law; but after a year he relinquished that pursuit and resolved to devote himself to medicine. With this intention he came to Europe in 1833, and for two or three years was engaged in attendance upon the hospitals of Paris, and in other duties connected with the profession he had adopted. He then returned to America, and in 1836 took his M.D. degree at Cambridge. Two years later he was appointed professor of anatomy and physiology in Dartmouth college, but subsequently resigned his post, and in 1847 was elected to fill the vacant chair of anatomy in the medical department of Harvard university. Dr. Holmes has at different times sent to the press numerous works of a professional nature; it is as a poet and essayist, however, he is exclusively known in this country. His first appearance in print was made in 1830, in a publication conducted by the students of Harvard university. Since that time his contributions to poetical literature have been many, and several editions of his works have been published. Some of his longer poems were originally recited before literary and other societies of America. Many of our author's lyrics and minor poems are extremely popular on the other side of the Atlantic, and have found a large number of readers and admirers in this country. They are for the most part easy and graceful, always perspicuous, and sometimes highly picturesque. Dr. Holmes has been a frequent contributor of miscellaneous articles to the periodical publications of his country—to the North American Review, the Knickerbocker Magazine, the New England Magazine, and the Atlantic Monthly. It was to the last mentioned he contributed the well-known series of papers entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." "The Professor at the Breakfast Table, with the story of Iris," his most recent work, has been received with less favour than the "Autocrat," as well by the public as by professional critics. The first edition of his poems was published at Boston in 1836; the first English edition appeared in 1852.—T. P.
HOLMES, Robert, D.D., an eminent English theologian and critic, born in Hampshire in 1749, studied at Winchester school and Oxford. He was appointed professor of poetry in 1790, on the death of Warton, at Oxford. In 1777 he published a sermon on the resurrection; in 1778 "Alfred," an ode, and six sonnets; in 1782 Bampton lectures; in 1788 divinity tracts. He also published a Latin epistle respecting a collation of MSS. of the Septuagint, similar to that of Dr. Kennicott for the Hebrew bible. This great work occupied him many years, and his notes are now in the Bodleian. He died in 1805, before the completion of his edition, which was continued by Parsons, and finished in 1827, in 5 vols. folio.—B. H. C.
HOLROYD, John, Earl of Sheffield, the friend and executor of Edmund Gibbon, was born in 1741, and entered the army in 1760. At the peace he travelled on the continent, and made the acquaintance of Gibbon during the latter's second visit to Lausanne—an acquaintance which ripened into friendship. At home he became a farmer on a large scale at his estate of Sheffield Place in Sussex, but on the breaking out of the war of 1778, he deserted the ploughshare for the sword, and raised a regiment of light dragoons. In 1780 he was chosen member for Coventry, and distinguished himself in the repression of the Gordon riots of that year. At the close of the year he was raised to the Irish peerage as Lord Sheffield. For many years he was member for Bristol, and in that capacity opposed the abolition of the slave-trade. He was raised to the British peerage in 1798, and died in 1821. There is a memoir of him with a list of his writings, chiefly tracts on the political economy of commerce and agriculture, in the Annual Biography and Obituary for 1822. Appointed by Gibbon one of his executors, he published in 1796 the historian's "Miscellaneous Works, with Memoirs of his Life and Writings, illustrated from his letters, with occasional notes, and narrative."—(See Gibbon, Edmund.)—F. E.
HOLSTENIUS, Lucas, or more correctly, Lukas Holste, was a German scholar of great repute in the sixteenth century. He was born at Hamburg in 1596, and went to complete his education at Leyden in 1617, where he enjoyed the instructions of such men as Daniel Heinsius, J. Meursius, G. J. Vossius, and S. Scrivener, and the friendship of Grotius and others. His progress was rapid and extraordinary, but he failed in his endeavour to obtain a professorship at Hamburg; whereupon in 1622 he went over to England, and, after remaining there two years, proceeded to Paris, where he received an appointment as librarian, contracted an intimacy with Sirmond and other jesuits, and was by them persuaded to renounce protestantism, although some give a different account of the matter. He himself traces his conversion to the study of Plato's philosophy, by which he was led to the fathers. A recommendation to Cardinal Barberini was followed by his removal to Rome in 1627, and his appointment as the cardinal's librarian in 1636. Urban VIII. conferred on him several benefices in Germany, and made him a canon of the Vatican. He took an active part in the conversion of Frederic of Hesse-Darmstadt, and received the abjuration of Christina, queen of Sweden. Innocent X. made him librarian of the Vatican, and Alexander VII. received him into his intimacy, and made him a consultor of the Index. He took part in a number of important transactions, and in controversies with protestants and Jansenists. His death occurred at Rome in 1661. His writings very much consist of notes and commentaries upon the works of others, of Latin translations, and editions of ancient Greek authors, &c.—B. H. C.
HOLT, Sir John, Lord Chief-justice of the king's bench in the reign of William III. and of Anne, an eminent and upright judge, born at Thame in Oxfordshire on the 30th December, 1642, was the son of Sir Thomas Holt, a tory lawyer, sometime recorder of Abingdon. Educated at Abingdon school, he proceeded to Oxford as a gentleman-commoner of Oriel; and many traditions survive of his academic pranks and excesses. Called to the bar soon after he attained his majority, he became an altered man; and when his abilities, in due time, were discovered, he had his hands full of business. His sympathies were with the whigs, in spite of his father's toryism; and as counsel for Lord Russell, in 1683, he had a congenial duty to discharge. Elected recorder of London in 1686; appointed a king's sergeant and knighted in January, 1687, he disputed the dispensing power claimed by James II.; and for this and other acts of opposition to the arbitrary policy of the king, he was removed from the recordership. During the Revolution he acted as assessor to the peers after the flight of James; and participated in the proceedings resulting in the calling together of the convention parliament, in which he represented Beeralston. On the accession of William and Mary, he was designated by common accord lord chief-justice of the king's bench; and was appointed to that post, holding it until his death. From a purely legal point of view, Lord Chief-justice Holt is praised for the ability and skill with which he moulded the old system of law to meet the wants of a time in which commerce and manufactures were receiving a great expansion. In other respects, more generally appreciable, he inaugurated a new judicial era. His conduct of state trials was marked by a fairness and impartiality which astonished the accused, and which contrasted vividly and honourably with the preceding régime of such judges as Jeffries. On the other hand, no judge ever displayed a higher spirit or a more intrepid demeanour when the authority of his office was impugned. In the Aylesbury case he baffled the house of commons itself. For political reasons the house resolved to protect a returning officer of Aylesbury, who had refused to enter the votes of duly recorded burgesses. They sued for damages, and were committed to prison for breach of privilege; when the lord chief-justice held that they were entitled to their discharge after applying for writs of habeas corpus. Lord Campbell has thrown doubts both on the perfect correctness of Chief-justice Holt's law in this famous controversy, and on the authenticity of the defiant reply which tradition asserts him to have made to the Speaker, who in person summoned him to appear at the bar of the house; but as to the dignified courage which he displayed throughout the dispute there can be no question. He twice refused the great seal; the first time on the honourable plea that he had not the requisite knowledge of equity. On the accession of Queen Anne he was reappointed chief-justice of the king's bench; and died on the 5th of March, 1710, respected and regretted by men of all parties. There is an interesting sketch of him in Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief-justices, where he is called "the model on which in England the judicial character has been formed."—F. E.
HOLT, John, a miscellaneous writer of some note, was born in 1742 at Mottram in Cheshire. He was educated for the dissenting ministry, but afterwards attached himself to the Church of England, and in 1761 became schoolmaster and parish clerk of Walton, near Liverpool. A portion of his time was also given to agricultural studies, which, however, did not engross all his attention; for between the years 1786 and 1788 he published "Characters of the Kings and Queens of England," a work of
