Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/1048

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
HUT
990
HUT

of Würtemberg, which were very popular. Panting to see his fatherland freed from Romish domination, he joined a warlike league for that purpose. Von Sickingen the leader was defeated, and Hutten retired to Switzerland; but at Basle Erasmus shunned him, and at Zurich the council refused to protect him.—(See Erasmus.) Thence he crossed to the island of Ufnau in the lake of Zurich; and worn out with disease, and crushed with disappointments, he died 22nd August, 1523. Von Hutten had a principal share in the composition of the famous "Epistola Obscurorum Virorum," a satire of unequalled keenness, cleverness, and bitterness, against the opponents of Reuchlin. Hutten was an unselfish patriot, fonder of poetry and classics than of reformed theology; but as he was enthusiastically attached to the revival of letters, so he rightly believed that an ecclesiastic revolution must precede the open and successful cultivation of humanism, or classic and general literature, which the Romish church and the great universities had so long neglected and discouraged.—J. E.

HUTTER, Leonhard, who had the honour of being styled Lutherus Redivivus, was born in 1563 at Nellingen, near Ulm, where his father was a Lutheran pastor, and studied at the universities of Strasburg, Leipsic, Heidelberg, and Jena. In 1596 he was appointed professor of theology at Wittemberg, where he had for his colleagues Hunnius, Leyser, and Messner, all zealous and exclusive Lutherans like himself of the purest water, and where he continued to labour till his death in 1616. Of all the orthodox Lutherans he was the most orthodox. The exposition and defence of the doctrine of the Formula Concordiæ were the aim and business of his life. His principal work, "Compendium Locorum Theologicarum ex Scriptura Sancta et libro concordiæ collectum," 1610-18-24-29, was drawn up by order of Christian II., elector of Saxony, for use in schools and colleges, as a theological text-book in the place of Melancthon's celebrated Loci Communes, which had now lost its authority in the eyes of all zealous Lutherans. It was admirably adapted for such a use, and long kept its place in Saxony as a book of authority. Numerous commentaries were written upon it in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and a reprint of it was brought out by Professor Twexten of Berlin as late as 1855. The Loci Communes Theologici was an expansion of this work, brought out after his death by his colleagues at Wittemberg. His writings against Calvinism and Romanism were numerous, and marked by all the polemical violence of the age; but they have ceased to have any interest or value.—P. L.

HUTTON, Charles, an English mathematician, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on the 14th of August, 1737, and died in London on the 27th of January, 1823. He was of a Westmoreland family, and was the son of a colliery viewer or mining engineer. On the death of his father in 1755, he obtained employment as an usher of a school at Jesmond; the master of which having soon afterwards been appointed to a living in the church, resigned the school to Hutton. About 1760 he married, and returned to establish himself in Newcastle. His skill in mathematics and mechanics caused him to be consulted in 1771 as to the repairs of the bridge over the Tyne; and having been thus led to study thoroughly the principles of the construction of bridges and the theory of the arch, he wrote a treatise on that subject, which was published at Newcastle in 1772. In 1773 he was appointed to the professorship of mathematics at the military academy of Woolwich, which he held until his retirement in 1806. In 1774 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, of which he soon afterwards became secretary; and in 1779 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the university of Edinburgh. In 1775 he reduced the observations of Maskelyne on the deflection of the plumb-line by the attraction of the mountain Schehallien, and deduced from them the conclusion, that the mean density of the earth is about four and a half times that of water; a result somewhat below that which has been deduced from later experiments. He edited a new edition of Robins' work on gunnery, and made important additions to our knowledge of that subject by his own experiments on the explosive force of gunpowder. He was the author of many standard books of reference on mathematical subjects, and of a collection of mathematical tables, which continues to be one of the best in existence.—W. J. M. R.

HUTTON, James, M D., a celebrated geologist, mineralogist, and philosopher of the last century, author of the "Plutonic Theory of the Earth." Dr. Hutton was born in Edinburgh in 1726, and was educated at the high school there. He afterwards attended the humanity classes in the university, but as his father died when he was young, he was articled in 1743 to a writer of the signet. Instead, however, of copying papers and making himself acquainted with legal proceedings, he used to amuse his fellow clerks with experiments in chemistry, to which study he was early devoted. He was soon released from his apprenticeship by his master, who saw little prospect of his success as a writer; and he then turned his attention to medicine as a profession. He studied at the university of Edinburgh for three years, and then proceeded to Paris, where he remained for two years, and applied himself closely to anatomy and chemistry. He returned by way of Holland, and took out his degree at the university of Leyden in 1749. Upon his return home, seeing little prospect of succeeding in his profession, and being in correspondence with a friend of his own age and standing, who wished him to take a part in a manufacture of sal ammoniac, he abandoned medicine, and turned his attention to agriculture. For the purpose of studying this business practically, he went to Norfolk, and resided for some time there with a farmer Whilst there he made many excursions, and in his rambles was led to study mineralogy and geology. With the object of increasing his knowledge of agriculture, he paid a visit to Flanders, and travelled through Holland, Brabant, and Picardy, returning to Scotland in 1754. His father having left him a small property in Berwickshire, he now commenced agriculture on his own farm, and here he soon introduced those improved plans of husbandry, an attention to which has made that county long famed for its excellent farming. In 1768 he left Berwickshire and took up his permanent residence in Edinburgh, giving his undivided attention to scientific pursuits, and mixing with a galaxy of eminent men whose minds were congenial with his own. Geology became his ruling passion, though he did not neglect other branches of philosophic investigation. In 1777 he published his first work, a pamphlet on the "Nature, Quality, and Distinctions of Coal and Culm." About the same time he communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a sketch of a "Theory of the Earth," a subject which had occupied his attention for thirty years; as well as an essay entitled a "Theory of Rain." These two works led to a very great deal of discussion—the former being attacked by Kirwan of Dublin, and the latter by M. De Luc. He published after this several works on metaphysical subjects, which, however, are said to "abound in sceptical boldness and philosophic infidelity." His "Theory of the Earth," upon which his fame chiefly rests, was not published in extenso till the year 1795. His object in this work was to show that the greater number of the phenomena, which by Werner were supposed to be produced by the action of water, were, on the contrary, produced by the action of fire. He supposes the globe to have experienced such a degree of heat as to have been reduced to a state of igneous liquefaction, and that as the mass cooled, each mineral substance became crystallized, either regularly or in a more confused manner, according to the laws of affinities. In 1793 Hutton was attacked by a severe illness, from which he only partially recovered. In 1796 he had a recurrence of his attack, became gradually weaker and weaker, till at last he expired on the 26th of March, 1797.—W. B—d.

HUTTON, Matthew, an English prelate of some distinction, was born in Lancashire in 1546. He was educated at Trinity college, Cambridge, and obtained a fellowship. In 1567 he was made dean of York, and in 1589 was preferred to the see of Durham. A few years afterwards he was made archbishop of York. He died in 1605. Hutton published several tracts and occasional sermons, his principal work being "Explicatio de electione, predestinatione, ac reprobatione, cui præmittuntur Lambethani Articuli."—J. B. J.

HUTTON, William, the Birmingham bookseller, author of an interesting autobiography, was born at Derby on the 30th of September, 1722, the day after his father, originally a wool-comber, had been appointed constable of the town. At seven he was sent to toil in the silk-mill at Derby, an occupation which he exchanged at seventeen for apprenticeship to his uncle, a stocking-maker at Nottingham. Buying a few ragged books he bound them, and discovered that he had a talent for bookbinding. From bookbinding he rose to bookselling on a humble scale, opening a little shop in Southwell on market days, to attend which he trudged backwards and forwards from Notting-