beyond the seas. Stringent penalties are provided for offences against the Act. A judge delaying habeas corpus forfeits 500 to the party aggrieved. Illegal imprisonment beyond seas renders the offender liable in action by the injured party with treble costs and damages to the extent of not less than 500, besides subjecting him to the penalties of prcemunire and to other disabilities. "The great rank of those who were likely to offend against this part of the statute was," says Hallam, "the cause of this
unusual severity."The Habeas Corpus Act, it will be seen, applies only to the case of persons imprisoned on criminal charges. In 1758 the question arose whether, in the case of an impress ment for military service, a habeas corpus could be applied for under the Act, and other question;} of some difficulty were raised as to its effect in particular cases. The judges who were consulted by the House of Lords differed in their opinions, and ultimately the Act 56 Geo. III. c. 100 was passed, " for more effectually securing the liberty of the subject." It enacts (1) that a writ of habeas corpus shall be issued in vacation time in favour of a person restrained of his liberty (except persons imprisoned for debt or by civil process) a privilege granted by the Act of Charles II. only in the case of commitments for criminal offences; (2) that though the return to the writ be good and sufficient in law, the judge shall examine into the truth of the facts set forth in such return, and if they appear doubtful the prisoner shall be bailed ; (3) that the writ shall run to any harbour or road on the coast of England, although jiot within the body of any county. The last clause was intended to meet doubts on the applicability of habeas coiyus iu cases of illegal detention on board ship.
In Anderson s case, in 1861, the Court of Queen s Bench decided somewhat reluctantly that the writ runs to all the foreign dominions of the crown even when there are inde pendent local judicatures. In consequence of this decision the Act 25 and 26 Viet. c. 20 was passed, enacting that "no writ of habeas corpus shall issue out of England, by authority of any judge or court of justice therein*, into any colony or foreign dominion of the crown where her Majesty has a law fully established court or courts of justice, having authority to grant and issue the said writ, and to ensure the due exe cution thereof throughout such colony or dominion." In times of public danger it has been found necessary to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act by a special statute. This was done in 1817 by the Act empowering the king to secure and detain such persons as his Majesty shall suspect are conspiring against his person and government. More recently this extreme measure has been judged necessary in the case of Ireland (see 29 Viet. c. 1, continued for a short period by annual acts).
In the United States of America the law of habeas corpus has been inherited from England, and has been generally made to apply to commitments and detentions of all kinds. Difficult questions, unknown to English law, have arisen from the peculiar features of the American State-system. Thus the constitution provides that " the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasions, the public safety may require it ;" and it has been the subject of much dispute whether the power of suspension under this provision is vested in the president or the congress. The weight of opinion seems to lean to the latter alternative. Again, conflicts have arisen between the courts of individual States and the courts of the Union. It seems that a State court has no right to issue a habeas corpus for the discharge of a parson held under the authority of the Federal Government. On the other hand, the courts of the Union issue the writ only in those cases in which the power is expressly con ferred on them by the constitution.
HABINGTON, William (1605–1654), one of the most pleasing of English minor poets, was born at Hendlip in Worcestershire, on the 4th of November 1605. His father, Thomas Habington, was a prominent Catholic ; to his mother, Lady Mary Habington, was attributed the revela tion of the Gunpowder Plot. The poet was educated first at St Omer, and refusing to become a Jesuit was removed to Paris. On his return to England he met and fell in love with Lady Lucy Herbert, second daughter of Lord Powis, whom he celebrated under the poetical name of Castara. After some opposition he won her hand, and they were married about the year 1632. In 1634 he first published his famous volume of lyrical poems entitled Castara, which was reprinted in 1635 and 1640. In the latter year he also published a prose History of King Edivard IV. and The Queen of Arraao?i, a tragi-comedy. This play was pub lished at the request of his kinsman, the earl of Pembroke ; it was afterwards revived by Samuel Butler. The last work printed by Habington was Observations upon History, 1641. In 1647 his father died; and during the Common wealth, as we learn from Anthony Wood, the poet " did run with the times, and was not unknown to Oliver the iisurper." He died November 30, 1654, and was buried in the family vault at Hendlip. Habington possesses all the faults of his age except its impurity ; he is honourably known as the chastest of the Royalist lyrists. His genius was gently fantastic, mild in its play of fancy, delicately ingenious, and of an unruffled stately dignity. He never rises to sublimity or passion, but he is always gentleman like and often extremely graceful. His best verses have a very modern tone, and remind the reader of the 18th rather than of the 17th century.
The works of Habington have not been collected. An excellent edition of Castara was published by Mr Arber in 1870, and The Queen of Arrayon has been included in the Dodsley collection.
eminent French mathematician, was born at Mezieres, where his father was a bookseller, on the 6th May 1769. For his early education he proceeded first to the college of Charleville, and afterwards to that of Rheims. In 1788 he returned to Mezieres, where he was attached to the school of engineering as draughtsman to the professors of physics and chemistry. When twenty-three years of age he suc ceeded from among a number of candidates in gaining the professorship of hydrography at Collioure and Port-Vendre. While there he sent several able papers, in which some questions of navigation were treated geometrically, to Monge, at that time minister of marine, through whose influence he obtained an appointment in Paris. Thence he passed to a deputy-professorship ; at Mezieres, and towards the close of 1794, when the Ecole Poly technique was established, he was chosen one of its staff, being appointed along with Monge over the department of descriptive geometry. There he instructed some of the ablest Frenchmen of the day, among them Poisson, Arago, and Fresnel. Accompanying Guy ton de Morveau in his expedition, earlier in the year, he was present at the battle of Fleurus, and entered Brussels with the French army. In 1816, on the accession of Louis XVIIL, he was expelled from his chair by Government, at the same time that his friend and fellow-worker Monge was removed from the Institute. He retained, however, till his death the office of professor in the faculty of sciences in the Ecole Normale, to which he had been appointed in 1810 the same year in which he married the daughter of the physician Maugras. The necessary royal assent was in 1823 refused to the election of Hachette to the Academy of Sciences, and it was not till 1831, after the Revolution, that he obtained that well-merited honour. He died at Paris, January 16, 1834.
Hachette was held in high esteem for his private worth, as
