class of critics that exhibits the beauties of an author, rather than to the class that reveals them. He was somewhat backward in appreciating contemporary merit; he venerated Coleridge s intellect, but his estimate of his poetry is ridi culously low ; his review of Shelley s posthumous poems, though rhetorically fine, is critically px)or ; and he did little to vindicate the fame of Keats. As a moralist and observer of manners his chief merit consists in the extreme felicity of his occasional observations. But all shortcomings are forgotten in the genuineness and fervour of the writer s self- portraiture, and the bold relief in which he stands out from the crowd of mankind. The intensity of his personal con victions causes all he wrote to appear in a manner auto biographic. Other men have been said to speak like books, Hazlilt s books speak like men. To read his works in connexion with Leigh Hunt s and Charles Lamb s is to be introduced into one of the most attractive of English literary circles, and this alone will long preserve them from
oblivion.
The most copious source of information respecting Hazlitt is the biography by his grandson (1867), a medley rather than a memoir, yet full of interest. A slight but appropriate sketch had previously been prefixed by his son to the posthumous essays published in 1836, accompanied by elegant but partial estimates of his intellec tual character by Bulwer and Tali ourd. Valuable biographical Eirticulars have been preserved in Barry Cornwall s memoirs of ainb, and in the reminiscences of Mr P. G. Patmore, Hazlitt s most intimate associate in his latter years. A full bibliographical list of his writings, with a collection of the most remarkable critical judgments upon them from all quarters, has been tastefully and industriously prepared by Mr Alexander Ireland (1868).
HEAD, Sir Edmund Walker, Bart., (1805–1868), a popular writer on art, was born in 1805 at Wiarton Place, near Maidstone in Kent. He was educated at Winchester schoal and Oriel College, Oxford, and taking his degree with first-class honours in classics, he became in 1827 fellow of Merton College, and in 1834 university examiner in classics. Two years later he married ; and on his father s deith in 1838, he succeeded to the baronetcy as eighth baronet. His services as poor-law commissioner, to which post he was appointed in 1841 after three 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, January 28, 1868.
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 Auxili ary Verbs, 1856 ; and Ballads and other Poems, original and trans lated, 1868. He also edited A Handbook of Painting of the German, flemish, Dutch, Sixmish, and French Schools, 1854. His translation from the Icelandic of Viga Gh ,m s Saga appeared in 1865.
HEAD, Sir Francis Bond, Bart. (1793–1875), soldier, traveller, and author, son of James Roper Head of the Hermitage, Kent, was born there January 1, 1793. He served with the Royal Engineers at the battles of Waterloo and Fleurus, and when he retired from the army he had risen to the rank of major. In 1825 he accepted the charge of an association formed to work the gold and silver mines of Rio de la Plata. In connexion with this enter prise 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." In 1835 he was appointed governor of Upper Canada, where he manifested similar energy in dealing with the discontents from which the colony was at that time suffering. He resigned his office in 1837, and in recognition of his services he was in 1838 created a baronet. The narrative of his administra tion in Upper Canada was published by him in 1839. In 1867 he became a privy councillor. He died at his resi dence at Croydon, July 20, 1875. Some time previously a pension of .100 per annum was conferred upon him for his "services to literature."
Sir Francis 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. Besides those already mentioned, his principal works, which have all gone through more than one edition, are Bubbles from the Brunnen of Kassau, 1833; Life of Bruce, 1844; The Emigrant, 1846; Stokers and Pokers, 1850; The Defenceless State of Great Britain, 1850; A Faggot of French Sticks, 1851; A Fortnight in Ireland, 1852 ; Descriptive Essays, 1856 ; The Horse and his Ilidcr, 1860 ; The Royal Engineer, 1870.
HEAD, Sir George (1782–1855), brother of the pre ceding, was born in 1782. He was educated at the Char terhouse. 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, published in 1829. In 1831 he received the honour of knighthood. 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 in structive, but his Rome, a Tour of Many Days, published in 1849, is somewhat dull and tedious. He also contributed several articles to the Quarterly Review, and translated Historical Memoirs of Cardinal Pacca, 1850, and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, 1851. He died in London, May 2, 1855.
HEARNE, Samuel (1745–1792), an English explorer, was born at London in 1745. At the age of eleven he entered the Royal Navy as midshipman in the vessel of Lord Hood, but at the conclusion of the war he took service with the Hudson s Bay Company as quartermaster. In 1768 he was appointed to examine portions of the coast of Hudson s Bay with a view to the improvement of the cod- fishing, when he executed his task with such ability that it was resolved to employ him in the discovery of the north west passage, and of certain mines of copper whose existence was asserted by the Indians. His first attempt, upon which he set out on November 6, 1769, was unsuccessful owing to the desertion of the Indians ; and his second, entered upon on 23d February 1770, was by the breaking of his quadrant likewise rendered abortive ; but in his third ex pedition, upon which he started in December 1770, he was completely successful, as he not only discovered the exist ence of copper on the banks of what is now known as Coppermine river, but traced the course of that river till it joined the Arctic Ocean. After an absence of eighteen months and twenty-three days he arrived at Fort Churchill, of which he was subsequently promoted to be the governor. He returned to England in 1787, and died there in 1792. An account of his journeys from Prince of Wales Fort to the Northern Ocean was published post humously in 1795.
was born in 1678 at Littlefield Green, in the parish of White Waltham, Berkshire, where his father, the parish clerk, in payment of the rental of the vicarage house in
which he lived, taught ten boys yearly. Thomas, after