Yorke (1757–1834), 3rd earl of Hardwicke, eldest son of Charles Yorke, lord chancellor, by his first wife, Catherine Freman, who was born on the 31st of May 1757 and was educated at Cambridge. He was M.P. for Cambridgeshire, following the Whig traditions of his family; but after his succession to the earldom in 1790 he supported Pitt, and took office in 1801 as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1801–1806), where he supported Catholic emancipation. He was created K.G. in 1803, and was a fellow of the Royal Society. He married Elizabeth, daughter of James Lindsay, 5th earl of Balcarres, in 1782, but left no son.
He was succeeded in the peerage by his nephew, Charles Philip Yorke (1799–1873), 4th earl of Hardwicke, English admiral, eldest son of Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke (1768–1831), who was second son of Charles Yorke, lord chancellor, by his second wife, Agneta Johnson. Charles Philip was born at Southampton on the 2nd of April 1799 and was educated at Harrow. He entered the royal navy in 1815, and served on the North American station and in the Mediterranean, attaining the rank of captain in 1825. He represented Reigate (1831) and Cambridgeshire (1832–1834) in the House of Commons; and after succeeding to the earldom in 1834, was appointed a lord in waiting by Sir Robert Peel in 1841. In 1858 he retired from the active list with the rank of rear-admiral, becoming vice-admiral in the same year, and admiral in 1863. He was a member of Lord Derby’s cabinet in 1852 as postmaster-general and lord privy seal in 1858. In 1833 he married Susan, daughter of the 1st Lord Ravensworth, by whom he had five sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Charles Philip Yorke (1836–1897), 5th earl of Hardwicke, was comptroller of the household of Queen Victoria (1866–1868) and master of the buckhounds (1874–1880). He married in 1863, Sophia Georgiana, daughter of the 1st Earl Cowley. He was succeeded by his only son Albert Edward Philip Henry Yorke (1867–1904), 6th earl of Hardwicke, who, after holding the posts of under-secretary of state for India (1900–1902) and for war (1902–1903), died unmarried on the 29th of November 1904; the title then went to his uncle, John Manners Yorke (1840–1909), 7th earl of Hardwicke, second son of Charles Philip, the 4th earl, who joined the royal navy and served in the Baltic and in the Crimea (1854–1855). This earl died on the 13th of March 1909 and was succeeded by his son Charles Alexander (b. 1869) as 8th earl.
The contemporary authorities for the life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke are voluminous, being contained in the memoirs of the period and in numerous collections of correspondence in the British Museum. See, especially, the Hardwicke Papers; the Stowe MSS.; Hist. MSS. Commission (Reports 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11); Horace Walpole, Letters (ed. by P. Cunningham, 9 vols., London, 1857–1859); Letters to Sir H. Mann (ed. by Lord Dover, 4 vols., London, 1843–1844); Memoirs of the Reign of George II. (ed. by Lord Holland, 2nd ed. revised, London, 1847); Memoirs of the Reign of George III. (ed. by G. F. R. Barker, 4 vols., London, 1894); Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland and Ireland (ed. by T. Park, 5 vols., London, 1806). Horace Walpole was violently hostile to Hardwicke, and his criticism, therefore, must be taken with extreme reserve. See also the earl Waldegrave, Memoirs 1754–1758 (London, 1821); Lord Chesterfield, Letters (ed. by Lord Mahon, 5 vols., London, 1892); Richard Cooksey, Essay on John, Lord Somers, and Philip, Earl of Hardwicke (Worcester, 1791); William Coxe, Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole (4 vols., London, 1816); Memoirs of the Administration of Henry Pelham (2 vols., London, 1829); Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. v. (8 vols., London, 1845); Edward Foss, The Judges of England, vols. vii. and viii. (9 vols., London, 1848–1864); George Harris, Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke; with Selections from his Correspondence, Diaries, Speeches and Judgments (3 vols., London, 1847). The last-named work may be consulted for the lives of the 2nd and 3rd earls. For the 3rd earl see also the duke of Buckingham, Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George III. (4 vols., London, 1853–1855). For the 4th earl see Charles Philip Yorke, by his daughter, Lady Biddulph of Ledbury (1910). (R. J. M.)
HARDY, ALEXANDRE (1569?–1631), French dramatist, was
born in Paris. He was one of the most fertile of all dramatic
authors, and himself claimed to have written some six hundred
plays, of which, however, only thirty-four are preserved. He
seems to have been connected all his life with a troupe of actors
headed by a clever comedian named Valleran-Lecomte, whom
he provided with plays. Hardy toured the provinces with this
company, which gave some representations in Paris in 1599
at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Valleran-Lecomte occupied the
same theatre in 1600–1603, and again in 1607, apparently for
some years. In consequence of disputes with the Confrérie
de la Passion, who owned the privilege of the theatre, they played
elsewhere in Paris and in the provinces for some years; but in
1628, when they had long borne the title of “royal,” they were
definitely established at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Hardy’s
numerous dedications never seem to have brought him riches
or patrons. His most powerful friend was Isaac de Laffemas
(d. 1657), one of Richelieu’s most unscrupulous agents, and he
was on friendly terms with the poet Théophile, who addressed
him in some verses placed at the head of his Théâtre (1632),
and Tristan l’Hermite had a similar admiration for him. Hardy’s
plays were written for the stage, not to be read; and it was
in the interest of the company that they should not be printed
and thus fall into the common stock. But in 1623 he published
Les Chastes et loyales amours de Théagène et Cariclée, a tragi-comedy
in eight “days” or dramatic poems; and in 1624 he
began a collected edition of his works, Le Théâtre d’Alexandre Hardy, parisien, of which five volumes (1624–1628) were
published, one at Rouen and the rest in Paris. These comprise
eleven tragedies: Didon se sacrifiant, Scédase ou l’hospitalité violée, Panthée, Méléagre, La Mort d’Achille, Coriolan, Marianne,
a trilogy on the history of Alexander, Alcméon, ou la vengeance
féminine; five mythological pieces; thirteen tragi-comedies,
among them Gésippe, drawn from Boccaccio; Phraarte, taken
from Giraldi’s Cent excellentes nouvelles (Paris, 1584); Cornélie,
La Force du sang, Félismène, La Belle Égyptienne, taken from
Spanish subjects; and five pastorals, of which the best is Alphée,
ou la justice d’amour. Hardy’s importance in the history of
the French theatre can hardly be over-estimated. Up to the
end of the 16th century medieval farce and spectacle kept their
hold on the stage in Paris. The French classical tragedy of
Étienne Jodelle and his followers had been written for the
learned, and in 1628 when Hardy’s work was nearly over and
Rotrou was on the threshold of his career, very few literary
dramas by any other author are known to have been publicly
represented. Hardy educated the popular taste, and made
possible the dramatic activity of the 17th century. He had
abundant practical experience of the stage, and modified tragedy
accordingly, suppressing chorus and monologue, and providing
the action and variety which was denied to the literary drama.
He was the father in France of tragi-comedy, but cannot fairly
be called a disciple of the romantic school of England and Spain.
It is impossible to know how much later dramatists were indebted
to him in detail, since only a fraction of his work is preserved,
but their general obligation is amply established. He died in
1631 or 1632.
The sources for Hardy’s biography are extremely limited. The account given by the brothers Parfaict in their Hist. du théâtre français (1745, &c., vol. iv. pp. 2-4) must be received with caution, and no documents are forthcoming. Many writers have identified him with the provincial playwright picturesquely described in chap. xi. of Le Page disgrâcié (1643), the autobiography of Tristan l’Hermite, but if the portrait is drawn from life at all, it is more probably drawn from Théophile. See Le Théâtre d’Alexandre Hardy, edited by E. Stengel (Marburg and Paris, 1883–1884, 5 vols.); E. Lombard, “Étude sur Alexandre Hardy,” in Zeitschr. für neufranz. Spr. u. Lit. (Oppeln and Leipzig, vols. i. and ii., 1880–1881); K. Nagel, A. Hardy’s Einfluss auf Pierre Corneille (Marburg, 1884); and especially E. Rigal, Alexandre Hardy . . . (Paris, 1889) and Le Théâtre français avant la période classique (Paris, 1901.)
HARDY, THOMAS (1840– ), English novelist, was born
in Dorsetshire on the 2nd of June 1840. His family was one of
the branches of the Dorset Hardys, formerly of influence in and
near the valley of the Frome, claiming descent from John Le
Hardy of Jersey (son of Clement Le Hardy, lieutenant-governor
of that island in 1488), who settled in the west of England. His
maternal ancestors were the Swetman, Childs or Child, and
kindred families, who before and after 1635 were small landed
proprietors in Melbury Osmond, Dorset, and adjoining parishes.
He was educated at local schools, 1848–1854, and afterwards
privately, and in 1856 was articled to Mr John Hicks, an
