In the Middle Ages, when its name, Herosfloth, Harofluet, or Hareflot, was still sufficiently uncorrupted to indicate its Norman origin, it was the principal seaport of north-western France. In 1415 it was captured by Henry V. of England, but when in 1435 the people of the district of Caux rose against the English, 104 of the inhabitants opened the gates of the town to the insurgents, and thus got rid of the foreign yoke. The memory of the deed was long perpetuated by the bells of St Martin’s tolling 104 strokes. Between 1445 and 1449 the English were again in possession ; but the town was recovered for the French by Dunois. In 1562 the Huguenots put Harfleur to pillage, and its registers and charters perished in the confusion ; but its privileges were restored by Charles IX. in 1568, and it was not till 1710 that it was subjected to the ‘taille.’ By common consent Harfleur is now identified with the Caracotinum of the Itinerary of Antoninus,—M. Fallue’s explorations since 1839 having proved conclusively that the neighbourhood is rich in Roman remains.
See De La Motte, Antiquitcz de la ville de Harfleur, Havre de Grice, 1677; Let-llier, Recherches historiques sur Harfleur, 1841; M-. Fallue’s papers in Archircs du Hav: e, 1840; Mém. de la Soc. des Antiquaires de la Normandie, and Revue Archéologique, 1856-57; Abbé de Cochet, La Seine Inférieure, Paris, 1864; E. Dumont and A. Léger, Mist. de la ville de Harfleur, 1868.
HARIÁNÁ, or Hurreeanah, a tract of country in the Punjab, India, consisting of a level upland plain, inter- spersed with patches of sandy soil, and largely overgrown with brushwood. The Western Jumna Canal now fertilizes the grounds of a large number of its villages. Since the 14th century Hissar has been the local capital. During the troublous period which followed on the decline of the Mug- hal empire, Hariind formed the battlefield where the Mar- hattds, Bhattis, and Sikhs met to settle their territorial quarrels, The whole surrounding country was devastated by the famine of 1783. Since the conquest of the Punjab, Hariin4 has been broken up ito the districts of Hissdr, Rohtak, and Sirsa.
HÄRING, Wilhelm (1797–1871), German novelist, known as Wilibald Alexis, was born at Breslau, June 23, 1797. He attended the Werder gymnasium in Berlin, and served as a volunteer in the campaign of 1815. On his return he studied law for some time at the universities of Berlin and Breslau, but he soon gave up the legal pro- fession and devoted himself to literature. He made some attempt to add to his income by practical undertakings, but they were rarely successful. He was fond of travel, and happened to be in Italy with his wife during the Revolution of 1848, the progress of which he had an oppor- tunity of watching in Rome, Florence, and Naples. In 1852 he transferred his residence from Berlin to Arnstadt in Thuringia. Here he was laid low by paralysis of the brain, and after many years of suffering died on the 16th September 1871. Hiring began his literary career in 1823 with a historical romance, Walladmor, which was given out as the work of Sir Walter Scott.[1] It rapidly became popular, and was translated into several languages, includ- ing English. He next published Schloss Avalon, which he attributed tothe same author. Soon afterwards he issued a number of very successful short stories and several books of travel, and for a time he indicated a preference for the polemical tendencies of the school of Young Germany. In Cabanis, however, which appeared in 1832, he entered the special field of historical romance in which he was destined to achieve his highest fame. From 1840 onwards he pub- lished at short intervals a series of romances, each of which deals with some particular epoch in the history of Bran- denburg. Among them may be named Der Roland von Berlin (1840), Der falsche Waldemar (1842), Der Wer- wolf (1848), Juhe ist die erste Biirgerpflickt (1852), Tsegrimm (1854), and Dorothe (1856). These tales are not only full of patriotic feeling, but in all of them the interest is well-sustained and the characters are drawn with a bold and firm hand. His Gesammelte Werke have keen issued in Berlin in 20 volumes.
HARINGTON, Sir John (1561–1612), was the son of Mr John Harington, of Kelston, near Bath, who had been imprisoned in the Tower by Queen Mary for forwarding a letter to Elizabeth. Harington, born in 1561, was Elizabeth’s godson. He studied at Eton and at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.A., his tuter being Bishop Still, the famous author of Gammer Gurton’s Needle. He came up to London about 1583 and studied law, but Queen Elizabeth seems to have removed him to a place at court. Tradition relates that it was at her command that he undertook the translation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, a work that saw the light in 1591 and was reprinted in 1607 and 1634. Soon after this first date Harington retired to the family mansion at Kelston. In 1596 he published in succession The Metamorphosis of Ajax, An Apology, and Ulysses upon Ajax, the three forming collectively a very absurd and indecorous work of-a Pan- tagruelistic kind. In 1599 he served in Ireland under Essex, and was knighted on the field, to the annoyance, tt is said, of Elizabeth. He married a lady of title, who bore him eight children, and who survived until 1634. In 1608 he wrote a personal satire against the bishops, which he read to James J., but which was first published, by a Presbyterian printer, as late as 1653, under the title of A Brief View of the State of the Church. This is a somewhat scandalous production. In the spring of 1612, Harington was suffering heavily from the dropsy, and in December of that year he died. In 1613 his £)zyrams, which had circulated widely in MS., were printed in a collection of the verse of various writers entitled A/calzc, and separately in 1615. They became very popular, and were often reprinted. The misccllaneous writings of Harington existing in MS. in his family were first collected by the Rev. Henry Harington in 1779, in 2 volumes, under the title of Vuge Antique. The Vuge include some very elegant pieces of the poet’s father.
The translation of the Orlando Furioso was a very im- portant labour, and it was carried out with skill and per- severance. Harington, however, was neither a very exact scholar nor a very poetical translator, and he cannot be nained in the same breath with Fairfax. The Orlando Furioso was a sumptuous book, illustrated in the best taste of the day, and to it were appended a prose critique of the poem, and a life of Ariosto compiled by Harington from various Italian sources. Harington’s Tabelaisian pamphlets show that he was almost equally endowed with wit and indelicacy, while of his epigrams little can be said but that they are sometimes smart and always easy.
- ↑ One of the interlocutors in the jocular “Introduction” to Scott's Betrothed (1825) supposes Walladmor ‘‘to have been the work of Dousterswivel, by the help of the steam-engine.”
