. The 120 yds. hurdle race is run over ten hurdles
3 ft. 6 in. high and 10 yds. apart, with a space of 15 yds. from
the start to the first hurdle and a like distance from the last
hurdle to the finish. In Great Britain the hurdles are fixed
and the race is run on grass; in America the hurdles, although
of the same height, are not fixed, and the races are run on the
cinder track. The “low hurdle race” of 220 yds. is run over
ten hurdles 2 ft. 6. in. high and 20 yds. apart, with like distances
between the start and the first hurdle and between the last
hurdle and the finish. The record time for the 120 yds. race
on grass is 1535 secs., and on cinders 1515 secs., both of
which were performed by A. C. Kraenzlein, who also holds the
record for the 220 yds. low hurdle race, 2335 secs. For 440 yds.
over hurdles the record time is 5745 secs., by T. M. Donovan,
and by J. B. Densham at Kennington Oval in 1907.
HURDY-GURDY (Fr. vielle à manivelle, symphonie or chyfonie
à roue; Ger. Bauernleier, Deutscheleier, Bettlerleier, Radleier;
Ital. lira tedesca, lira rustica, lira pagana), now loosely used as
a synonym for any grinding organ, but strictly a medieval
drone instrument with strings set in vibration by the friction.
of a wheel, being a development of the organistrum (q.v.) reduced
in size so that it could be conveniently played by one person
instead of two. It consisted of a box or soundchest, sometimes
rectangular, but more generally having the outline of the guitar;
inside it had a wheel, covered with leather and rosined, and worked
by means of a crank at the tail end of the instrument. On the
fingerboard were placed movable frets or keys, which, on being
depressed, stopped the strings, at points corresponding to the
diatonic intervals of the scale. At first there were 4 strings,
later 6. In the organistrum three strings, acted on simultaneously
by the keys, produced the rude harmony known as organum.
When this passed out of favour, superseded by the first beginnings
of polyphony over a pedal bass, the organistrum gave place to
the hurdy-gurdy. Instead of acting on all the strings, the keys
now affected the first string only, or “chanterelle,” though in
some cases certain keys, made longer, also reached the third
string or “trompette”; the result was that a diatonic melody
could be played on the chanterelles. The other open strings
always sounded simultaneously as long as the wheel was turned, like drones on the bag-pipe.
The hurdy-gurdy originated in France at the time when the Paris School or Old French School was laying the foundations of counterpoint and polyphony. During the 13th and 14th centuries it was known by the name of Symphonia or Chyfonie, and in Germany Lira or Leyer. Its popularity remained undiminished in France until late in the 18th century. Although the hurdy-gurdy never obtained recognition among serious musicians in Germany, the idea embodied in the mechanism stimulated
- ↑ “Examination of Dr Hurd’s Commentary on Horace’s Epistles” (Misc. Works, ed. John, Lord Sheffield, 1837, pp. 403-427).
