Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/347

335 H IT E H II F 335 chiefs, founded at Huesca by Sertorius in 77 B.C. (Plut., Serf. 15). Among the other prominent buildings are the interesting parish churches (San Pedro, San Martin, and San Juan), the archiepiscopal palace, the town-house, and various benevolent and religious houses. Huesca manufac tures cloth, pottery, bricks, and leather. Its chief trade is in exporting fruit and cereals, and in importing linen, cloth, silk, hardware, and colonial produce. The population in 1877 was 7760. Huesca is a very ancient town. Strano (iii. 161, where some editors read Ileosca} describes it as a town of the Ilergetes, and the scene of Sertorius s death ; while Pliny places the Oscenses in regio Vesdtania. Plutarch (loc. cit.) calls it a large city. Julius Cresar names it Fencedora; and the name by which Augustus knew it, Urbsvictrix Osca, was stamped on its coins, and is still preserved on its arms. It tell under Saracen rule; but in 1096 Pedro I. of Aragon regained it, after winning the decisive battle of Alcoraz, as the termination of the two years siege. HUESCAR, chief town of a judicial district in the Spanish province of Almeria, is situated in a plain, sur rounded by mountains on three sides, about 91 miles north east of Granada. The town occupies a large area in pro portion to the number of its houses, and although the older streets are narrow and tortuous, the newer quarters have wide and regular streets. Among the chief buildings are the court-house and the adjoining prison, the hospital, the foundling hospital, and three schools. There are two parish churches, dating respectively from 1498 and 1504. About three miles to the east are the ruins of Huescar la Vieja, a Carthaginian foundation. Pottery, woollen and hempen cloth, linen, and baize are manufactured at Huescar. There are also oil and flour mills. The export trade is not exten sive. The population in 1870 was 5106. HUEL 1, PIERRE DANIEL (1630-1721), bishop of Avranchea, is the last of those encyclopaedic and massive scholars of whom France produced so many. He left no successor to his omnivorous learning, prodigious memory, and indomitable energy. He was born at Caen of a family formerly Huguenot. He lost both father and mother while still a child, and was brought up by his aunt, wife of the mathematician Gilles Mace, to whom he owed his respect for science. He says himself that the ardour of study did not possess him in earnest until in early manhood lie was reading the Geographic Sacree of Bochart, and suddenly became intoxicated with the desire of becom ing a scholar. It may be remarked that a youth who was not already studious would hardly be reading such a book. However, the statement means that he began about that time to study not in earnest only but with passion and fury. In Hebrew alone so great was his industry that he read through the Old Testament in the original no less than four-and-twenty times during his life. At the age of twenty he had already achieved a reputation as one of the most promising scholars of the time. He went at the age of twenty-one to Paris, where he formed a friendship with Gabriel Naude, conservator of the Mazarin library. In the following year Bochart, being invited by Queen Christina to her court at Stockholm, took his friend Huet with him. This journey, in which he saw Leyden, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen, as well as Stockholm, resulted chiefly in the discovery of some fragments of Origen s Commentary on St Matthew, which gave Huet the idea of editing Origen. On his return to France lie assisted at the foundation of the academy of Caen, and shortly afterwards quarrelled with hia friend Bochart, who accused him of having sup pressed a line in Origen in tho Eucharistic controversy. Shortly afterwards he removed to Paris, where he entered into close relations with Chapelain. At this time arose the famous dispute of Ancients and Moderns. Huet took the side of the Ancients against Charles Perrault and Desmarets. Among his friends at this period were Corrart and Pellis- son. His taste for mathematics led him to the study of astronomy, and in 1672 he founded the Academy of Science at Caen. He next turned his attention to anatomy, and, being himself shortsighted, devoted his inquiries mainly to the question of vision and the formation of the eye. In this pursuit he made more than 800 dissections. He then learned all that was then to be learned in chemistry, and wrote a Latin poem on salt. All this time he was no mere book-worm or recluse, but was haunting the salons of Mile, de Scudery and the studios of painters ; nor did his scien tific researches interfere with his classical studies, for dur ing this time lie was discussing with Bochart the origin of certain medals, and was learning Syriac and Arabic under the Jesuit Parvilliers. Nor did he neglect the lighter walks of letters. He translated the pastorals of Lougus, wrote a tale called Diane de Castro, and defended in a treatise on the origin of romance the reading of fiction. Then, being appointed assistant tutor to the Dauphin, he edited with the assistance of Anne Lefevre, afterwards Madame Dacier, the well-know T n edition of the classics ad usvm Delphini. He also continued to work upon his edition of Origen, and issued one of his greatest works, the Demonstration Evan- gelique. It was at the age of forty-six that he took orders, a step which he had contemplated for some years. Two years later the king gave him the abbey of Aunay, where he wrote his Questions d Aunay, sur V accord de la Foi etde la Raison, his Critique de Id Philosophic de Descartes, his Memoires pour servir a I Histoire du Cartesianisme, his dis sertation on the site of the terrestrial paradise, and his dis cussion with Boileau on the Sublime. In 1685 he was made bishop of Soissons, but after waiting for installation for four years he took the bishopric of Avranches instead. He exchanged the cares of his bishopric for what he thought would be the easier chair of the Abbey of Fon- tenay, but there he was vexed with continual law suits. At length he retired to the Jesuits House in the Puie Saint Antoine at Paris, where he ended his days, in 1721, amidst incessant labours maintained to the end, at the age of ninety-one. His great library and manuscripts, after being bequeathed to the Jesuits, were bought by the king for the royal library. It is impossible here to enter upon an estimate of the place in philosophy, literature, and scholarship now occu pied by this remarkable and omnivorous student. It has been disputed whether a writer vho could so strenuously advocate the claim of philosophy could have been at the same time an orthodox believer. Perhaps like many other men Huet separated his creed from his philosophy, and while he argued on Descartes forgot that he was a bishop. In the Huetiana will be found the most ready materials for arriv ing at an idea of his prodigious labours, exact memory, and wide scholarship. His own autobiography, found in his Comment arius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus, was translated into English by Dr Aiken in 1726. It remains to be said that he owed the preservation of his faculties to extreme old age, and perhaps the prolongation of his life, to the rigid observance of a spare diet which he began at the age of forty, dining moderately, and taking no other supper than a little bouillon. HUFELAND, CHRISTOPH WILHELM (1762-1836), a distinguished physician and writer on medical subjects, was born at Langensalza, 12th August 1762. His early education was carried on at Weimar, where his father held the office of court physician to the grand duchess. In 1780 lie entered the university at Jena, and in the following year proceeded to Gottingen, where in 1783 he graduated in the faculty of medicine. After assisting his father for some years at Weimar, he was called in 1793 to the chair of medicine at Jena, receiving at the same time the dignities of court physician and councillor at Weimar. In 1793 he