he was the ancestor of the family of Henryson or Henderson of Fordell, in the county of Fife, one of whom, James Hdnrysjn, was king s advocate and justice-clerk in 1494. Of the poet s parentage and early history, however, no certain information can be discovered. From various circumstances known about him he must have been born about the year 1425. He seems to have been educated abroad, as his name does not appear in the registers of the university of St Andrews, the only one then existing in Scotland ; and from an allusion in one of his poems, his attention was probably given to the study of law. In 1462 his name appears in the list of members of the newly-founded university of Glasgow as "Magister Robertus Henrysone in artibus licentiatus et in decretis Bachalarius." Henryson seems, in addition to teaching, to have practised at Dunfermline as a notary public. His decease in or shortly before 1506 is alluded to by Dunbar, who, in his lament for the " makaris " or poets, says of Death—
| A table should appear at this position in the text. See Help:Table for formatting instructions. |
Of the writings of Henryson that have come down to the present time, his Testament of Crcsseid may be considered the chief. It was composed as a continuation or supplement to Chaucer s Troilus and Creseide, which was one of the most popular poems in the English language. Henryson resumes the story where Chaucer leaves off, and completes it by inflicting a suitable punishment on the false Creseide. This continuation displays so much skill that it has been included in all the early editions of Chaucer, as if it had been the work of that poet himself. Another poem, Robcne and Makijnc, though short, is remarkable as the first known specimen of pastoral poetry in the Scottish language, while his Bludy Scrk is amongst the oldest examples of ballad poetry. His metrical version of thirteen of the Fables of ^E sop is perhaps the best known of his works. To each fable is appended an application or moral. In these he alludes to the oppressions of tlie people and the unsettled state of the country during the feeble reign of James III. His classical Tale of Orpheus, though a languid performance, exhibits his familiarity with the scholastic learning of his time. Several of the poems of Henryson have been preserved in the Asloan MS. in the Auchinleck Library, the Bannatyne MS. in the Advocates Library, Edinburgh, the Maitland MS. in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge, and the Harleian MSS., British Museum. His Orpheus and Eury- dicc was printed at Edinburgh by Chepman & Myllar in 1508. The Testament of Crcsseid was printed at Edinburgh by Henry Charteris in 1593. The poem of Robene and Makync and the Tes tament of Cresseid were reprinted for the Bannatyne Club in 1824. The Moral Fables were printed at Edinburgh by Lekprevikin 1570, at London by R. Smith in 1577, and again at Edinburgh by Andrew Hart in 1621. This last edition was reprinted for the Maitland Club in 1832. A collected edition of the works of Henryson, leaving nothing to be desired, was printed at Edinburgh in 1865, under the editorial care of Dr David Laing.
HENSLOWE, Philip, a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose name continues of interest from his intimate association with the history of the theatre during the great dramatist s career. Originally, it would appear, a dyer and afterwards a starchmaker, and ready -to turn to any profit able speculation, he probably began his connexion with the stage in 1584 by becoming "joint lessee of the Rose theatre on the Bankside, or of the ground on which it stood." From 1591 to his death in 1616 he was in theatrical partnership with the more famous Edward Alleyn, who in 1592 married his step-daughter Joan Woodward. In 1613 he was appointed sergeant of the king s bear-garden, to take charge of a lion and certain other beasts presented by the duke of Savoy. Henslowe s business diary from 1593 to 1609 has happily been preserved in Alleyn s College at Dulwich, and, though evidently the work of an ignorant man, it is of prime importance for its miscellaneous store of items in regard to the first appearance of plays, the sums paid to the authors, the theatre receipts, and so on. It was edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1841 by J. Payne Collier, who, however, found that the MS. had suffered considerable mutilation at the hands of miscreant autograph hunters since the time when it was employed by its original discoverer Malone. See Alleyn.
HENZADA, a district in Pegu division, British Burmah, lying between 16 49 and 18 30 N. lat., and between 94" 51 and 96 7 E. long., with an area of 4047 square miles. It is bounded on the N. by the Prome district, on the E. by the Pegu Yomas, on the S. by Rangoon, Thonkhwa, and Bassein districts, and on the W. by the Arakan Yoma range. Henzada district stretches from north to south in one vast plain, forming the valley of the Irawadi, and is divided by that river into two nearly equal portions. This country is protected from inundation by immense embankments, so that almost the whole area is suitable for rice cultivation. The chief mountains are the Arakan and Pegu Yoma ranges. The greatest elevation of the Arakan Yomas in Henzada, attained in the latitude of Myau-oung, is 4003 feet above sea-level. Numerous torrents pour down from the two boundary ranges, and unite in the plains to form large streams, which fall into the chief rivers of the district, viz,, the Irawadi, Hlaing, and Bassein. The forests comprise almost every variety of timber found in Burmah.
The inhabitants of Henzada district in 1876 numbered 501,213. The number of immigrants into the district during the ten years ending 1876 was 90,797. The chief occupation of the people is agriculture. Nearly all the large towns are on the right bank of the Irawadi. The chief towns have populations as follows:— Henzada, 15,307; Kyan-kheng, 8761; Myan-oung, 5S59 ; and Meng-gyi, on the left bank of the Irawadi, 15,770. The staple crops of the district are rice, sesamum, cotton, and tobacco. The total area under cultivation in 1876 was 363,048 acres. The other products are cotton, indigo, oil -seeds, pease and pulses, cocoa and betel nuts, _pa?i-vine, &c. The revenue in 1876-77 was 132,733. In 1876 the police force consisted of 400 men.
The district was once a portion of the Talaing kingdom of Pegu, afterwards annexed to the Burmese empire in 1753, and has no history of its own. During the second Burmese war, after Prome had been seized, the Burmese on the right bank of the Irawadi crossed the river and offered resistance to the British, but were completely routed. Meanwhile, in Tharawadi, or the country cast of the Irawadi, and in the south of Henzada, much disorder was caused by a revolt, the leaders of which were, however, defeated by the British, and their gangs dispersed.
HEPATICA. See Liverwort.
HEPHÆSTION, son of Amyntor, a Macedonian of Pella, is celebrated as the friend of Alexander the Great. The two, according to Quintius Curtius (iii. 12), were com panions in childhood, but beyond this old-standing con nexion we find no evidence of such qualities in Hephaestion as deserved the passionate attachment of Alexander. The king, however, seems never to have been blind to his real character, and to have made a marked distinction between him, as the friend of his private life and his leisure hours, and such men as Craterus, whom he could entrust with important enterprises. We do not hear again of Hephaestion till 334 b.c., when he accompanied the king on his visit to Troy. Many tales are told of the close intimacy subsist ing between them ; for example, Plutarch says that, when a letter of very delicate and private nature from Olympias was handed to Alexander, Hephasstion according to his custom was reading it over his shoulder, when Alexander without uttering a word took his ring off his finger and pressed it on his friend s lips. In the later campaigns of Alexander in Bactria and India, we find Hephsestion charged with important commands. He was rewarded with a golden crown and the hand of Drypetis, the daughter of Darius and sister of Alexander s own wife Statira (324 b.c.). In the end of the same year he died very suddenly at Ecbatana. Alexander tried to relieve his grief by paying the most extravagant honours to his friend. A general mourning was ordered over Asia; at Babylon a funeral pile was erected at a cost of 10,000 talents ; and temples were erected to him as a hero.
