Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/1003

HOU in 1719; and the last part was published for his widow. This book is one of the chief authorities on the Dutch artists, but the memoirs are crude and unsatisfactory.—R. N. W.  HOUBRAKEN,, a very able Dutch engraver, born at Dort in 1698. He accompanied his father, Arnold, to this country, and resided here for a few months. The admirably etched portraits in his father's work are some of Jacob's earliest productions. His greatest work is the series of heads he engraved for the Knaptons—"The Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain," published in 1748. Some of these are of the highest class of masterpieces in execution. He died in 1780.— —(Van Gool, Nieuwe Schouburg, &c.)—R. N. W.  HOUCHARD,, a French general, born at Forbach in 1740. At the age of fifteen he entered the army, and had attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel at the breaking out of the Revolution. In 1792 he was employed under Custine, obtained the rank of colonel, and having greatly distinguished himself on several occasions, was at length appointed to supersede that general in the command of the army of the North. In this capacity he rendered important services, and, by a victory which he obtained at Hondschoote, compelled the English to raise the siege of Dunkirk. His enemies affirmed, however, that he ought to have destroyed the English army; he was hurried to Paris, accused of not having followed his instructions, and guillotined on the 17th November, 1793.—G. BL.  HOUDARD. See.  HOUDON,, a distinguished French sculptor, was born at Versailles in 1740. He was a pupil of Michel-Angelo Stolze and of Pigale, and won the grand prize for sculpture at the école des beaus-arts, which entitled him to complete his studies in the French academy at Rome. He stayed at Rome for ten years, and whilst there executed some of his most admired works—among others, a colossal statue of S. Bruno for the porch of Sta. Maria in the Certosa, Rome; and Morpheus for the Salon at Paris. Returning to France, he soon secured a high place in public favour. His "classic" statues—Minervas, Venuses, Vestals, and so forth—strangely affected and unclassic as they seem to us, were regarded as in the highest style of art, and his portrait statues were universally popular. He was elected associate member of the Academy in 1774, full member and professor in 1778. The Revolution brought with it danger to the sculptor. He was denounced in the convention on account of a statue of Theology on which he was engaged, but was rescued by the promptitude of a friend in the tribune, who declared it to be a figure of Philosophy. The Empire brought safety and imperial favour, and under the Restoration Houdon's good fortune was continued. He was nominated member of the Institute, and chevalier of the legion of honour, and died at a ripe old age, January 15, 1828. We have spoken of his classical statues: his portrait statues included one of Washington for the senate-house of Virginia, which he went to Philadelphia to model, and which has served as the type of most of the portraits of the great liberator; busts and statues of Napoleon and Josephine, Louis XII., Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Franklin, Sophie Arnault, D'Alembert, Mirabeau, and many other of the most remarkable personages of that memorable period.—J. T—e.  HOUGH,, successively bishop of Oxford, Lichfield, and Worcester, celebrated for his resistance to James II. in the matter of Magdalen college, Oxford, was the son of a London citizen, and born in the metropolitan county in the April of 1651. He was a fellow of Magdalen college, Oxford, and held more than one preferment in the church at the accession of James II. Early in 1687 the presidency of Magdalen college became vacant, and James, in pursuance of his policy towards the universities, ordered the fellows to elect one Farmer, who was not only a Roman catholic, but otherwise disqualified. The fellows of Magdalen were firm, and elected Hough to the post, which he was in every way fitted to fill. A visit from the king did not shake their determination, and they refused to elect, as their president, Parker the Roman catholic bishop of Oxford, who was James' second nominee. Then came the arrival of royal commissioners with a small armed force, and by them Hough's name was struck out of the books of the college; he himself protesting in person with mild intrepidity against the illegal act. In the September of 1688 the king, too late repentant, gave instructions for a new and legal settlement of the college affairs, and Hough peaceably took possession of his office. After the Revolution, he was made bishop of Oxford, from which he was translated to Lichfield in 1699, and in 1717 to Worcester, modestly declining two years before the archbishopric of Canterbury. He died in the March of 1743. An elaborate life of him by Mr. Wilmot was published nearly half a century ago, and the Magdalen dispute which has made him famous forms one of the most spirited episodes of Lord Macaulay's History.—F. E.  HOUGHTON, an English traveller, was born about 1750. In 1779 he offered his services to the African Society to explore the course of the Niger, and, if possible, to reach Timbuctoo. In 1790 he ascended the River Gambia, and reached Medina, capital of the kingdom of Woulli, where he was kindly received, but advised to push his enterprise no further. Undismayed by this warning Major Houghton persevered. In Bondou he was robbed of much of his baggage. Journeying northward he halted at Simbing, a town on the frontiers of Ludamar, and thence wrote with a pencil the last letter ever received from him. At Jarra, deserted by his negro servants, he joined a caravan of Moorish merchants who were going to buy salt at Tischet, a town near the saline marshes of the great desert. In a few days he saw reason to suspect them of treachery, and, on his demanding to return to Jarra, they seized all his baggage, and fled upon their camels. The major, journeying on foot, reached a place called Tarra; but some days had then passed without his tasting food. The Moors refused to give him any. Whether they massacred him, or simply let him starve to death, must now remain unknown; but they dragged his corpse into the woods, and when Mungo Park afterwards visited Jarra, he was shown the place where the major's unburied body had been flung. Some of Houghton's letters were published in the Transactions of the African Society, 1792 98.—W. J. P.  HOULIERES See. <section end="1003H" /> <section begin="1003I" />* HOUSSAYE,, a lively and versatile littérateur, was born at Bruyères, near Laon, in the March of 1815. At the early age of seventeen he commenced his literary career in Paris with such associates as Gerard de Nerval, Theophile Gautier, and others of the same school He wrote novels and verses, contributed to newspapers and periodicals, his happiest pieces being attempts to resuscitate the age of Louis XV. In 1840 he made a journey to Holland to study the Dutch school of painting, and the result was his "Histoire de la peinture Flamande et Hollandaise." Meanwhile he had attained some celebrity as an art-critic, editing L'Artiste. In 1847 he was about to be appointed professor of æsthetics at the collège de France. Just before the revolution of 1848 he presided at a reform banquet of students, and after it he made an unsuccessful attempt to become a member of the national assembly. Baffled in his political aspirations, he became, through the influence of Rachel, director of the théatre Français, which he conducted with considerable success, and having paid his court to the new régime, resigned his managership in 1856 to fill a post created for him by the emperor—that of inspector-general of the works of art and museums of the departments. His best works are the lively sketches of French notabilities of the last century, entitled when collected "Galerie de Portraits du dix-huitième siècle." His "Histoire du XLI. fauteuil de l'Academie Française" is an amusing record of the persons whom the academy has not honoured with membership. In 1858 he published a clever, but sketchy resumé, of the chief points in the biography of Voltaire, "Le Roi Voltaire," which had a great immediate success.—F. E. <section end="1003I" /> <section begin="1003J" />HOUSSAYE. See. <section end="1003J" /> <section begin="1003Zcontin" />* HOUSTON,, General, "liberator" of Texas, and long its representative in the senate of the United States, was born on the 2nd of March, 1793, in Rockbridge county, Virginia. On the death of his father—who had fought in the war of the revolution—his mother migrated across the Alleghanies to the banks of the Tennessee river, where young "Sam" had to work hard breaking up the virgin soil of their new location. He had little schooling; but it is recorded that Pope's Iliad was a favourite book with him in his boyhood. His brothers forced him to assist in a store; he ran away and lived among the Indians till his eighteenth year, when, to pay debts contracted for presents to his savage friends, he became for a short time a schoolmaster. In 1813 he enlisted, served under General Jackson in the war against the Creek Indians, distinguished himself in the battle of the Horseshoe, where he was severely wounded; and after acting as government agent with the Cherokees, he went to Nashville and became a lawyer. In his <section end="1003Zcontin" />