permit him to rest. In 1827 he proceeded with his wife and child to the United States, where in little more than a year he travelled nearly nine thousand miles by land and water; and shortly after his return he published "Travels in North America," in 3 vols. 8vo. This work obtained great popularity at home—less, it is believed, from its intrinsic merits than from the violence with which it was assailed by the American press on account of the unfriendly view which it gave of society in the United States. The next publication of this prolific writer was "Fragments of Voyages and Travels," a most interesting work, which formed three serial publications, each consisting of three vols. 12mo. While travelling in Italy in 1834, he formed the acquaintance of an early friend of his father, the distinguished countess of Purgstall, originally Miss Cranstoun, a native of Scotland, and a relative of Dugald Stewart. This lady, who had married an Austrian nobleman, and was then a widow in her eighty-seventh year, invited Hall to visit her at her schloss or castle of Heinfield, near Gratz; and from a journal which he kept there he afterwards published his "Schloss Heinfield, or a winter in Lower Styria." His last production, entitled "Patchwork," in three vols., was published in 1841, and is a collection of reminiscences of travel given in the form of tales. It was probably in consequence of excessive literary exertion that, shortly after Hall's vigorous mind gave way, and having been placed in confinement, he died in the royal hospital at Portsmouth, on the 11th September, 1844.—G. BL.
HALL, Benjamin, Lord Llanover, Right Honourable, a liberal politician and ex-official, was born in 1802, the eldest son of the late Benjamin Hall, Esq., of Hensol castle, Glamorganshire, by a daughter of William Crawshay, Esq., a large ironmaster in South Wales. He entered public life in 1831 as M.P. for Monmouthshire. In 1837 he was returned to the house of commons as member for the metropolitan borough of Marylebone, and continued to represent it until his elevation to the peerage in 1857. His political liberalism was of a very advanced kind, and his pre-official career was distinguished by his zealous advocacy of the abolition of church rates. In 1838 he was made a baronet, on the occasion of her majesty's coronation. In the coalition ministry of Lord Aberdeen he was appointed (August, 1854) president of the board of health, and sworn of the privy council. In 1855 he succeeded Sir William Molesworth as chief commissioner of public works. On Lord Palmerston's second accession to the premiership, Sir Benjamin Hall was created Baron Llanover. He married in 1823 Augusta, daughter of the late Benjamin Waddington, Esq., of Llanover; and Lady Llanover has edited with taste the autobiography of Mrs. Delany, the friend of Swift. His lordship died on the 27th April, 1867.—F. E.
HALL, Chester More, of More Hall in Essex, a country gentleman, about 1729 was one of the discoverers of the fact that the dispersion of light, or inequality in the refraction of rays of different colours, is different in different substances. He is said to have availed himself of that discovery to make an achromatic telescope in 1733. As he did not, however, publish the results, they were left to be independently rediscovered and introduced into practice by Dollond.—W. J. M. R.
HALL or HALLE, Edward, an English lawyer and historian, born in London about the end of the fifteenth century. He was educated at Eton and at King's college, Cambridge, where he became a junior fellow. He afterwards studied at Gray's inn; and after he had been called to the bar, became first one of the common Serjeants, and then under-sheriff of the city of London. In 1533 he was appointed summer reader of Gray's inn; and in 1540 double reader in Lent, and one of the judges of the sheriff's court. He was also a member of the house of commons, and was one of those who supported the Six Articles. Halle died in 1547. He knew how to flatter Henry VIII., to whom he dedicated his Chronicle, entitled "The Union of the two noble and illustrious families of Lancaster and Yorke." The first edition of this work, which was printed by Berthelette in 1542, concluded with the twenty-fourth year of Henry's reign. Grafton, who reprinted it in 1548, and again in 1550, continued the record from Halle's papers to the end of that reign. It was one of the books forbidden by proclamation under Philip and Mary in 1555. A fourth edition was printed in 1809 among the English Chronicles.—G. BL.
HALL, George, son of the celebrated bishop of Norwich, was born at Waltham Holy Cross in 1612, and was educated at Exeter college, Oxford. In 1639 he was collated to a prebend of Exeter, and was afterwards made archdeacon of Cornwall and rector of Minhinnet in that county. He was deprived of his livings by the parliamentary rulers; but after the Restoration he was first made canon of Windsor, and afterwards bishop of Chester. He died August 23, 1668. He published "The Triumphs of Rome over despised Protestancy," London, 1655.—G. BL.
HALL, Sir James, Baronet, a distinguished physicist and man of letters, was born at Dunglass in Haddingtonshire on the 17th January, 1761. Heir to a considerable landed estate, and to a baronetcy which had been in his family for three generations, he went to school near London, and afterwards was educated at Christ Church, Cambridge. Returning to Scotland in 1781, he attended for one winter session classes at the university of Edinburgh, He came of age the following summer, and took up his abode on the continent, where he remained three years. In 1786 he married a daughter of the earl of Selkirk, and settled at Edinburgh. Dr. James Hutton was then engaged in the important inquiries which brought to a close the controversies of the early geologists regarding the parts performed respectively by fire and water in the formation of the globe. Sir James Hall entered enthusiastically into his speculations. To support the views of his friend, he performed a series of experiments on the fusion of mineral substances. "These experiments," says Humboldt in Cosmos, "made more than half a century ago, together with the attentive study of the phenomena of granitic veins, have contributed in a very high degree to the recent progress of geological science." In an important paper published in the Edinburgh Transactions of 1806, Sir James Hall recorded the results of his investigations. In 1808 he was returned for the borough of St. Michaels in Cornwall, which he continued to represent till 1812. In 1813 he published a work—"On the Principles and History of Gothic Architecture"—in which he endeavours to show that the earliest stone buildings in this style were imitations of constructions of boughs and twigs. After a lingering illness he died on 22nd June, 1832. A bust at the London School of Mines commemorates the important services rendered to geological science by this estimable and accomplished man.—G. B—y.
* HALL, James, the author of many popular American novels, was born at Philadelphia on the 19th of August, 1793. He studied for the law, but served as a volunteer in the war of 1812, became afterwards a midshipman in the United States navy, and was present in the expedition against Algiers. In 1818 he returned to practise in his original profession at Pittsburg, whence he removed to Shawneetown, Illinois, where he was elected legislature judge of the circuit court. In 1833 he went to Cincinnati, and became director of a bank. His works are chiefly descriptive of western life and manners.—J. W. F.
HALL, John: there are two English poets so named. The first, also called Hawle, a physician of Maidstone, who, besides some professional treatises, published in 1550 a metrical version of portions of Proverbs, of Psalms, and of Ecclesiasticus. The second was born at Durham in 1627, and was called to the bar, which he abandoned for politics, and was taken up by the Cromwellian party. Hall was a man of ability and genius, but dissipated. His irregularities brought him prematurely to the grave in 1656. Nevertheless, in so short a life he wrote a good deal, beginning authorship at nineteen by publishing "Horæ Vacivæ." He was the first who translated Longinus into English. Some of his works are now very rare.—J. F. W.
HALL, John, a good English engraver, was born at Wivenhoe, near Colchester, in 1739; he settled early in London, and was the fellow-pupil of the unfortunate Ryland, with Ravenet the engraver. He succeeded Woollett as historical engraver to George III., and executed several good line-engravings after Reynolds, Gainsborough, and West. Hall was much employed by Alderman Boydell. He died in London in 1797, and was buried at Paddington.—R. N. W.
HALL, Joseph, D.D., the "English Seneca," was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, July 1, 1574. He first attended a public school in his native town; and at fifteen entered Emmanuel college, Cambridge. In 1597 he published six books of satires under the title of "Virgidemiarum Liber, or a gathering of Rods." This work is not without wit; but its chief value now consists in its allusions to the manners of the time. It was republished by Warton in 1753, and by Singer in 1824. The circumstances of his father led to his retirement from college, but he found a patron in Mr. Edmund Sleigh of Derby, who enabled him to return. Dr.
