Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/137

 administration of New York city. In 1867 he was elected registrar of the county of New York by a coalition of republicans and democrats. Incessant labour brought on insomnia. He had recourse to opiates, and his death in New York city on 3 Aug. 1868 was caused by an undiluted dose of chloroform. Besides the books above mentioned he was the author of ‘Lyrics by the Letter H,’ 1854.

[The Poetical Works of Charles G. Halpine, ed. by R. B. Roosevelt, 1869, with portrait; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1887, iii. 53; Matthew Hale Smith's Sunshine and Shade in New York, 1868, pp. 659–61.]  HALPIN, NICHOLAS JOHN (1790–1850), miscellaneous writer, was born 18 Oct. 1790 at Portarlington. After a distinguished career at Dublin University, where he proceeded B.A. in 1815, he took orders in the Irish church, but devoted himself largely to literary pursuits, and was for many years editor of the ‘Evening Mail,’ the chief protestant paper of Dublin. He was a permanent member of the Royal Irish Academy. He died at Dublin 22 Nov. 1850. He married in 1817 Anne Grehan, who, together with three sons and four daughters, survived him; of the former, Charles Graham is noticed separately.

Halpin wrote: 1. ‘An University Prize Poem, on His Majesty King George the Third having completed the Fiftieth Year of his Reign,’ Dublin, 1811. 2. ‘Tithes no Tax,’ Dublin, 1823. 3. ‘Authentic Report of the Speeches and Proceedings of the Meeting held at Cavan 26 January 1827, for the purpose of forming a Society for Promoting the Reformation, to which are added Notes and Appendix,’ edited Dublin, 1827. 4. ‘The Impossibility of Transubstantiation.’ 5. ‘No Chimæra, or the Lay Reformation in Ireland,’ Dublin, 1828. 6. ‘Oberon's Vision in the “Midsummer Night's Dream,” illustrated by a comparison with Lylie's “Endymion,”’ London, Shakespeare Society, 1843, an attempt to prove that Shakespeare was covertly referring to current events connected with Queen Elizabeth and Leicester. 7. ‘Bridal Runaway, an Essay on Juliet's Soliloquy,’ London, Shakespeare Society, 1845. 8. ‘The Dramatic Unities of Shakespeare, in a Letter addressed to the editor of “Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,”’ Dublin, 1849. 9. ‘Observations on Certain Passages in the Life of Edmund Spenser,’ Dublin, 1850.

[Gent. Mag. August 1851, p. 212; Cat. of Dublin Graduates.]   HALS, WILLIAM (1655–1737?), compiler of the ‘History of Cornwall,’ was born at Tresawen, Merther, in 1655. He was the second son of James Hals of Fentongollan and Anne, daughter of John Martin of Hurston, Devonshire. James Hals was son of Sir Nicholas Halse [q. v.], and served at La Rochelle in 1628, and afterwards in the West Indies, where, according to his son, he was governor of Montserrat; during the civil war he sided with the parliament. When living at Fentongollan in St. Michael Penkivel, Hals began about 1685 to make collections for a ‘Parochial History of Cornwall,’ which he continued for half a century, bringing it down to 1736. He died in 1737 or 1739 at Tregury, St. Wenn, of which he owned the rectorial tithes, having nearly completed the work. He married thrice, his wives belonging respectively to the families of Evans of Landrini in Wales, Carveth of Pewansand, and Courtney of Tremeer, but he had no issue (Parochial Hist. of Cornwall, 1870, iii. 323–6).

About 1750 Andrew Brice of Exeter [q. v.] published in ten folio numbers Hals's ‘Complete History of Cornwall, Part II being the Parochial History,’ containing accounts of seventy-two parishes, Advent to Helston. The first part was never published. Hence there is no general title-page. On the printed wrapper of the first number of the published second part it is stated that the work was to have been completed in one volume of two hundred sheets, to be delivered in weekly 6d. numbers of four sheets each; the second part was commenced first, ‘not only because the proper necessaries for the first part are not yet completed, but as considerable additions are preparing by a very great hand.’ It is believed that the scurrilous details inserted by Hals caused a discontinuance of the publication. Hals's incomplete ‘History’ is very rare. The most complete copy is in the Grenville Library at the British Museum. A note in that copy states that at Lysons's sale in 1828 his copy with manuscript additions was sold to the Earl of Aylesbury for 108l. (168l. and, i. 204). The ‘Parochial History of Cornwall’ [see ] was founded upon the collections of Hals, with additional collections by Thomas Tonkins. Hals's digressions and gossip are chiefly omitted. The manuscripts of Hals's ‘History’ passed through various hands, and belonged at one time to Dr. Whitaker. They were given by Whitaker's daughter, Mrs. Taunton, to H. S. Stokes of Bodmin, Cornwall. Mr. Stokes transferred them to Sir John Macleane, from whom they were acquired in 1875 for the British Museum (Addit. MS. 29762). The British Museum possesses other manuscripts by Hals, viz.: (1) ‘The History of St. Michael's Mount;’ 