Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/197

 HALEVY

HAMILTON

HALEYY, Ludovic (son of Leon), French dramatist. B. Jan. 1, 1834. Ed. Lycee Louis le Grand. He was in the Ministry for Algiers 1858-65, then a reporter in the Legislative Assembly. His operettas and comedies gaining considerable favour, he quitted the Civil Service and devoted himself entirely to the stage. Halevy was a most prolific and successful writer of comedies and comic operas. After 1880 he turned to fiction, and wrote several brilliant novels. Very quiet and refined in person, his work shows complete inde pendence of either Christian or Jewish standards. He was admitted to the Academy in 1886. Mr. Bodley considers that his death made &quot;the greatest gap in the French world of letters since that of Dumas fils&quot; (Athenceum, May 16, 1908). D. May 8, 1908.

HALL, John Carey, C.M.G., I.S.O., Positivist. B. Jan. 22, 1844. Ed. Coleraine Academical Institution and Queen s College, Belfast. Entering the consular service in Japan in 1868, he became Acting Vice- Consul at Yedo in 1869, Assistant Japanese Secretary to the Legation at Tokyo in 1882, Acting Japanese Secretary in 1884, Acting Assistant-Judge of the Supreme Court at Shanghai in 1888, and Consul-General at Yokohama in 1902 (to 1914). Mr. Hall has written on China and Japan, and was one of the founders of the China Society. He is a member of the Positivist Church, and contributes occasionally to the Positivist Review. He is also a member of the E. P. A.

HALLEY,Edmund,M.A.,F.E.S.,D.C.L.,

astronomer. B. Nov. 8, 1656. Ed. St. Paul s School and Oxford (Queen s Coll.). He began to study astronomy at school, and at the age of nineteen submitted a paper to the Eoyal Society. In 1676 he went to St. Helena to study the southern stars, of which he published a catalogue. He was admitted to the Eoyal Society at the early age of twenty-two, and, though a poor man, he greatly assisted Newton, 321

financially and personally, in bringing out his Principia. In 1691 he was refused the Savilian professorship at Oxford on the express ground of his Eationalist opinions, but he secured it in 1703, and was one of the most industrious and illustrious occupants of the chair. He edited the Philosophical Transactions, and was in 1713 appointed Secretary of the Eoyal Society. Chalmers quaintly observes in his Biographical Dictionary : &quot; That ho was an infidel in religious matters seems as generally allowed as it appears un accountable.&quot; He wrote nothing about religion. D. Jan. 14, 1741.

HAMERLING, Robert, Austrian poet and novelist. B. Mar. 24, 1830. Ed. Vienna Gymnasium. He became a teacher at his school, and devoted himself to study ing philology and philosophy. In 1855 he went to teach at Trieste, but he retired in 1866, to give all his time to poetry and letters. His Ahasver in Bom (1866), Der Kdnig von Sion (1869), and Aspasia (3 vols., 1876), all Eationalistic in sentiment, had an immense circulation, and were translated into several languages. He was one of the chief Austrian writers of the century. D. July 13, 1889.

HAMERTON, Philip Gilbert, artist and

writer. B. Sep. 10, 1834. Ed. Burnley and Doncaster Grammar Schools. He refused to go to Oxford because he would not sign the Thirty-nine Articles, and took to painting and writing. As etcher, novelist, and writer on art he had considerable success, and he was joint founder of the Portfolio (1869). In his posthumously published Autobiography (1897) he avows his Eationalism, though he thought that true liberation &quot; from theology would come by acquiring knowledge rather than by controversy. D. Nov. 4, 1894.

HAMILTON, Lord Ernest William,

writer. B. 1858. Ed. Harrow and Sand hurst. Son of the first Duke of Abercorn, he took a commission in the llth Hussars, 322 N