Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/306

 is mentioned by Tanner (Bibl. Brit. ed. 1748, p. 386); it is dated 1326, but no details of its author's biography are known. Handlo's 'Regulæ' are valuable, not only as throwing light upon the harmonic system of Franco, but also as preserving the names of several early composers who are not quoted elsewhere.  HANDYSIDE, WILLIAM (1793–1850), engineer, was born in Edinburgh in 1793, and, after being apprentice for two years in an architect's office, accompanied his uncle, Mr. Baird, to St. Petersburg, where the latter had already an established reputation in engineering. Handyside speedily evinced special talent in the same direction, and was employed by the Russian government in important public works of various kinds. He designed the machinery for the imperial arsenal and the imperial glass-works, built many bridges and steam-vessels of all sizes, stationary engines suited to numberless different manufactories in all cases giving the details of the machinery, and superintending its execution. In 1824 he built four suspension bridges, and contrived an ingenious and most satisfactory machine for testing the strength of the links which support the roadways. His greatest monument as an engineer is the stone and metal work which he executed for the cathedral of St. Isaac in St. Petersburg, including a colonnade of forty-eight granite pillars, each of eight feet diameter and fifty-six feet high, and a circle of thirty-six monolithic pillars (each forty-two feet high), raised two hundred feet above the ground, and surmounted by an iron dome of 130 feet diameter. The column erected in memory of the Emperor Alexander, said to be the largest in the world, was raised to its position on a basement thirty feet high in twenty-five minutes, a feat in engineering which is probably even now unexampled. Handyside's great energy was overtasked in Russia, and when visiting his native town in 1850, he died there on 26 May.  HANGER, GEORGE, fourth (1751?–1824), was the youngest son of Gabriel Hanger, created Baron Coleraine in the peerage of Ireland on 26 Feb. 1762, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Richard Bond of Cowbury, Herefordshire. He was educated at Eton and Göttingen, and on 31 Jan. 1771 was gazetted an ensign in the 1st regiment of foot guards, In disgust at a promotion being made over his head, Hanger left the guards in February 1776, and, being appointed by the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel captain in the Hessian Jager corps, sailed for America, where he served throughout the war. During the siege of Charlestown he acted as aide-de-camp to Sir Henry Clinton. He was wounded in an action at Charlottetown, North Carolina, in September 1780, and was appointed major in Tarleton's light dragoons on 25 Dec: 1782. This regiment was disbanded in the following year, and Hanger was placed on half-pay. Owing to the embarrassment of his affairs Hanger was an inmate of the King's Bench prison from 2 June 1798 to April 1799, and in 1800 set up as a coal merchant. In 1801 William Combe [q. v.] compiled from Hanger's papers and suggestions 'The Life, Adventures, and Opinions of Colonel George Hanger, written by himself,' &c. (London, 8vo, 2 vols.) On the second page of this unsavoury book is a portrait of Hanger, with cocked hat and sword, suspended on a gibbet. Hanger's curiously accurate prophecy that 'one of these days the northern and southern powers [of the States] will fight as vigorously against each other as they both have united to do against the British,' will be found in the second volume (pp. 425-9). On 7 July 1806 he was appointed captain commissary of the corps of royal artillery drivers, but retired in March 1808 on full pay. In June 1810 he appears to have formed one of the procession assembled to escort Sir Francis Burdett upon his release from the Tower (Gent. Mag. vol. lxxx. pt. i. p. 584). On the death of his brother William, the third lord, on 11 Dec. 1814, the barony of Coleraine descended to Hanger, but he refused to assume the title. Hanger was a well-known figure in fashionable society, where he was famous for his many eccentricities. For several years he was one of the boon companions of the prince regent, 'but as the prince advanced in life the eccentric manners of the colonel became somewhat too free and coarse for the royal taste' (ib. vol. xciv. pt. i. p. 458). Hanger died unmarried at his house near Regent's Park on 31 March 1824, aged 73 when the barony of Coleraine became extinct. There is a caricature portrait of Hanger in a large cartoon by George Cruikshank issued with 'The Scourge' for 2 Nov. 1812. There are also several caricatures of him by Gillray ( and, Account of Gillray's Caricatures, 1851, Nos. 32, 42, 257, 262, 323, 423, 426, 437, 463, 523).

He was the author of the following works : 1. 'An Address to the Army, in reply to- 