(G. E.)
HOLLAND,a city of Ottawa county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Macatawa Bay (formerly called Black Lake), near Lake Michigan, and 25 m. W.S.W. of Grand Rapids. Pop. (1890) 3945; (1900) 7790, of whom a large portion were of Dutch descent; (1904) 8966; (1910) 10,490. It is served by the Père Marquette Railroad, by steamboat lines to Chicago and other lake ports, and by electric lines connecting with Grand Rapids, Saugatuck, and the neighbouring summer resorts. On Macatawa Bay are Ottawa Beach, Macatawa Park, Jenison Park, Central Park, Castle Park and Waukezoo. In the city itself are Hope College (co-educational; founded in 1851 and incorporated as a college in 1866), an institution of the (Dutch) Reformed Church in America; and the Western Theological Seminary (1869; suspended 1877-1884) of the same denomination. Holland is a grain and fruit shipping centre, and among its manufactures are furniture, leather, grist mill products, iron, beer, pickles, shoes, beet sugar, gelatine, biscuit (Holland rusk), electric and steam launches, and pianos. In 1908 seven weekly, one daily, and two monthly papers (four denominational) were published at Holland, five of them in Dutch. The municipality owns its water-works and electric-lighting plant. Holland was founded in 1847 by Dutch settlers, under the leadership of the Rev. A. C. Van Raalte, and was chartered as a city in 1867. In 1871 much of it was destroyed by a forest fire.
HOLLAND,a cloth so called from the country where it was first made. It was originally a fine plain linen fabric of a brownish colour—unbleached flax. Several varieties are now made: hollands, pale hollands and fine hollands. They are used for aprons, blinds, shirts, blouses and dresses.
HOLLAR, WENZELorWENCESLAUS[Vaclaf Holar] (1607-1677), Bohemian etcher, was born at Prague on the 13th of July 1607, and died in London, being buried at St Margaret’s church, Westminster, on the 28th of March 1677. His family was ruined by the capture of Prague in the Thirty Years’ War, and young Hollar, who had been destined for the law, determined to become an artist. The earliest of his works that have come down to us are dated 1625 and 1626; they are small plates, and one of them is a copy of a Virgin and Child by Dürer, whose influence upon Hollar’s work was always great. In 1627 he was at Frankfort, working under Matthew Merian, an etcher and engraver; thence he passed to Strassburg, and thence, in 1633, to Cologne. It was there that he attracted the notice of the famous amateur Thomas, earl of Arundel, then on an embassy to the imperial court; and with him Hollar travelled to Vienna and Prague, and finally came in 1637 to England, destined to be his home for many years. Though he lived in the household of Lord Arundel, he seems to have worked not exclusively for him, but to have begun that slavery to the publishers which was afterwards the normal condition of his life. In his first year in England he made for Stent, the printseller, the magnificent View of Greenwich, nearly a yard long, and received thirty shillings for the plate,—perhaps a twentieth part of what would now be paid for a single good impression. Afterwards we hear of his fixing the price of his work at fourpence an hour, and measuring his time by a sandglass. The Civil War had its effect on his fortunes, but none on his industry. Lord Arundel left England in 1642, and Hollar passed into the service of the duke of York, taking with him a wife and two children. With other royalist artists, notably Inigo Jones and Faithorne, he stood the long and eventful siege of Basing House; and as we have some hundred plates from his hand dated during the years 1643 and 1644 he must have turned his enforced leisure to good purpose. Taken prisoner, he escaped or was released, and joined Lord Arundel at Antwerp, and there he remained eight years, the prime of his working life, when he produced his finest plates of every kind, his noblest views, his miraculous “muffs” and “shells,” and the superb portrait of the duke of York. In 1652 he returned to London, and lived for a time with Faithorne the engraver near Temple Bar. During the following years were published many books which he illustrated:—Ogilby’sVirgilandHomer, Stapylton’sJuvenal, and Dugdale’sWarwickshire,St Paul’sandMonasticon(part i.). The booksellers continued to impose on the simple-minded foreigner, pretending to decline his work that he might still further reduce the wretched price he charged them. Nor did the Restoration improve his position. The court did nothing for him, and in the great plague he lost his young son, who, we are told, might have rivalled his father as an artist. After the great fire he produced some of his famous “Views of London”; and it may have been the success of these plates which induced the king to send him, in 1668, to Tangier, to draw the town and forts. During his return to England occurred the desperate and successful engagement fought by his ship the “Mary Rose,” under Captain Kempthorne, against seven Algerine men-of-war,—a brilliant affair which Hollar etched for Ogilby’sAfrica. He lived eight years after his return, still working for the booksellers, and retaining to the end his wonderful powers; witness the large plate of Edinburgh (dated 1670), one of the greatest of his works. He died in extreme poverty, his last recorded words being a request to the bailiffs that they would not carry away the bed on which he was dying.
Hollar’s variety was boundless; his plates number some 2740, and include views, portraits, ships, religious subjects, heraldic subjects, landscapes, and still life in a hundred different forms. No one that ever lived has been able to represent fur, or shells, or a butterfly’s wing as he has done. His architectural drawings, such as those of Antwerp and Strassburg cathedrals, and his views of towns, are mathematically exact, but they are pictures as well. He could reproduce the decorative works of other artists quite faultlessly, as in the famous chalice after Mantegna’s drawing. HisTheatrum mulierumand similar collections reproduce for us with literal truth the outward aspects of the people of his day; and his portraits, a branch of art in which he has been unfairly disparaged, are of extraordinary refinement and power.
Almost complete collections of Hollar’s works exist in the British Museum and in the library at Windsor Castle. Two admirable catalogues of his plates have been made, one in 1745 (2nd ed. 1759) by George Vertue, and one in 1853 by Parthey. The latter, published at Berlin, is a model of German thoroughness and accuracy.
Almost complete collections of Hollar’s works exist in the British Museum and in the library at Windsor Castle. Two admirable catalogues of his plates have been made, one in 1745 (2nd ed. 1759) by George Vertue, and one in 1853 by Parthey. The latter, published at Berlin, is a model of German thoroughness and accuracy.
HOLLES, DENZIL HOLLES,Baron(1599-1680), English statesman and writer, second son of John Holles, 1st earl of Clare (c.1564-1637), by Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Stanhope, was born on the 31st of October 1599. The favourite son of his father and endowed with great natural abilities, Denzil Holles grew up under advantageous circumstances. Destined to become later one of the most formidable antagonists of King Charles’s arbitrary government, he was in early youth that prince’s playmate and intimate companion. The earl of Clare was, however, no friend to the Stuart administration, being especially hostile to the duke of Buckingham; and on the accession of Charles to the throne the king’s offers of favour were rejected. In 1624 Holles was returned to parliament for Mitchell in Cornwall, and in 1628 for Dorchester. He had from the first a keen sense of the humiliations which attended the foreign policy of the Stuart kings. Writing to Strafford, his brother-in-law, on the 29th of November 1627, he severely censures Buckingham’s conduct of the expedition to the Isle of Rhé; “since England was England,” the declared, “it received not so dishonourable a blow”; and he joined in the demand for Buckingham’s impeachment in 1628. To these discontents were now added the abuses arising from the king’s arbitrary administration. On the 2nd of March 1629, when Sir John Finch, the speaker, refused to put Sir John Eliot’s Protestations and was about to adjourn the House by the king’scommand, Holles with another member thrust him back into the chair and swore “he should sit still till it pleased them to rise.” Meanwhile Eliot, on the refusal of the speaker to read the Protestations, had himself thrown them into the fire; the usher of the black rod was knocking at the door for admittance, and the king had sent for the guard. But Holles, declaring that he could not render the king or his country better service, put the Protestations to the House from memory, all the members rising to their feet and applauding. In consequence a warrant was issued for his arrest with others on the following day. They were prosecuted first in the Star Chamber and subsequently in the King’s Bench. When brought upon hishabeas corpusbefore the latter court Holles offered with the rest to give bail, but refused sureties for good behaviour, and argued that the court had no jurisdiction over offences supposed to have been committed in parliament. On his refusal to plead he was sentenced to a fine of 1000 marks and to imprisonment during the king’s pleasure. Holles had at first been committed and remained for some time a close prisoner in the Tower of London. The “close” confinement, however, was soon changed to a “safe” one, the prisoner then having leave to take the air and exercise, but being obliged to maintain himself at his own expense. On the 29th of October Holles, with Eliot and Valentine, was transferred to the Marshalsea. His resistance to the king’s tyranny did not prove so stout as that of some of his comrades in misfortune. Among the papers of the secretary Sir John Coke is a petition of Holles, couched in humble and submissive terms, to be restored to the king’s favour;1having given the security demanded for his good behaviour, he was liberated early in 1630, and on the 30th of October was allowed bail. Being still banished from London he retired to the country, paying his fine in 1637 or 1638. The fine was repaid by the parliament in July 1644, and the judgment was revised on a writ of error in 1668. In 1638 we find him, notwithstanding his recent experiences, one of the chief leaders in his county of the resistance to ship money, though it would appear that he subsequently made submission.
Holles was a member of the Short and Long Parliaments assembled in 1640. According to Laud he was now “one of the great leading men in the House of Commons,” and in Clarendon’s opinion he was “a man of more accomplished parts than any of his party” and of most authority. He was not, however, in the confidence of the republican party. Though he was at first named one of the managers for the impeachment of Strafford, Holles had little share in his prosecution. According to Laud he held out to Strafford hopes of saving his life if he would use his influence with the king to abolish episcopacy, but the earl refused, and Holles advised Charles that Strafford should demand a short respite, of which he would take advantage to procure a commutation of the death sentence. In the debate on the attainder he spoke on behalf of Strafford’s family, and later obtained some favours from the parliament for his eldest son. In all other matters in parliament Holles took a principal part. He was one of the chief movers of the Protestation of the 3rd of May 1641, which he carried up to the Lords, urging them to give it their approval. Although, according to Clarendon, he did not wish to change the government of the church, he showed himself at this time decidedly hostile to the bishops. He took up the impeachment of Laud to the House of Peers, supported the Londoners’ petition for the abolition of episcopacy and the Root and Branch Bill, and afterwards urged that the bishops impeached for their conduct in the affair of the late canons should be accused of treason. He showed equal energy in the affairs of Ireland at the outbreak of the rebellion, supported strongly the independence and purity of the judicial bench, and opposed toleration of the Roman Catholics. On the 9th of July 1641 he addressed the Lords on behalf of the queen of Bohemia, expressing great loyalty to the king and royal family and urging the necessity of supporting the Protestant religion everywhere. Together with Pym, Holles drew up the Grand Remonstrance, and made a vigorous speech in its support on the 22nd of November 1641, in which he argued for the right of one House to make a declaration, and asserted: “If kings are misled by their counsellors we may, we must tell them of it.” On the 15th of December he was a teller in the division in favour of printing it. On the great subject of the militia he also showed activity. He supported Hesilriges’ Militia Bill of the 7th of December 1641, and on the 31st of December he took up to the king the Commons’ demand for a guard under the command of Essex. “Holles’s force and reputation,” said Sir Ralph Verney, “are the two things that give the success to all actions.” After the failure of the attempt by the court to gain over Holles and others by offering them posts in the administration, he was one of the “five members” impeached by the king.2Holles at once grasped the full significance of the king’s action, and after the triumphant return to the House of the five members, on the 11th of January, threw himself into still more pronounced opposition to the arbitrary policy of the crown. He demanded that before anything further was done the members should be cleared of their impeachment; was himself leader in the impeachment of the duke of Richmond; and on the 31st of January, when taking up the militia petition to the House of Lords, he adopted a very menacing tone, at the same time presenting a petition of some thousands of supposed starving artificers of London, congregated round the House. On the 15th of June he carried up the impeachment of the nine Lords who had deserted the parliament; and he was one of the committee of safety appointed on the 4th of July.
On the outbreak of the Civil War (seeGreat Rebellion) Holles, who had been made lieutenant of Bristol, was sent with Bedford to the west against the marquess of Hertford, and took part in the unsuccessful siege of the latter at Sherborne Castle. He was present at Edgehill, where his regiment of Puritans recruited in London was one of the few which stood firm and saved the day for the parliament. On the 13th of November his men were surprised at Brentford during his absence, and routed after a stout resistance. In December he was proposed for the command of the forces in the west, an appointment which he appears to have refused. Notwithstanding his activity in the field for the cause of the parliament, the appeal to arms had been distasteful to Holles from the first. As early as September he surprised the House by the marked abatement of his former “violent and fiery spirit,” and his changed attitude did not escape the taunts of his enemies, who attributed it scornfully to his disaster at Brentford or to his new wife. He probably foresaw that, to whichever side victory fell, the struggle could only terminate in the suppression of the constitution and of the moderate party on which all his hopes were based. His feelings and political opinions, too, were essentially aristocratic, and he regarded with horror the transference of the government of the state from the king and the ruling families to the parliamentary leaders. He now advocated peace and a settlement of the disputes by concessions on both sides; a proposal full of danger because impracticable, and one therefore which could only weaken the parliamentary resistance and prolong the struggle. He warmly supported the peace negotiations on the 21st of November and the 22nd of December, and his attitude led to a breach with Pym and the more determined party. In June 1643 he was accused of complicity in Waller’s plot, but swore to his innocency; and his arrest with others of the peace party was even proposed in August, when Holles applied for a pass to leave the country. The king’s successes, however, for the moment put a stop to all hopes of peace; and in April 1644 Holles addressed the citizens of London at the Guildhall, calling upon them “to join with their purses, their persons, and their prayers together” to support the army of Essex. In November Holles and Whitelocke headed the commission appointed to treat with the king at Oxford. He endeavoured to convince the royalists of the necessity of yielding in time, before the “new party of hot men” should gain the upper hand. Holles and Whitelocke had aprivate meeting with the king, when at Charles’s request they drew up the answer which they advised him to return to the parliament. This interview was not communicated to the other commissioners or to parliament, and though doubtless their motives were thoroughly patriotic, their action was scarcely compatible with their position as trustees of the parliamentary cause. Holles was also appointed a commissioner at Uxbridge in January 1645 and endeavoured to overcome the crucial difficulty of the militia by postponing its discussion altogether. As leader of the moderate (or Presbyterian) party Holles now came into violent antagonism with Cromwell and the army faction. “They hated one another equally”; and Holles would not allow any merit in Cromwell, accusing him of cowardice and attributing his successes to chance and good fortune. With the support of Essex and the Scottish commissioners Holles endeavoured in December 1644 to procure Cromwell’s impeachment as an incendiary between the two nations, and “passionately” opposed the self-denying ordinance. In return Holles was charged with having held secret communications with the king at Oxford and with a correspondence with Lord Digby; but after a long examination by the House he was pronounced innocent on the 19th of July 1645. Determined on Cromwell’s destruction, he refused to listen to the prudent counsels of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who urged that Cromwell was too strong to be resisted or provoked, and on the 29th of March 1647 drew up in parliament a hasty proclamation declaring the promoters of the army petition enemies to the state; in April challenging Ireton to a duel.
The army party was now thoroughly exasperated against Holles. “They were resolved one way or other to be rid of him,” says Clarendon. On the 16th of June 1647 eleven members including Holles were charged by the army with various offences against the state, followed on the 23rd by fresh demands for their impeachment and for their suspension, which was refused. On the 26th, however, the eleven members, to avoid violence, asked leave to withdraw. Their reply to the charges against them was handed into the House on the 19th of July, and on the 20th Holles took leave of the House inA grave and learned speech.... After the riot of the apprentices on the 26th, for which Holles disclaimed any responsibility, the eleven members were again (30th of July) recalled to their seats, and Holles was one of the committee of safety appointed. On the flight of the speaker, however, and part of the parliament to the army, and the advance of the latter to London, Holles, whose party and policy were now entirely defeated, left England on the 22nd of August for Sainte-MèreEglisein Normandy. On the 26th of January 1648 the eleven members, who had not appeared when summoned to answer the charges against them, were expelled. Not long afterwards, however, on the 3rd of June, these proceedings were annulled; and Holles, who had then returned and was a prisoner in the Tower with the rest of the eleven members, was discharged. He returned to his seat on the 14th of August.
Holles was one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Newport on the 18th of September 1648. Aware of the plans of the extreme party, Holles threw himself at the king’s feet and implored him not to waste time in useless negotiations, and he was one of those who stayed behind the rest in order to urge Charles to compliance. On the 1st of December he received the thanks of the House. On the occasion of Pride’s Purge on the 6th of December Holles absented himself and escaped again to France. From his retirement there he wrote to Charles II. in 1651, advising him to come to terms with the Scots as the only means of effecting a restoration; but after the alliance he refused Charles’s offer of the secretaryship of state. In March 1654 Cromwell, who in alarm at the plots being formed against him was attempting to reconcile some of his opponents to his government, sent Holles a pass “with notable circumstances of kindness and esteem.” His subsequent movements and the date of his return to England are uncertain, but in 1656 Cromwell’s resentment was again excited against him as the supposed author of a tract, really written by Clarendon. He appears to have been imprisoned, for his release was ordered by the council on the 2nd of September 1659.
Holles took part in the conference with Monk at Northumberland House, when the Restoration was directly proposed, and with the secluded members took his seat again in parliament on the 21st of February 1660. On the 23rd of February he was chosen one of the council to carry on the government during the interregnum; on the 2nd of March the votes passed against him and the sequestration of his estates were repealed, and on the 7th he was made custos rotulorum for Dorsetshire. He took a leading part in bringing about the Restoration, was chairman of the committee of seven appointed to prepare an answer to the king’s letter, and as one of the deputed Lords and Commons he delivered at the Hague the invitation to Charles to return. He preceded Charles to England to prepare for his reception, and was sworn of the privy council on the 5th of June. He was one of the thirty-four commissioners appointed to try the regicides in September and October. On the 20th of April 1661 he was created Baron Holles of Ifield in Sussex, and became henceforth one of the leading members of the Upper House.
Holles, who was a good French scholar, was sent as ambassador to France on the 7th of July 1663. He was ostentatiously English, and a zealous upholder of the national honour and interests; but his position was rendered difficult by the absence of home support. On the 27th of January 1666 war was declared, but Holles was not recalled till May. Pepys remarks on the 14th of November: “Sir G. Cartaret tells me that just now my Lord Holles had been with him and wept to think in what a condition we are fallen.” Soon afterwards he was employed on another disagreeable mission in which the national honour was again at stake, being sent to Breda to make a peace with Holland in May 1667. He accomplished his task successfully, the articles being signed on the 21st of June.
On the 12th of December he protested against Lord Clarendon’s banishment and was nearly put out of the council in consequence. In 1668 he was manager for the Lords in the celebrated Skinner’s case, in which his knowledge of precedents was of great service, and on which occasion he published the tractThe Grand Question concerning the Judicature of the House of Peeres(1669). Holles, who was honourably distinguished by Charles as a “stiff and sullen man,” and as one who would not yield to solicitation, now became with Halifax and Shaftesbury a leader in the resistance to the domestic and foreign policy of the court. Together with Halifax he opposed both the arbitrary Conventicle Act of 1670 and the Test Oath of 1675, his objection to the latter being chiefly founded on the invasion of the privileges of the peers which it involved; and he defended with vigour the right of the Peers to record their protests. On the 7th of January 1676 Holles with Halifax was summarily dismissed from the council. On the occasion of the Commons petitioning the king in favour of an alliance with the Dutch, Holles addressed a Letter to Van Beuninghen at Amsterdam on “Love to our Country and Hatred of a Common Enemy,” enlarging upon the necessity of uniting in a common defence against French aggression and in support of the Protestant religion. “The People are strong but the Government is weak,” he declares; and he attributes the cause of weakness to the transference of power from the nobility to the people, and to a succession of three weak princes. “Save what (the Parliament) did, we have not taken one true step nor struck one true stroke since Queen Elizabeth.” He endeavoured to embarrass the government this year in his tract onSome Considerations upon the Question whether the parliament is dissolved by its prorogation for 15 months. It was held by the Lords to be seditious and scandalous; while for publishing another pamphlet written by Holles entitledThe Grand Question concerning the Prorogation of this Parliament(otherwiseThe Long Parliament dissolved) the corrector of the proof sheets was committed to the Tower and fined £1000. In order to bring about the downfall of Danby (afterwards duke of Leeds) and the disbanding of the army, which he believed to be intended for the suppression of the national liberties, Holles at this time (1677-1679) engaged, as did many others, in adangerous intrigue with Courtin and Barillon, the French envoys, and Louis XIV.; he refused, however, the latter’s presents on the ground that he was a member of the council, having been appointed to Sir William Temple’s new modelled cabinet in 1679. Barillon described him as at this period in his old age “the man of all England for whom the different cabals have the most consideration,” and as firmly opposed to the arbitrary designs of the court. He showed moderation in the Popish Plot, and on the question of the exclusion followed Halifax rather than Shaftesbury. His long and eventful career closed by his death on the 17th of February 1680.
The character of Holles has been drawn by Burnet, with whom he was on terms of friendship. “Hollis was a man of great courage and of as great pride.... He was faithful and firm to his side and never changed through the whole course of his life.... He argued well but too vehemently; for he could not bear contradiction. He had the soul of an old stubborn Roman in him. He was a faithful but a rough friend, and a severe but fair enemy. He had a true sense of religion; and was a man of an unblameable course of life and of a sound judgment when it was not biased by passion.”3Holles was essentially an aristocrat and a Whig in feeling, making Cromwell’s supposed hatred of “Lords” a special charge against him; regarding the civil wars rather as a social than as a political revolution, and attributing all the evils of his time to the transference of political power from the governing families to the “meanest of men.” He was an authority on the history and practice of parliament and the constitution, and besides the pamphlets already mentioned was the author ofThe Case Stated concerning the Judicature of the House of Peers in the Point of Appeals(1675);The Case Stated of the Jurisdiction of the House of Lords in the point of Impositions(1676);Letter of a Gentleman to his Friend showing that the Bishops are not to be judges in Parliament in Cases Capital(1679);Lord Holles his Remains, being a 2nd letter to a Friend concerning the judicature of the Bishops in Parliament....4He also publishedA True Relation of the unjust accusation of certain French gentlemen(1671), an account of Holles’s intercession on their behalf and of his dispute with Lord Chief Justice Keeling; and he leftMemoirs, written in exile in 1649, and dedicated “to the unparalleled Couple, Mr Oliver St John ... and Mr Oliver Cromwell....” published in 1699 and reprinted in Baron Maseres’sSelect Tracts relating to the Civil Wars, i. 189. Several speeches of Holles were printed and are extant, and his Letter to Van Beuninghen has been already quoted.
Holles married (1) in 1628 Dorothy, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Ashley; (2) in 1642 Jane, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Shirley of Ifield in Sussex and widow of Sir Walter Covert of Slougham, Sussex; and (3) in 1666 Esther, daughter and co-heiress of Gideon Le Lou of Columbiers in Normandy, widow of James Richer. By his first wife he left one son, Francis, who succeeded him as 2nd baron. He had no children by his other wives, and the peerage became extinct in the person of his grandson Denzil, 3rd Baron Holles, in 1694, the estates devolving on John Holles (1662-1711), 4th earl of Clare and duke of Newcastle.
Holles’s brother,John Holles, 2nd earl of Clare (1595-1666), was member of parliament for East Retford in three parliaments before succeeding to the peerage in 1637. He took some part in the Civil War, but “he was very often of both parties, and never advantaged either.” The earldom of Clare, which had been granted in 1624 by James I. to his father, John Holles, in return for the payment of £5000, became merged in the dukedom of Newcastle in 1694, when John Holles, the 4th earl, was created duke of Newcastle.
Holles’s Life has been written by C. H. Firth in theDictionary of National Biography; by Horace Walpole inRoyal and Noble Authors, ii. 28; by Guizot inMonk’s Contemporaries(Eng. trans., 1851); and by A. Collins inHistorical Collections of Noble Families(1752), and in theBiographia Britannica. See also S. R. Gardiner,History of England(1883-1884), andHistory of the Great Civil War(1893); Lord Clarendon,History of the Rebellion, edited by W. D. Macray; G. Burnet,History of His Own Time(1833); and B. Whitelock,Memorials(1732).
Holles’s Life has been written by C. H. Firth in theDictionary of National Biography; by Horace Walpole inRoyal and Noble Authors, ii. 28; by Guizot inMonk’s Contemporaries(Eng. trans., 1851); and by A. Collins inHistorical Collections of Noble Families(1752), and in theBiographia Britannica. See also S. R. Gardiner,History of England(1883-1884), andHistory of the Great Civil War(1893); Lord Clarendon,History of the Rebellion, edited by W. D. Macray; G. Burnet,History of His Own Time(1833); and B. Whitelock,Memorials(1732).
(P. C. Y.)
1Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Earl Cowper, i. 422.2The speech of January 5 attributed to him and printed inThomason Tracts, E 199 (55), is a forgery.3Burnet’sHistory of His Own Times, vi. 257, 268.4The rough draft, apparently in Holles’s handwriting, is inEgerton MSS.ff. 136-149.
1Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Earl Cowper, i. 422.
2The speech of January 5 attributed to him and printed inThomason Tracts, E 199 (55), is a forgery.
3Burnet’sHistory of His Own Times, vi. 257, 268.
4The rough draft, apparently in Holles’s handwriting, is inEgerton MSS.ff. 136-149.
HOLLOWAY, THOMAS(1800-1883), English patent-medicine vendor and philanthropist, was born at Devonport, on the 22nd of September 1800, of humble parents. Until his twenty-eighth year he lived at Penzance, where he assisted his mother and brother in the baker’s shop which his father, once a warrant officer in a militia regiment, had left them at his death. On coming to London he made the acquaintance of Felix Albinolo, an Italian, from whom he obtained the idea for the ointment which was to carry his name all over the world. The secret of his enormous success in business was due almost entirely to advertisement, in the efficacy of which he had great faith. He soon added the sale of pills to that of the ointment, and began to devote the larger part of his profits to advertising. Holloway’s first newspaper announcement appeared on the 15th of October 1837, and in 1842 his yearly expenses for publicity had reached the sum of £5000; this expenditure went on steadily increasing as his sales increased, until it had reached the figure of £50,000 per annum at the time of his death. It is, however, chiefly by the two princely foundations—the Sanatorium and the College for Women at Egham (q.v.), endowed by Holloway towards the close of his life—that his name will be perpetuated, more than a million sterling having been set apart by him for the erection and permanent endowment of these institutions. In the deed of gift of the college the founder credited his wife, who died in 1875, with the advice and counsel that led him to provide what he hoped might ultimately become the nucleus of a university for women. The philanthropic and somewhat eccentric donor (he had an unconcealed prejudice against doctors, lawyers and parsons) died of congestion of the lungs at Sunninghill on the 26th of December 1883.
HOLLY(Ilex Aquifolium), the European representative of a large genus of trees and shrubs of the natural order Ilicineae, containing about 170 species. The genus finds its chief development in Central and South America; is well developed in Asia, especially the Chinese-Japanese area, and has but few species in Europe, Africa and Australia. In Europe, whereI. Aquifoliumis the sole surviving species, the genus was richly represented during the Miocene period by forms at first South American and Asiatic, and later North American in type (Schimper,Paléont. végét.iii. 204, 1874). The leaves are generally leathery and evergreen, and are alternate and stalked; the flowers are commonly dioecious, are in axillary cymes, fascicles or umbellules, and have a persistent four- to five-lobed calyx, a white, rotate four- or rarely five- or six-cleft corolla, with the four or five stamens adherent to its base in the male, sometimes hypogynous in the female flowers, and a two- to twelve-celled ovary; the fruit is a globose, very seldom ovoid, and usually red drupe, containing two to sixteen one-seeded stones.
1. Flower with abortive stamens.
2. Flower with abortive pistil.
3. Floral diagram showing arrangement of parts in horizontal section.
4. Fruit.
5. Fruit cut transversely showing the four one-seeded stones.
The common holly, or Hulver (apparently theκήλαστροςof Theophrastus;1Ang.-Sax.holenorholegn; Mid. Eng.holynorholin, whenceholmandholmtree;2Welsh,celyn; Ger.Stechpalme,Hulse,Hulst; O. Fr.houx; and Fr.houlx),3I. Aquifolium, is an evergreen shrub or low tree, having smooth, ash-coloured bark, and wavy, pointed, smooth and glossy leaves, 2 to 3 in. long, with a spinous margin, raised and cartilaginous below, or, as commonly on the upper branches of the older trees, entire—apeculiarity alluded to by Southey in his poemThe Holly Tree. The flowers, which appear in May, are ordinarily dioecious, as in all the best of the cultivated varieties in nurseries (Gard. Chron., 1877, i. 149). Darwin (Diff. Forms of Flow., 1877, p. 297) says of the holly: “During several years I have examined many plants, but have never found one that was really hermaphrodite.” Shirley Hibberd, however (Gard. Chron., 1877, ii. 777), mentions the occurrence of “flowers bearing globose anthers well furnished with pollen, and also perfect ovaries.” In his opinion,I. Aquifoliumchanges its sex from male to female with age. In the female flowers the stamens are destitute of pollen, though but slightly or not at all shorter than in the male flowers; the latter are more numerous than the female, and have a smaller ovary and a larger corolla, to which the filaments adhere for a greater length. The corolla in male plants falls off entire, whereas in fruit-bearers it is broken into separate segments by the swelling of the young ovary. The holly occurs in Britain, north-east Scotland excepted, and in western and southern Europe, from as high as 62° N. lat. in Norway to Turkey and the Caucasus and in western Asia. It is found generally in forest glades or in hedges, and does not flourish under the shade of other trees. In England it is usually small, probably on account of its destruction for timber, but it may attain to 60 or 70 ft. in height, and Loudon mentions one tree at Claremont, in Surrey, of 80 ft. Some of the trees on Bleak Hill, Shropshire, are asserted to be 14 ft. in girth at some distance from the ground (N. and Q., 5th ser., xii. 508). The holly is abundant in France, especially in Brittany. It will grow in almost any soil not absolutely wet, but flourishes best in rather dry than moist sandy loam. Beckmann (Hist. of Invent., 1846, i. 193) says that the plant which first induced J. di Castro to search for alum in Italy was the holly, which is there still considered to indicate that its habitat is aluminiferous. The holly is propagated by means of the seeds, which do not normally germinate until their second year, by whip-grafting and budding, and by cuttings of the matured summer shoots, which, placed in sandy soil and kept under cover of a hand-glass in sheltered situations, generally strike root in spring. Transplantation should be performed in damp weather in September and October, or, according to some writers, in spring or on mild days in winter, and care should be taken that the roots are not dried by exposure to the air. It is rarely injured by frosts in Britain, where its foliage and bright red berries in winter render it a valuable ornamental tree. The yield of berries has been noticed to be less when a warm spring, following on a wet winter season, has promoted excess of growth. There are numerous varieties of the holly. Some trees have yellow, and others white or even black fruit. In the fruitless varietylaurifolia, “the most floriferous of all hollies” (Hibberd), the flowers are highly fragrant; the form known asfeminais, on the other hand, remarkable for the number of its berries. The leaves in the unarmed varietiesaureo-marginataandalbo-marginataare of great beauty, and inferoxthey are studded with sharp prickles. The holly is of importance as a hedge-plant, and is patient of clipping, which is best performed by the knife. Evelyn’s holly hedge at Say’s Court, Deptford, was 400 ft. long, 9 ft. high and 5 ft. in breadth. To form fences, for which Evelyn recommends the employment of seedlings from woods, the plants should be 9 to 12 in. in height, with plenty of small fibrous roots, and require to be set 1 to 1½ ft. apart, in well-manured and weeded ground and thoroughly watered.
The wood of the holly is even-grained and hard, especially when from the heartwood of large trees, and almost as white as ivory, except near the centre of old trunks, where it is brownish. It is employed in inlaying and turning, and, since it stains well, in the place of ebony, as for teapot handles. For engraving it is inferior to box. When dry it weighs about 47½ ℔ per cub. ft. From the bark of the holly bird-lime is manufactured. From the leaves are obtainable a colouring matter namedilixanthin,ilicic acid, and a bitter principle,ilicin, which has been variously described by different analytical chemists. They are eaten by sheep and deer, and in parts of France serve as a winter fodder for cattle. The berries provoke in man violent vomiting and purging, but are eaten with immunity by thrushes and other birds. The larvae of the mothsSphinx ligustriandPhoxopteryx naevanahave been met with on holly. The leaves are mined by the larva of a fly,Phytomyza ilicis, and both on them and the tops of the young twigs occurs the plant-louseAphis ilicis(Kaltenbach,Pflanzenfeinde, 1874, p. 427). The custom of employing holly and other plants for decorative purposes at Christmas is one of considerable antiquity, and has been regarded as a survival of the usages of the Roman Saturnalia, or of an old Teutonic practice of hanging the interior of dwellings with evergreens as a refuge for sylvan spirits from the inclemency of winter. A Border proverb defines an habitual story-teller as one that “lees never but when the hollen is green.” Several popular superstitions exist with respect to holly. In the county of Rutland it is deemed unlucky to introduce it into a house before Christmas Eve. In some English rural districts the prickly and non-prickly kinds are distinguished as “he” and “she” holly; and in Derbyshire the tradition obtains that according as the holly brought at Christmas into a house is smooth or rough, the wife or the husband will be master. Holly that has adorned churches at that season is in Worcestershire and Herefordshire much esteemed and cherished, the possession of a small branch with berries being supposed to bring a lucky year; and Lonicerus mentions a notion in his time vulgarly prevalent in Germany that consecrated twigs of the plant hung over a door are a protection against thunder.
Among the North American species ofIlexareI. opaca, which resembles the European tree, the Inkberry,I.(Prinos)glabra, and the American Black Alder, or Winterberry,I.(Prinos)verticillata. Hooker (Fl. of Brit. India, i. 598, 606) enumerates twenty-four Indian species ofIlex. The JapaneseI. crenata, andI. latifolia, a remarkably hardy plant, and the North AmericanI. Cassine, are among the species cultivated in Britain. The leaves of several species ofIlexare used by dyers. The member of the genus most important economically isI. paraguariensis, the prepared leaves of which constitute Paraguay tea, orMaté(q.v.). Knee holly isRuscus aculeatus, or butcher’s broom (seeBroom); sea holly,Eryngium maritimum, an umbelliferous plant; and the mountain holly of America,Nemopanthes canadensis, also a member of the order Ilicineae.Besides the works above mentioned, see Louden,Arboretum, ii. 506 (1844).
Among the North American species ofIlexareI. opaca, which resembles the European tree, the Inkberry,I.(Prinos)glabra, and the American Black Alder, or Winterberry,I.(Prinos)verticillata. Hooker (Fl. of Brit. India, i. 598, 606) enumerates twenty-four Indian species ofIlex. The JapaneseI. crenata, andI. latifolia, a remarkably hardy plant, and the North AmericanI. Cassine, are among the species cultivated in Britain. The leaves of several species ofIlexare used by dyers. The member of the genus most important economically isI. paraguariensis, the prepared leaves of which constitute Paraguay tea, orMaté(q.v.). Knee holly isRuscus aculeatus, or butcher’s broom (seeBroom); sea holly,Eryngium maritimum, an umbelliferous plant; and the mountain holly of America,Nemopanthes canadensis, also a member of the order Ilicineae.
Besides the works above mentioned, see Louden,Arboretum, ii. 506 (1844).
1Hist. Plant.i. 9. 3, iii. 3. 1, and 4. 6,et passim. On theaquifoliumoraquifoliaof Latin authors, commonly regarded as the holly, see A. de Grandsagne,Hist. Nat. de Pline, bk. xvi., “Notes,” pp. 199, 206.2The term “holm,” as indicative of a prevalence of holly, is stated to have entered into the names of several places in Britain. From its superficial resemblance to the holly, the treeQuercus Ilex, the evergreen oak, received the appellation of “holm-oak.”3Skeat (Etymolog. Dict., 1879) with reference to the word holly remarks: “The form of the baseKul(= TeutonicHul) is probably connected with Lat.culmen, a peak,culmus, a stalk; perhaps because the leaves are ‘pointed.’” Grimm (Deut. Wörterb.Bd. iv.) suggests that the termHulst, as the O.H.G.Hulis, applied to the butcher’s broom, or knee-holly, in the earliest times used for hedges, may have reference to the holly as a protecting (hüllender) plant.
1Hist. Plant.i. 9. 3, iii. 3. 1, and 4. 6,et passim. On theaquifoliumoraquifoliaof Latin authors, commonly regarded as the holly, see A. de Grandsagne,Hist. Nat. de Pline, bk. xvi., “Notes,” pp. 199, 206.
2The term “holm,” as indicative of a prevalence of holly, is stated to have entered into the names of several places in Britain. From its superficial resemblance to the holly, the treeQuercus Ilex, the evergreen oak, received the appellation of “holm-oak.”
3Skeat (Etymolog. Dict., 1879) with reference to the word holly remarks: “The form of the baseKul(= TeutonicHul) is probably connected with Lat.culmen, a peak,culmus, a stalk; perhaps because the leaves are ‘pointed.’” Grimm (Deut. Wörterb.Bd. iv.) suggests that the termHulst, as the O.H.G.Hulis, applied to the butcher’s broom, or knee-holly, in the earliest times used for hedges, may have reference to the holly as a protecting (hüllender) plant.
HOLLYHOCK(from M.E.holi—doubtless because brought from the Holy Land, where it is indigenous (Wedg.)—and A.-S.hoc, a mallow),Althaea rosea, a perennial plant of the natural orderMalvaceae, a native of the East, which has been cultivated in Great Britain for about three centuries. The ordinary hollyhock is single-blossomed, but the florists’ varieties have all double flowers, of white, yellow, rose, purple, violet and other tints, some being almost black. The plant is in its prime about August, but by careful management examples may be obtained in blossom from July to as late as November. Hollyhocks are propagated from seed, or by division of the root, or by planting out in rich sandy soil, in a close frame, with a gentle bottom heat, single eyes from woodshoots, or cuttings from outgrowths of the old stock or of the lateral offsets of the spike. The seed may be sown in October under cover, the plants obtained being potted in November, and kept under glass till the following April, or, if it be late-gathered, in May or June, in the open ground, whence, if required, the plants are best removed in October or April. In many gardens, when the plants are not disturbed, self-sown seedlings come up in abundance about April and May. Seedlings may also be raised in February or March, by the aid of a gentle heat, in a light and rich moist soil; they should not be watered till they have made their second leaves, and when large enough for handling should be pricked off in a cold frame; they are subsequently transferred to the flower-bed. Hollyhocks thrive best in a well-trenched and manured sandy loam. The spikes as they grow must be staked; and water and, for the finest blossoms, liquid manure should be liberally supplied to the roots. Plants for exhibition require the side growths to be pinched out; and it is recommended, in cold, bleak or northerly localities, when the flowering is over, and the stalks have been cut off 4 to 6 in. above the soil, to earth up the crowns with sand. Some of the finest double-flowered kinds of hollyhock do not bloom well in Scotland. The plant is susceptible of great modification under cultivation. The forms now grown are due to the careful selection and crossing of varieties. It is found that the most diverse varieties may be raised with certainty from plants growing near together.
The young shoots of the hollyhock are very liable to the attacks of slugs, and to a disease occasioned by a fungus,Puccinia malvacearum, which is a native of Chile, attained notoriety in the Australian colonies, and finally, reaching Europe in 1869, threatened the extermination of the hollyhock, the soft parts of the leaves of which it destroys, leaving the venation only remaining. It has been found especially hurtful to the plant in dry seasons. It is also parasitic on the wild mallows. The disease appears on the leaves as minute hard pale-brown pustules, filled with spores which germinate without a resting-period, but when produced late in the season may last as resting-spores until next spring. Spraying early in the season with Bordeaux mixture is an effective preventive, but the best means of treatment is to destroy all leaves as soon as they show signs of being attacked, and to prevent the growth of other host-plants such as mallows, in the neighbourhood. In hot dry seasons, red-spider injures the foliage very much, but may be kept at bay by syringing the plants frequently with plenty of clean water.
HOLLY SPRINGS,a city and the county-seat of Marshall county, Mississippi, U.S.A., in the N. part of the state, 45 m. S.E. of Memphis. Pop. (1890) 2246; (1900) 2815 (1559 negroes); (1910) 2192. Holly Springs is served by the Illinois Central and the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham (Frisco System) railways. The city has broad and well-shaded streets, and a fine court-house and court-house square. It is the seat of Rust University (opened in 1867), a Methodist Episcopal institution for negroes; of the Mississippi Synodical College (1905; Presbyterian), for white girls; and of the North Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station. The principal industries are the ginning, compressing and shipping of cotton, and the manufacture of cotton-seed oil, but the city also manufactures pottery and brick from clay obtained in the vicinity, and has an ice factory, bottling works and marble works. The municipality owns and operates its water-works and electric-lighting plant. Holly Springs was founded in 1837 and was chartered as a city in 1896. Early in December 1862 General Grant established here a large depot of supplies designed for the use of the Federal army while on its march toward Vicksburg, but General Earl Van Dorn, with a brigade of cavalry, surprised the post at daylight on the 20th of this month, burned the supplies and took 1500 prisoners. Holly Springs was the home and is the burial-place of Edward Cary Walthall (1831-1898), a Democratic member of the United States Senate in 1885-1894 and in 1895-1898.
HOLMAN, JAMES(1786-1857), known as the “Blind Traveller,” was born at Exeter on the 15th of October 1786. He entered the British navy in 1798 as first-class volunteer, and was appointed lieutenant in April 1807. In 1810 he was invalided by an illness which resulted in total loss of sight. In consideration of his helpless circumstances he was in 1812 appointed one of the royal knights of Windsor, but the quietness of such a life harmonized so ill with his active habits and keen interests that he requested leave of absence to go abroad, and in 1819, 1820 and 1821 journeyed through France, Italy, Switzerland, the parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine, Belgium and the Netherlands. On his return he publishedThe Narrative of a Journey through France, &c. (London, 1822). He again set out in 1822 with the design of making the circuit of the world, but after travelling through Russia into Siberia, he was suspected of being a spy, was arrested when he had managed to penetrate 1000 m. beyond Smolensk, and after being conducted to the frontiers of Poland, returned home by Austria, Saxony, Prussia and Hanover. He now issuedTravels through Russia, Siberia, &c. (London, 1825). Shortly afterwards he again set out to accomplish by a somewhat different method the design which had been frustrated by the Russian authorities; and an account of his remarkable achievement was published in four volumes in 1834-1835, under the title ofA Voyage round the World, including Travels in Africa, Asia, Australasia, America, &c., from 1827 to 1832. His last journeys were through Spain, Portugal, Moldavia, Montenegro, Syria and Turkey; and he was engaged in preparing an account of this tour when he died in London on the 29th of July 1857.
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL(1809-1894), American writer and physician, was born on the 29th of August 1809 at Cambridge, Mass. His father, Abiel Holmes (1763-1837), was a Calvinist clergyman, the writer of a useful history,Annals of America, and of much very dull poetry. His mother (the second wife of Abiel) was Sarah Wendell, of a distinguished New York family. Through her Dr Holmes was descended from Governors Thomas Dudley and Simon Bradstreet of Massachusetts, and from her he derived his cheerfulness and vivacity, his sympathetic humour and wit. From Phillips (Andover) Academy he entered Harvard in the “famous class of ’29,” made further illustrious by the charming lyrics which he wrote for the anniversary dinners from 1851 to 1889, closing with the touching “After the Curfew.” After graduation he studied law perfunctorily for a year and dabbled in literature, winning the public ear by a spirited lyric called forth by the order to destroy the old frigateConstitution. These verses were sung all over the land, and induced the Navy Department to revoke its order and save the old ship. Turning next to medicine, and convinced by a brief experience in Boston that he liked it, he went to Paris in March 1833. He studied industriously under Louis and other famous physicians and surgeons in France, and in his vacations visited the Low Countries, England, Scotland and Italy. Returning to Boston at the close of 1835, filled with a high professional ambition, he sought practice, but achieved only moderate success. Social, brilliant in conversation, and a writer of gay little poems, he seemed to the grave Bostonians not sufficiently serious. He won prizes, however, for professional papers, and lectured on anatomy at Dartmouth College. He wrote two papers on homoeopathy, which he attacked with trenchant wit; also a valuable paper on the malarial fevers of New England. In 1843 he published his essay on theContagiousness of Puerperal Fever, which stirred up a fierce controversy and brought upon him bitter personal abuse; but he maintained his position with dignity, temper and judgment; and in time he was honouredas the discoverer of a beneficent truth. The volume of his medical essays holds some of his most sparkling wit, his shrewdest observation, his kindliest humanity. In 1840 he married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of the Hon. Charles Jackson (1775-1855), formerly associate justice of the State supreme judicial court, a lady of rare charm alike of mind and character. She died in the winter of 1887-1888. Their first-born child, Oliver Wendell Holmes, afterwards became chief justice of that same bench on which his grandfather sat. In 1847 Dr Holmes was appointed professor of anatomy and physiology In the Medical School of Harvard University, the duties involving the giving of instruction also in kindred departments, so that, as he said, he occupied “not a chair, but a settee in the school.” He delivered the anatomical lectures until November 1882, and in later years these were his only link with the medical profession. They were fresh, witty and lively; and the students were sent to him at the end of the day, when they were fagged, because he alone could keep them awake. In later years he made few finished contributions to medical knowledge; his eager and impetuous temperament caused him to leave more patient investigators to push to ultimate results the suggestions thrown out by his fertile and imaginative mind.
In 1836, being in that year the Phi Beta Kappa poet at Harvard University, he published his first volume ofPoems, which afterwards reached a second edition. Among these earlier lyrics was “The Last Leaf,” one of the most delicate combinations of pathos and humour in literature. His collected poetry fills three volumes. In 1856-1857 a Boston publishing house (Phillips, Sampson, and Co.) invited James Russell Lowell to edit a new magazine, which he agreed to do on condition that he could secure the assistance of Dr Holmes. By this urgent invitation the Doctor was equally surprised and flattered, for heretofore he had stood rather outside the literary coterie of Cambridge and Boston. He accepted with pleasure, and at once threw himself into the enterprise with zeal. He christened itThe Atlantic Monthly; and, as Mr Howells afterwards said, he “not only named but made” it, for in each number of its first volume there appeared one of the papers of theAutocrat of the Breakfast Table. The opening of theAutocrat—“I was just going to say when I was interrupted”—is explained by the fact that in the oldNew England Magazine(1831 to 1833) the Doctor had published twoAutocratpapers, which, by his wish, have never been reprinted. In the commercial panic of 1857 the new magazine would inevitably have failed had it not been for these fascinating essays. Their originality of conception, their wit and humour, their suggestions of what then seemed bold ideas, and their expression of New Englandism, all combined to make them so popular that the most harassed merchant in that gloomy winter purchased them as a dose of cheering medicine. Thus Dr Holmes madeThe Atlantic Monthly, which in return made him. A success so immediate and so splendid settled the rest of his career; he ceased to be a physician and became an author. These twelve papers were immediately (1858) published as a volume. No sooner was theAutocratsilent than theProfessor(1859) succeeded him at the breakfast table. TheProfessorwas preferred by more thoughtful readers, though it has hardly been so widely popular as theAutocrat. Its theology, which seemed in those days audacious, frightened many of the strict and old-fashioned religionists of New England, though to-day it seems mild enough. Twelve years later, in 1871, the Landlady had another boarder, who took the vacant chair—thePoet(published 1872). But here Holmes fell a little short. In these three books, especially in theAutocratand theProfessor, the Doctor wrote as he talked at many a dinner table in Boston, but less well. The animation and clash of talk roused him. The dinners of the Saturday Club are among Boston’s proudest traditions, as they were the chief pleasure of Dr Holmes’s life. There he met Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Sumner, Agassiz, Motley, and many other charming talkers, and among them all he was admitted to be the best.
There were characters and incidents, but hardly a story, in theAutocratand theProfessor. Holmes had an ambition for more sustained work, and in 1861 his novel,Elsie Venner, at first calledThe Professor’s Story, was published. The book was illuminated throughout by admirable pictures of character and society in the typical New England town. But the rattlesnake element was unduly extravagant, and in other respects the book was open to criticism as a work of art. It was written with the same purpose which informed the greatest part of the Doctor’s literary work, and which had already been scented and nervously condemned by the religious world. By heredity the Doctor was a theologian; no other topic enchained him more than did the stern and merciless dogmas of his Calvinist forefathers. His humanity revolted against them, his reason condemned them, and he set himself to their destruction as his task in literature. The religious world of his time was still so largely under the control of old ideas that he was assailed as a freethinker and a subverter of Christianity; though before his death opinions had so changed that the bitterness of the attacks upon him seemed incredible, even to some of those who had most vehemently made them. None the less, undaunted and profoundly earnest, he returned, six years later, to the same line of thought in his second novel,The Guardian Angel(published 1867). This, though less well known thanElsie Venner, is in many respects better. No more lifelike and charming picture of the society of the New England country-town of the middle third of the 19th century has ever been drawn, and every page sparkles with wit and humour. In 1884 and 1885 it was followed, still in the same line, byA Mortal Antipathy, a production inferior to its predecessors.
Holmes generally held himself aloof from politics, and from those “causes” of temperance, abolition and woman’s rights which enthralled most of his contemporaries in New England. The Civil War, however, aroused him for the time; finding him first a strenuous Unionist, it quickly converted him into an ardent advocate of emancipation. His interest was enhanced by the career of his elder son Oliver (see below), who was three times severely wounded, and finally rose to the rank of lieut.-colonel in the Northern army. He wrote some ringing war lyrics, and in 1863 delivered the Fourth of July oration in Boston, which showed a masterly appreciation of the stirring public questions of the day. In 1878 Dr Holmes wrote a memoir of the historian John Lothrop Motley, an affectionate tribute to one who had been his dear friend. In 1884 he contributed the life of Emerson to the American “Men of Letters” series. He admired the “Sage of Concord,” but was not quite in intellectual sympathy with him. Both were Liberals in thought, but in widely different ways. But in spite of this handicap the volume proved very popular. In 1888 he began the papers which he happily christenedOver the Tea Cups. As atour de forceon the part of a man of nearly fourscore years they are very remarkable.
After his return from Paris in 1835 Dr Holmes lived in Boston, with summer sojournings at Pittsfield and Beverly Farms, and occasional trips to neighbouring cities, until 1886. He then undertook a four months’ journey in Europe, and in England had a sort of triumphal progress. On his return he wroteOur Hundred Days in Europe(1887), a courteous recognition of the hospitality and praise which had been accorded to him. During this visit Cambridge University made him Doctor of Letters, Edinburgh University made him Doctor of Laws, and Oxford University made him Doctor of Civil Law. Already, in 1880, Harvard University had made him Doctor of Laws. He died on the 7th of October 1894, and was buried from King’s Chapel, Boston, in the cemetery of Mount Auburn.
His eldest son Oliver Wendell (b. 1841), who graduated from Harvard in 1861 and fought in the Civil War, retiring from the army as brevet lieut.-colonel in 1864, took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar in Boston in 1866. He was for some years editor of theAmerican Law Review, and after being professor in the Harvard Law School in 1882 was appointed in the same year a judge of the Massachusetts supreme court, rising to be chief justice in 1899. In 1902 he was made a judge of the United States Supreme Court. His work onThe Common Law(1881) and his edition (1873) of Kent’sCommentariesare his principal publications; and he became widely recognized as one of the great jurists of his day.