Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/42

 ends with a short prayer: “God, for his moder loue Let ous never thider come.” Metrically, the poem is characterized by frequent alliteration imposed upon the rhymed octosyllabic couplet:—

The piece is obviously connected with the Easter cycle of liturgical drama, and the subject is treated in the York and Townley plays.

 HARROW-ON-THE-HILL, an urban district in the Harrow parliamentary division of Middlesex, England, 12 m. W.N.W. of St Paul’s cathedral, London, served by the London and North Western, Metropolitan and District railways. Pop. (1901), 10,220. It takes its name from its position on an isolated hill rising to a height of 345 ft. On the summit, and forming a conspicuous landmark, is the church of St Mary, said to have been founded by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of William I., and Norman work appears at the base of the tower. The remainder of the church is of various later dates, and there are several ancient monuments and brasses.

Harrow is celebrated for its public school, founded in 1571 by John Lyon, whose brass is in the church, a yeoman of the neighbouring village of Preston who had yearly during his life set aside 20 marks for the education of poor children of Harrow; though a school existed before his time. Though the charter was granted by Queen Elizabeth in 1571, and the statutes drawn up by the founder in 1590, two years before his death, it was not till 1611 that the first building was opened for scholars. Lyon originally settled about two-thirds of his property on the school, leaving the remainder for the maintenance of the highway between London and Harrow, but in the course of time the values of the respective endowments have changed so far that the benefit accruing to the school is a small proportion of the whole. About 1660 the headmaster, taking advantage of a concession in Lyon’s statutes, began to receive “foreigners,” i.e. boys from other parishes, who were to pay for their education. From this time the prosperity of the school may be dated. In 1809 the parishioners of Harrow appealed to the court of chancery against the manner in which the school was conducted, but the decision, while it recognized their privileges, confirmed the right of admission to foreigners. The government of the school was originally vested in six persons of standing in the parish who had the power of filling vacancies in their number by election among themselves; but under the Public Schools Act of 1868 the governing body now consists of the surviving members of the old board, besides six new members who are elected respectively by the lord chancellor, the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London, the Royal Society, and the assistant masters of the school. There are several scholarships in connexion with the school to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Harrow was originally an exclusively classical school, but mathematics became a compulsory study in 1837; modern languages, made compulsory in the upper forms In 1851, were extended to the whole school in 1855; while English history and literature began to be especially studied about 1869. The number of boys is about 600. The principal buildings are modern, including the chapel (1857), the library (1863), named after the eminent headmaster Dr Charles John Vaughan, and the speech-room (1877), the scene of the brilliant ceremony on “Speech Day” each summer term. The fourth form room, however, dates from 1611, and on its panels are cut the names of many eminent alumni, such as Byron, Robert Peel, R. B. Sheridan and Temple (Lord Palmerston). Several of the buildings were erected out of the Lyon Tercentenary Fund, subscribed after the tercentenary celebration in 1871.

A considerable extension of Harrow as an outer residential suburb of London has taken place north of the hill, where is the urban district of Wealdstone (pop. 5901), and there are also important printing and photographic works.  HARRY THE MINSTREL, or (fl. 1470–1492), author of the Scots historical poem The Actis and Deidis of the Illustere and Vailzeand Campioun Schir William Wallace, Knicht of Ellerslie, flourished in the latter half of the 15th century. The details of his personal history are of the scantiest. He appears to have been a blind Lothian man, in humble circumstances, who had some reputation as a story-teller, and who received, on five occasions, in 1490 and 1491, gifts from James IV. The entries of these, in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, occur among others to harpers and singers. He is alluded to by (q.v.) in the fragmentary Interlude of the Droichis Part of the Play, where a “droich,” or dwarf, personates

and again in Dunbar’s Lament for the Makaris. (q.v.) in his Latin History speaks of “one Henry, blind from his birth, who, in the time of my childhood, fashioned a whole book about William Wallace, and therein wrote down in our popular verse—and this was a kind of composition in which he had much skill—all that passed current among the people in his day. I, however, can give but partial credence to these writings. This Henry used to recite his tales before nobles, and thus received food and clothing as his reward” (Bk. iv. ch. xv.).

The poem (preserved in a unique MS., dated 1488, in the Advocates’ library, Edinburgh) is divided into eleven books and runs to 11,853 lines. Its poetic merits are few, and its historical accuracy is easily impugned. It has the formal interest of being one of the earliest, certainly one of the most extensive verse-documents in Scots written in five-accent, or heroic, couplets. It is also the earliest outstanding work which discloses that habit of Scotticism which took such strong hold of the popular Northern literature during the coming years of conflict with England. In this respect it is in marked contrast with all the patriotic verse of preceding and contemporary literature. This attitude of the Wallace may perhaps be accepted as corroborative evidence of the humble milieu and popular sentiment of its author. The poem owed its subsequent widespread reputation to its appeal to this sentiment rather than to its literary quality. On the other hand, there are elements in the poem which show that it is not entirely the work of a poor crowder; and these (notably references to historical and literary authorities, and occasional reminiscences of the literary tricks of the Scots Chaucerian school) have inclined some to the view that the text, as we have it, is an edited version of the minstrel’s rough song-story. It has been argued, though by no means conclusively, that the “editor” was John Ramsay, the scribe of the Edinburgh MS. and of the companion Edinburgh MS. of the Brus by (q.v.).

 HARSDÖRFFER, GEORG PHILIPP (1607–1658), German poet, was born at Nuremberg on the 1st of November 1607. He studied law at Altdorf and Strassburg, and subsequently travelled