HALDANE, Robert (1764–1842), elder brother of the preceding, and intimately associated with him in many of his labours, was born in London on February 28, 1764. After attending classes in the Dundee grammar school and in the High School and university of Edinburgh he in 1780 joined H.M.S. " Monarch, " of which his uncle Lord Duncan was at that time in command, and in the following year was transferred to the "Foudroyant," on board of which, during the night engagement with the " Pegase," he distinguished himself so much that Captain Jervis (afterwards Lord St Vincent) wrote to Admiral Duncan predicting a brilliant future for his nephew. Haldane was afterwards present at the relief of Gibraltar, but at the peace of 1783 he finally left the navy, and soon afterwards settled on his estate of Airthrey, near Stirling. The earlier phases of the French Revolution as they occurred attracted his attention and at first excited his deepest sympathy, a sympathy which induced him, at the cost of making many enemies, to avow his strong disapproval of the war with France. As his bright and oversanguiue visions of a new order of things to be ushered in by political change disappeared, he, unlike Wordsworth s " Solitary, " began to direct his thoughts to religious subjects, and underwent a spiritual change which, while neither sudden nor violent, was decisive and complete. Resolving to devote himself and his means wholly to the advancement of Christianity, his first proposal for that end, made in 1796, was to organize a vast mission to Bengal, of which he was to provide the entire expense ; with this view the greater part of his estate was sold, but after every arrangement had been well nigh completed, the East India Company refused to sanction the scheme, which therefore had to be reluctantly abandoned. In December 1797 he joined his brother and some others in the formation of the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home"; and in building chapels or "tabernacles" for its congregations, in supporting its missionaries, and in maintaining institutions for the education of young men to carry on its work, he in the course of the twelve years which followed is stated on good authority to have expended upwards of 70,000. In 1816 he visited the Continent, and first at Geneva and afterwards in Montauban (1817) occupied himself in lectur ing with surprising success to theological students, among whom were Malan, Monod, and Merle D Aubigne". Return ing to Scotland in 1819, he lived partly on his estate of Auchengray and partly in Edinburgh, and like his brother took an active part, chiefly through the press, in many of the religious controversies of the time. He died on the 12th of December 1842.
In 1816 he published a work on the Evidences and Authority of Divine Revelation, and in 1819 the substance of his theological prelections in a Commcntaire sur I Epitre aux Romains. Among his later writings, besides numerous pamphlets on what was known as " the Apocrypha controversy " and on the Sabbatarian question, are a treatise On the Inspiration of Scripture (1828), which has passed through seven editions, and a later Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (1835), which has been frequently reprinted, and has been translated into French and German. See Memoirs of R. and J. A. Haldane, by Alexander Haldane (1852).
HALE, Sir Matthew (1609–1676), lord chief-justice of England, was born on November 1, 1609, at Alderley in Gloucestershire, where his father, a retired barrister, had a small estate. His paternal grandfather was a rich clothier of Wotton-uuder-Edge ; on his mother s side he was con nected with the noble family of the Poyntzes of Acton. Both his parents having died before he was five years old, the future chief-justice was placed by his guardian under the care of Mr Staunton, vicar of Wotton-under-Edge, through whose influence he became strongly imbued with puritanical principles, There he remained till he attained his sixteenth year, when he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, under the tuition of the puritanical but learned Obadiah Sedgwick. At Oxford Hale devoted himself for several terms to the study of Aristotle and Calvin with a view to holy orders, and manifested that steadiness and application which in after years secured his reputation and advance ment. But suddenly there came a change. The diligent student, at first attracted by a company of strolling players, threw aside his studies, and plunged carelessly into gay society. He soon decided to change his profession ; and resolved to trail a pike as a soldier under the prince of Orange in the Low Countries. Before going abroad, how ever, Hale found himself obliged to proceed to London in order to give instructions for his defence in a legal action which threatened to deprive him of his patrimony. His leading counsel was the celebrated Serjeant Glanville, who, perceiving in the acuteness and sagacity of his youthful client a peculiar fitness for the legal profession, succeeded, with much difficulty, in inducing him to renounce his mili tary for a legal career, and on the 8th November 1629 Hale became a member of the honourable society of Lincoln s Inn.
He immediately resumed his habits of intense application. The rules which he laid down for himself, and which are still extant in his handwriting, prescribe sixteen hours a day of close application, and prove, not only the great mental power, but also the extraordinary physical strength he must have possessed, and for which indeed, during his residence at the university, he had been remarkable. During the period allotted to his preliminary studies, he read over and over again all the year-books, reports, and law treatises in print, and at the Tower of London and other antiquarian repositories examined and carefully studied the records from the foundation of the English monarchy down to his own time. Even the common-place book which he com posed as the result of his study and research may, according to Lord Campbell, " be considered a corpus juris embracing and methodizing all that an English lawyer on any emergency could desire to know." But Hale did not con fine himself to law. He dedicated no small portion of his time to the study of pure mathematics, to investigations in physics and chemistry, and even to anatomy and architec ture ; and there can be no doubt that this varied learning enhanced considerably the value of many of his judicial decisions.
found himself in full practice. Though neither a fluent speaker nor bold pleader, in a very few years he was at the head of his profession. He entered public life at perhaps the most critical period of English history. Two parties were contending in the state, and their obstinacy could not fail to produce a most direful collision. But amidst the confusion Hale steered a middle course, rising in reputa tion, and an object of solicitation from both parties. Taking Pomponius Atticus as his political model, he was persuaded that a man, a lawyer, and a judge could best serve his country and benefit his countrymen by holding aloof from partisanship and its violent prejudices, which are so apt to distort and confuse the judgment. But he is best vindi cated from the charges of selfishness and cowardice by the thoughts and meditations contained in his private diaries and papers, where the purity and honour of his motives are clearly seen. It has been said, but without certainty, that Hale was engaged as counsel for the earl of Strafford ; he certainly acted for Archbishop Laud, Lord Maguire, Christopher Love, the duke of Hamilton, and others. It is also said that he was ready to plead on the side of Charles I. had that monarch submitted to the court. The parliament having gained the ascendency, Hale signed the Solemn League and Covenant, and was a member of the famous Assembly of Divines at Westminster in 1644; but although he would undoubtedly have pre
ferred a Presbyterian form of church government, he had
