Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/192

* HOME. 166 HOMER. fessor of anatomy and surgery, later master, and in 18'21 its first president. It seems imj^ssibU' tu fieo llunie from censure for burning Hunter's valuable manuscripts, of which lie was cu^Uxlian, or from the charge of using them in his work on Vomparalice Aiwluniy (1814-23), which gains what value it has from that fact. Among Home's other writings are: The Properties of I'us, which won a gold medal from the Lyceum Medicura Londinense (1788) ; a biographical notice of Hun- ter, preii.xed to Hunter On blood, liillmiitiiatioii, and (lunshot Wounds (17!)4) : I'nielical Observa- tions on the Treatment of ,Slrietures in the Vrellira and (ICsophagiis (1795) ; Observations on the Treatment of Ulcers on the Legs (2d ed. 1801); Practical Observations on the Diseases of the Prostate (Hand (1811-18); and On the I'ormation of Tumors (1830). HOME, He.nry, Lord Kames (169G-1782). A Scottish judge and author, born at Kamcs. He entered the bar in 1724, was raised to the bench in l~b2, with the title of Lord Kanies. and was made one of the lords of judiciary in 17G3. As a coar>e but able judge, he is mentioned by Scott in liedgauntlet (eh. i.). In 1728 he published Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session from filii to 77,.'.S. The materials for this work were in 1741 embodied in his Dictionary of the Decisions of the Court of Session during its whole history. He is best known, however, by Essays on the Principles of Morality and Xutural Pcli- gion (1751), containing a solution of the ques- tion of human freedom, which brought on him the suspicion of infidelity: Introduction to the Art of Thinking (170)1) : and. above all, the cele- brated Klemcnts of Criticism (1702), the work on which his fame now chiefly rest.s. In 1774 appeared his Sketches of the History of Man. While thus occii])ied with judicial and liter- ary labors, he took a very active interest in agriculture, writing a useful tract entitled The Gentleman Farmer, Being an Attempt to Improve Agriculture by Subjecting It to the Test of Ra- tional Principles (177G). His last work, Loo.se Thoughts on Education (1781). was written in his eighty-fifth year. Consult Lord Woodhouse- lee (A. F. Tytler). Memoirs of the Life and M'rilings of Home (Edinburgh, 1807). HOME, John (1722-1808). A Scottish dram- atist, born at Lcith. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and prepared for the Church. During the uprising of 1745 he fought as volunteer on the Hanoverian side. In 1747 he became minister of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, where he wrote his famous tragedy of Douglas. Performed at Edinburgh in U.'ifi. and at London in 1757. it was received with enthusi- asm. For his plot Home used the popular Scot- tish ballad of Childe Maurice, and in a less de- gree Shakespeare's Othello. The play, though turgid in diction, has great merits. It was the best English tragedy since Otway. The clergy of the Scottish Kirk, opposed to the theatre on principle, were scandalized by the production. After a bitter controversy Home resigned his charge (1757). He became secretary to Lord Bute, tutor to the Prince of Wales (afterwards George III.), and received liberal pensions. In 1770 he married and returned to East Lothian, and after a time settled in Edinburgh. Besides Douqlns. Home wrote other plays, which either failed or met with moderate success. Among them are: Agis, Aquilcia, Fatal Discovery, Alon- Rebellion of J7'iu. Consult Works, with memoir by Henry Mackenzie (Edinburgh, 1822) ; and for Douglas alone, U ilson, Poets and Poetry of Scot- land (London, 1875). HOME AS FOUND. A novel by J. Fcnimore Cooper (ls:fS). IL is a sequel to Homeward Hound, and, like it, is a criticism of American social conditions. HO'MEK. A city and the parish-seat of Clai- borne l'ari>h. La., 50 miles east by north of Slirevciiort; on the Louisiana and Northwest Railroad. It is the commercial centre for a jiro- ductive cotton-growing district (Map: Louisiana, CI). Population, in 1890, 1132; in 1900, 1157. HOMER (Lat., from Gk. 'O/uijpos). A name for the early epic jjoctry of Greece. The Ic-s critical of the ancients attributed to Homer many minor poems, as tlic Hymns, the Murgites, the late Hatrachomyomachia (Battle of the Erogs and Mice), and many of the lost so-called Cyclic Epics, dealing with the early legends. To the more thoughtful he was the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The skeptical 'sejiarators' (chorizontes) denied him the Odyssey. To us he is the unknown poet who cliielly shaped the Iliad and possibly the Odyssey. His dale is placed by Herodotus about u.c. 850; by the mod- erns, anywhere from 900 to 1100. At any rate, he is the first name in European literature. The Iliad is an episode in the legendary siege of Troy, or Ilium, a real town of which Schliemann has excavated the remains at Hissarlik, a hillock in Xorthwestern Asia Minor. This siege is prob- ably an idealizati(m of the prolonged struggles of Achican and .Eolian invaders from Greece with the old (Phrygian?) possessors of the soil. In the legend it is undertaken to recover the beautiful Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, who had eloped with Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. In the tenth year of the war Achilles, the Acha-an (Thcssalian) hero, quarrels with the commander-in-chief, Agamemnon, King of Myeena-, about a captive girl, BriseTs, and sulks in his tent, to the great loss of the Greeks, until aroused by the death of his dearest friend Patroclus. Then he hurls himself into the battle again and slays the slayer. Hector, the chief bulwark of Troj-, with whose solemn burial the ])oem concludes. The Odys.iey relates, likewise in twenty-four books, the surprising experiences of Odysseus after the ten years' siege of Troy, wandering for ten years more, yearning to see the rocky isle of Ithaca. Underplots describe the life of his faithful wife, Penelope, persecuted by the im- ])ortunat€ wooing of rude suitors, and the ad- entures of his son, Telcmachus. who in the tenth year goes forth in search of his father. In the end, Odysseus returns, joins Telcmachus, slays the suitors, and is at last recognized by Penelope. A literature does not thus begin with two long artistic and skillfully constructed epics. We must assume behind the Iliad shorter epic ballads such as the bard Phemius in the Odyssey chants to the suitors, and Demodocus recites at the Pha-acian Court, hymns to the gods, and songs of the 'glory of men,' such as Achilles, idle in his tent, sings to the music of a lyre won from the spoils of a captive town. The system- atic mythology of the poems, the number of
 * o, and Alfred. He also wrote a History of the