Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/370

Hiffernan renamed the piece ‘The Heroine of the Cave,’ and it was acted at Reddish's benefit at Drury Lane on 19 March 1774, and again at Covent Garden 22 March 1784 (ib. p. 405).

Hiffernan soon sank into a mere hackney writer. His ‘Miscellanies in Prose and Verse,’ 4to, dedicated to Lord Tyrawley, appeared in 1760. They include some readable pieces, the best being ‘a genealogical account of humbugging.’ Among the translations he executed was that of a work on the ‘Origin and Progress of Despotism,’ 1764, 8vo, professedly printed at Amsterdam, and soon suppressed. In 1770 he dedicated to Garrick his ‘Dramatic Genius,’ the first book of which details a scheme for a permanent temple, in the classic taste, to the memory of Shakespeare. On the strength of this production, Garrick raised a subscription for him amounting to over 120l. His ‘Philosophic Whim; or, Astronomy a Farce,’ 1774, 4to, full of grotesque expressions, he hawked about among his friends at the rate of half-a-crown or half-a-guinea as opportunity served. According to Professor Masson, he has the merit of inventing the word ‘impecuniosity.’ Among his expedients for raising money was a pretence of coaching candidates for the stage, on the terms of a guinea as entrance fee, another for instruction, and two guineas on engagement. He got his friends to subscribe their guineas for a course of three lectures on anatomy, to be delivered at the Percy Coffee-house. At the time appointed for the first lecture four persons were present, one being Dr. Kennedy, physician to the Prince of Wales. After waiting an hour, Hiffernan began his lecture, and was proceeding to describe ‘the bread-basketry of the human frame,’ when his audience declared themselves sufficiently amused; he ‘ordered up some coffee, which he left them to pay for,’ and promised to dine with them later on. Though he discarded every conventionality, and reviled his best friends if he were unsuccessful in sponging upon them, he had social qualities which made them kind to his faults. He kept his lodging a secret, which, even in his last illness, no stratagem could penetrate; he was to be heard of ‘at the Bedford Coffee-house.’ He died of jaundice, in a small court off St. Martin's Lane, about the beginning of June 1777. In person he was short, thick-set, and ruddy.

His published plays are: 1. ‘The Self-enamoured; or the Ladies' Doctor,’ &c., Dublin, 1750, 12mo. 2. ‘The Lady's Choice,’ &c., 1759, 8vo. 3. ‘The Earl of Warwick, the King and Subject, a tragedy,’ &c., 1764, 1767, 8vo (adapted from J. F. La Harpe's ‘Comte de Warwick’). Thomas Francklin [q. v.] produced another translation of the same play in 1766, and Hiffernan and his friends charged Francklin with plagiarism (cf. Letter from Rope-Dancing Monkey, Lond., 1767). 4. ‘The Heroine of the Cave,’ &c., 1775, 8vo. Besides other publications mentioned above, Hiffernan wrote: 5. ‘Remarks on an Ode [by W. Dunkin] on the Death of … Frederick, Prince of Wales,’ &c., Dublin, 1752, 8vo. 6. ‘The Wishes of a Free People,’ 1761, 8vo (in verse). His ‘Dramatic Genius. In Five Books,’ 1770, 4to, came to a second edition in 1772, 12mo.  HIGBERT or HYGEBRYHT (fl. 787), archbishop of Lichfield, was made bishop of that see in 779, and was doubtless consecrated by Jaenbert [q.v.], archbishop of Canterbury. At the request of Offa, the Mercian king, Pope Hadrian consented to the establishment of a Mercian archbishopric, and in 787 the legates George and Theophylact held a synod at Chelsea, at which after some dispute Jaenbert was forced to resign his rights over parts of his province, and Higbert was appointed by Offa to the new archbishopric. The new province is said to have been composed of the sees of Lichfield, Leicester, Worcester, Sidnacester, Hereford, Elmham, and Dunwich. Higbert attested the acts of the synod as bishop; but the next year, after having received the pall, attests as archbishop, and it is evident that he regarded himself as of equal dignity with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Though as Jaenbert's junior his name is placed after Jaenbert's in attestations, it is generally placed before that of Jaenbert's successor, Ethelhard [q.v.] In 798 Coenwulf, king of Mercia, and Ethelhard obtained from Leo III a declaration of the primacy of the see of Canterbury. Aleuin wrote to Ethelhard, requesting that Higbert, whom he calls `pater pius,' might not be deprived of the pall; but if, as seems fairly certain, the Higbert who appears as an abbot of Lichfield in the attestation of an act of the council of Clovesho held in 803 is the former archbishop of Lichfield, he must by that date have lost or resigned both his pall and his see. Aldulf was then bishop of Lichfield, but he was not archbishop, as stated by, William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum, pp. 16, 308; see also Anglia Sacra, i. 430), nor was Humbert or Hunberht, who is incorrectly represented as Aldulf's immediate successor in the see (Vitæ 